Atheist experiences of religious apparitions

looksee

So, are there any atheists who have had experience of religious apparitions?

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

Guys, I've been defending Christianity on the assumption that God exists. I can hardly base it on the assumption that God doesn't exist!

It goes without saying that atheists don't believe in any gods.

I shouldn't really have to point this out.

With respect, maybe an atheist forum is not the best place to start a discussion that assumes as a prerequisite that God exists. You'll inevitably be met with derision, which is no more than you should expect.

kelly1

smacl wrote: »

With respect, maybe an atheist forum is not the best place to start a discussion that assumes as a prerequisite that God exists. You'll inevitably be met with derision, which is no more than you should expect.

I didn't start this discussion. Your premise is wrong.

recedite

looksee wrote: »

So, are there any atheists who have had experience of religious apparitions?

Not so far.

I have been to Medjugorje, but I only saw some fruit cakes and lots of small plastic statues.

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

I didn't start this discussion. Your premise is wrong.

But you did start this one with an opening line that described this forum as a den of vipers.

kelly1

smacl wrote: »

But you did start this one with an opening line that described this forum as a den of vipers.

With a smiley face, you might have noticed. Were you offended by that?

I made that comment because of previous experiences in A&A.

looksee

kelly1 wrote: »

I didn't start this discussion. Your premise is wrong.

As I recall you first headed off on an obscure discussion about finding religion as a result of going to Lourdes, but refused to tell us exactly what we were talking about. Then you went off at another angle trying to tell us that you had inside information on how god decided who would go to hell, or something to that effect. You have consistently refused to answer questions in any meaningful way, expected us to get involved in discussion based on your beliefs, and generally accused people of trolling and refusing to discuss on your terms. We cannot discuss spirituality on your terms, its like trying to have a serious discussion about the existence of unicorns.

If you can't or won't discuss in a manner that respects the ethos of this forum, then take your ideas elsewhere, but don't come popping in just to offer abusive and irrelevant bits of snippiness.

Zerbini Blewitt

Good discussion. Going back to my staunch catholic parents (one who has since returned to the corruption of the soil): between them they visited Medjugorge (never together) 7 – 8 times from the mid 1980’s to circa 1990, before the start of the Balkan wars.

I heard many improbable stories from their Bosnian adventures but without doubt the most symbolically weird was the story of one pilgrim, probably from Ireland but maybe not; who looked up into the sky and while the sun was ‘dancing around’ and throwing shapes, he/she saw a map of England in the sky (a momentus portent of ….Brexit possibly :eek:)

I’m assuming this observant pilgrim meant: the island of Britain rather than England and also that the person meant he/she saw clouds forming into this shape rather than an actual map in the sky.

But one can’t be sure when anecdotes are told late at night after too many cups of tea and there is an inclination to embellish one’s experience.

robindch

Deusexmachina wrote: »

I asked you the following:

'I dont think the Constitution still regards us all as pious Catholics - but please quote me the appropriate clause and I will stand corrected.'

You quoted me articles that were deleted in 1973.

Hotblack posted ~500 words of a reply to your question, but your response ignores around 450 words of that which backs up - in good detail - the claim that the Constitution of Ireland has a distinctly catholic air about it.

MickDoyle1979

Why don't severed limbs grow back?

robindch

MickDoyle1979 wrote: »

Why don't severed limbs grow back?

Biologically or religiously?

I think we all know the reason for that

robindch

looksee wrote: »

So, are there any atheists who have had experience of religious apparitions?

Is it in one of Sam Harris' books that the author points out that religious apparitions are distinctly, um, parochial?

To wit, apparitions of Mohammed or Mohammed-related iconography appears almost exclusively in places where islam is the dominant religion, and almost exclusively to muslims; Jesus + related imagery almost exclusively where christianity is the dominant religion; various elephant-related apparitions where hindu dominates; and so on.

Anyhow, there is one church in Rome which, so far as I remember, is dedicated now in some way, not to a catholic, but to a jew to famously walked in and was immediately struck, in some fashion, by the truth of catholic doctrine and converted on the spot. Would that do?

King Mob

Deusexmachina wrote: »

Here we go. I answer your questions, you ask me more questions, punching holes in my answers. I respond and then you hop in with more questions - joined by others.
It goes nowhere. I am not tryting to prove the existance of God.

I'll try a question. What existed before the Big Bang?

Dunno. There's a lot of options, but nothing is solidly confirmed yet. The question itself might not make sense as you ask it.
I have not seen anything to suggest that "God" is an accurate or good answer to that.

So do you believe torture is ever justified for any reason?
If so, kinda hard for Christians to claim to be good if their faith is based on the idea of some people just deserve torture.

If not, how then do you avoid the conflict if hell exists?

King Mob

MickDoyle1979 wrote: »

Why don't severed limbs grow back?

Apparently as has been explained earlier in the thread, it's because God doesn't want to be too obvious to preserve free will.

Healing otherwise impossible to heal illnesses is fine for some reason (Kelly1 refused to detail why or how it doesn't affect free will).
And he only does it in certain places for some reason.

Also he only does it in ways that cannot be proved and only in numbers less than the number of spontaneous remission in many diseases.

Basically God doesn't regrow limbs because he wants to look like he's not doing anything or doesn't exist...

gctest50

robindch wrote: »

..........

Anyhow, there is one church in Rome which, so far as I remember, is dedicated now in some way, not to a catholic, but to a jew to famously walked in and was immediately struck, in some fashion, by the truth of catholic doctrine and converted on the spot. Would that do?

Some wonky version of Stendhal Syndrome ?

Peregrinus

robindch wrote: »

Anyhow, there is one church in Rome which, so far as I remember, is dedicated now in some way, not to a catholic, but to a jew to famously walked in and was immediately struck, in some fashion, by the truth of catholic doctrine and converted on the spot. Would that do?

There's lots of churches in Rome dedicated to Jews who embraced Christianity - St Peter, St. Paul, etc.

I'm pretty sure there's no church dedicated to a Jew who converted when he walked into that church, if only because in order for him to walk into it the church must already exist, and would already have a dedication.

gctest50 wrote: »

Some wonky version of Stendhal Syndrome ?

One of the stories in Boccaccio's Decameron is The Jew Converted to Christianity by Going to Rome. Abraham is an honest and loyal merchant in Paris. His Christian friends are concerned that if he remains a Jew he will be consigned to perdition, and they beseech him to embrace Christianity, trying to persuade him that Christianity is superior to Judaism. Eventually their arguments and blandishments wear him down, and he says that he will go to Rome and, if he sees that the Pope and the Cardinals are exemplars of the virtues that his friends assure him that Christianity fosters, Christianity will be shown to be as good as they claim, and he will become a Christian.

His friends are dismayed, because they know that in Rome he will see nothing but greed, corruption, depravity, vice, extravagance and waste. But Abraham's mind is made up, and off he goes. This is Boccaccio, so we get several paragraphs detailing exactly the greed, depravity, etc that Abraham observes among the clergy of every rank in Rome.

A few weeks later, he's back in Paris, where his friends are astonished to discover that he has been baptised. Abraham explains that, despite the worst efforts of the church leadership and clergy, Christianity has not collapsed but on the contrary has continually increased, and this can only be accounted for by divine intervention and support, and therefore since Christianity is clearly established and sustained by God he has embraced it.

I don't think that's the kind of story that's going to be commemmorated in the dedication of a church, though.

Deusexmachina

robindch wrote: »

Hotblack posted ~500 words of a reply to your question, but your response ignores around 450 words of that which backs up - in good detail - the claim that the Constitution of Ireland has a distinctly catholic air about it.

Nope

GritBiscuit

kelly1 wrote:

Guys, I've been defending Christianity on the assumption that God exists. I can hardly base it on the assumption that God doesn't exist!

That equates to ; "Here atheists, let's assume I'm right about the primary position we are at odds over and look, all my arguments from there are easy peasy...I win, you're all wrong!"

You must see how preposterous a position that is to take, on this forum of all places?

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

Guys, I've been defending Christianity on the assumption that God exists. I can hardly base it on the assumption that God doesn't exist!

Your assumption isn't an "assumption". You will recall from a couple of weeks back that you "defined" that your god is the reason the universe exists.

So, is your definition an assumption after all?

Deusexmachina

So a woman has to ask her husband / partner / rapist(?) whether she can have bodily autonomy. Colour me unimpressed.



No. I wrote that the parents should decide. 'Bodily autonomy' (another new trendy term) surely applies to both parents? Two people create a child, not one.

smacl

Deusexmachina wrote: »

So a woman has to ask her husband / partner / rapist(?) whether she can have bodily autonomy. Colour me unimpressed.



No. I wrote that the parents should decide. 'Bodily autonomy' (another new trendy term) surely applies to both parents? Two people create a child, not one.

Parents is a word we use in relation to children, not embryos.

Deusexmachina

smacl wrote: »

Parents is a word we use in relation to children, not embryos.

Are there embryos without fathers?

looksee

Deusexmachina wrote: »

Are there embryos without fathers?

Gets popcorn...

Deusexmachina

Try as you might, you cannot entirely nullify the role of fathers in the creation of humans. Babies (or embryos) contain equal contributions of DNA from the mother and the father.
Wont stop you trying though.

1123heavy

Zerbini Blewitt wrote: »

What 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.

Moving statues? What exactly is the importance of statues?

This is one major thing I do not understand with the catholic faith. Have ye never read the Bible where the story of Abraham destroying the statues belonging to his father and the village people? The line was that statues are forbidden and banned, he literally smashed them all. Now I understand Abraham to be a major figure in Christianity as a whole, including Catholic teachings.

What would the man make of ye all waiting for a statue to move whilst one of the biggest teachings and lessons from him is that statues are an abonimal sin and should be destroyed (just like he did)?. I didn't read him say if you make statues of the virgin mary or of Jesus it would be OK ... he pretty much made a point that statues are forbidden according to Biblical law, yet we have devout catholics today chasing statues up and down the country to see if one would move.

The mind boggles. And I don't intend a thread drift, this just makes little sense everytime i see it.

kylith

Deusexmachina wrote: »

Try as you might, you cannot entirely nullify the role of fathers in the creation of humans. Babies (or embryos) contain equal contributions of DNA from the mother and the father.
Wont stop you trying though.

No, you cant deny that an embryo must have been fathered by someone, but only one person actually has to go through the pregnancy, and that it not the father.

While in an ideal world the decision to continue with a pregnancy would be discussed between the couple we do not live in an ideal world and, therefore, the deciding vote has to go to the person most affected by the decision.

kylith

1123heavy wrote: »

Moving statues? What exactly is the importance of statues?

This is one major thing I do not understand with the catholic faith. Have ye never read the Bible where the story of Abraham destroying the statues belonging to his father and the village people? The line was that statues are forbidden and banned, he literally smashed them all. Now I understand Abraham to be a major figure in Christianity as a whole, including Catholic teachings.

What would the man make of ye all waiting for a statue to move whilst one of the biggest teachings and lessons from him is that statues are an abonimal sin and should be destroyed (just like he did)?. I didn't read him say if you make statues of the virgin mary or of Jesus it would be OK ... he pretty much made a point that statues are forbidden according to Biblical law, yet we have devout catholics today chasing statues up and down the country to see if one would move.

The mind boggles. And I don't intend a thread drift, this just makes little sense everytime i see it.

Christmas trees are banned too, but that doesn't stop anyone.

Deusexmachina

kylith wrote: »

No, you cant deny that an embryo must have been fathered by someone, but only one person actually has to go through the pregnancy, and that it not the father.

While in an ideal world the decision to continue with a pregnancy would be discussed between the couple we do not live in an ideal world and, therefore, the deciding vote has to go to the person most affected by the decision.

A deciding vote if required when there is disagreement. No problem there. However, every effort should be made to reach agreement.
The father is not extraneous to this, I hope you agree.

Deusexmachina

I would also suggest the grounds for termination should never be trivial. If they are, then I think 'bodily integrity' or whatever it's called, must be challenged.

Deusexmachina

And as the proud Dad of two kids, let me tell you the father does go through the pregnancy!!!