If you happened to search Google for “The Miracle of Fatima” you will find as usual, an article on Wikipedia about it. Of course there are links to support sources, many of which refer us to sources we would have to call the debunkers. We are expected to believe that these persons have a little better grasp of science, logic, and reason than the rest of us. Since the debunkers all seem to rely on the same arguments, I chose just one to look at. That one is Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine.
If you are not familiar with the basic story, go here: https://lithiaflorida.com/the-miracle/
or Wikipedia.
As most of us know, this event occurred Oct. 13, 1917 and there were possibly 70,000 standing in the cova awaiting the predicted miracle. The crowd was likely composed mostly of believers ( this is supposed to doom the validity of the event from the git-go) and many who came to see a charade exposed. The national media as well as university people were there.
Early in his critique, Radford says “Not everyone reported the same thing; some present claimed they saw the sun dance around the heavens; others said the sun zoomed toward Earth in a zigzag motion that caused them to fear that it might collide with our planet (or, more likely, burn it up). Some people reported seeing brilliant colors spin out of the sun in a psychedelic, pinwheel pattern, and thousands of others present didn’t see anything unusual at all”.
An obvious question is how does he know that thousands saw nothing unusual at all? Did he interview them? Not likely since the event occurred a hundred years ago. The only person I’m aware of who interviewed witnesses in later years was John M Haffert , and he did this in 1959-60, interviewing and recording hundreds of witnesses. He does not report that thousands saw nothing. The truth is that how many people saw what, is something we may never know but the general consensus is that most saw the described miracle.
The statement by Radford that thousands saw nothing sows that little seed of doubt in the minds of readers as they move further into his critique.
The Radford article is here.
Next, Radford gets much bolder and says that we know for certain what did not happen: “The sun did not really dance in the sky. We know this because, of course, everyone on Earth is under the same sun, and if the closest dying star to us suddenly began doing celestial gymnastics a few billion other people would surely have reported it. It’s really not something that anyone else could have failed to notice”.
This is actually funny and I’m chuckling. He doesn’t get it. People who believe in God and a Creator who made the universe, realize that God does not have to worry about natural law. He made the law. If a God can make the sun dance in the sky, He can certainly handle any apparent adverse consequences of that action. A miracle, by definition, violates natural law.
Next, he suggests that what the crowd at Fatima may have seen was not the falling sun but Sundogs, while at the same time admitting that Sundogs are stationary. What he mentions here is the possibility of natural phenomena. Well, that dog won’t hunt for the simple reason that the Miracle of Fatima was predicted to the day and hour; unless, of course, we are talking about the coincidence of all time.
Toward the end of his discourse he uses the time-honored excuse for everything that cannot be explained by saying there is also strong evidence of a psychological explanation. It’s the old “it’s all in your mind” theory. He also trots out some of those well known expressions of psychology like “mass hysteria” and “mass hallucination”. These are simply phenomena which have been observed to occur, not hard axioms of science.
Radford is saying that 70,000 witnesses were mistaken (I wonder how that would work in a court of law?). It doesn’t matter anyway for the following reason: Dozens of witnesses reported seeing the event from distances of 20-30 miles away. They were not part of the crowd. This fact destroys the mass hallucination theory.
Among the distant witnesses was Albano Barros, a building contractor who was eight miles away from Fatima. He was 12 yrs old at the time. His recollection as told to John Haffert:
I thought it was the end of the world.”
whether I ran, or what I did.”
There were many witnesses like Barros, who saw the miracle from afar (and many were adults).
The Miracle should be one of the most significant events in the history of man. Sadly, man thinks he is too smart for this kind of stuff and moves on.
See you next time