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Atheist experiences of religious apparitions
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25-08-2017 8:38pm#1What are your memories of the epidemic of moving statues in the Summer of 1985 or similar experiences of any religious apparitions?
Btw, that summer was one of the most miserable, overcast, sunless, rain sodden summers of all time.
I did, in fact, set off for Ballinspittle, Co Cork one fateful Sunday afternoon as part of a family outing. The fevered excitement in the country at the time was palpaple. The whole thing was hilarious in my reminicing of it
– yet strangely compelling.
And even as a 16 year old (who was even then at what I now know to be a 6.9 on Dawkins 1 to 7 scale of atheism) this was, without doubt an exciting adventure. I was tickled pink anticipating my parents (who were staunch catholics) likely reaction.
And yes, I did see the statue in Ballinspittle move….tee hee!!! No, seriously.
To explain: We (a crowd of maybe 200-300) were all gazing intently at the statue for ages, probably hours from around 4pm. I saw precisely zero movement of the statue in that time interval.
I was listening to people around me (even including N. American tourists) who were convinced they were seeing various kinds of movement during the time I saw no movement.
The evening wore on. Time passed. The crows began returning home.
Then as dusk arrived, the adjacent public street light switched itself on…..and hey presto, the statue started moving :eek:
But it wasn’t gentle, graceful rhythmic, swaying that one would hope a religious apparition would be. Instead, it appeared to me to be insanely vibrating at say 500bpm – or like a ghostly image in very bad reception on now defunct analog TV broadcasting.
It was immediately obvious to me that what I was seeing was a trick of the street light at that time of dusk combined with the flaws in human eyesight (while excellent evolution – isn’t perfect). I did say this out loud to a family member (and those around who could hear me) but was ignored.
Ironically, at the end of the day no other of my staunch Catholic family members seemed to see the statue move (beyond vague, ambivalent comments).
A few weeks later we went to Manister, Co Limerick after reports of another moving statue in that village. There were big crowds there too that night but, as for the statue – alas, nothing moving for me (and no adjacent street light there either, hmmmm!).
So, have you any similar experience or insight from the Summer of 1985 or Knock, Fatima, Medjugorge etc.0
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Oh, you of little true faith!
Can't help you with moving statues, but this was the only true faith for me in the 80s
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Can't help you with moving statues, but this was the only true faith for me in the 80s
Decent song, but a terrible video. On-topic, I'd prefer this one
You could say faith isn't what it used to be. Jesus prophesied this:
Luke 18:8 - However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
This forum bears this out.
No, you believe that a book of dubious provenance which states that some guy called Jesus said such a thing is correct. You are just stating your belief as a fact with nothing other than a book (which is true because it says it's true) to back it up. Same old same old.Did it ever occur to you that you might, in general, be taking your skepticism a bit too far?
How is that possible? If something is provable then it's provable. If it's not, it's not.Is there any doubt in your mind that other minds exist, for example? How do you actually know other minds exist?
Yes there is and no I don't, but some working assumptions are essential for everyday life to function. I won't get far at work by rejecting my boss's demands and then questioning his existence with HR - or the existence of HR with HR...No, I can't. Think of what I have to do to convince myself beyond all reasonable doubt. I'd have to travel to Lourdes and have a meeting with the doctors who looked after the patients, and meet with those who claimed to be cured etc. And even then, I would have no absolute proof. I would have to make a judgement based on probability/plausibility.
From where I'm standing, you've chosen to believe something on the basis of essentially nothing. Which is fine as far as it goes, but if you start posting about it in this den of iniquity you can expect to be questioned on it.I've attempted to answer this already. If God did do that, and I'm sure he could since he created the universe, then it would be a miracle beyond any doubt, incontrovertible. But this would interfere with God's plan whereby he wants to love him, but doesn't force us. It would be like a lesser version of Jesus appearing in the sky.
Isn't a picture of Mary appearing on a wall just a lesser version of Jesus appearing in the sky? How is the former OK but not the latter? Why is it always Marian visions with catholics, anyway?
....
To answer the OP, my mother was a quite devout catholic but she had no time for funny statues or Medjugorje*.
Which is a bit ironic as she'd been on at least one pilgrimage to Lourdes before she got married, and only a few years before the statue stuff happened/didn't happen, she dragged the whole family off on a day trip to Knock, which was for me, about 10 years of age, one of my formative experiences in realising that the whole shebang was a sub-Wizard of Oz load of nonsense for gullible fools who required separation from their money.
* yes I had to look up the spelling
© 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd
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