Marian Apparitions: A Sociological Perspective

seems a bit /x/ tbhwy

Am I gonna die in like 7 days now that I've seen that image?

That's blasphemy, user

user, if you don't believe in the supernatural--if you refuse to even entertain the possibility--you're out of your depth at once. You must at least be open to the idea. Be willing to be convinced.

I think taking it as a lie, or at least a total fabrication is a bit extreme. People, particularly younger people can have vision far more readily than most of us think. In the case of Fatima you had three children, only one who claimed they could see and hear, one who claimed she could see and another who claimed even less. So you probably also have some group psychology going on.

not him but sure you can be open to an idea, but even the church biases a natural explanation over a supernatural one. And even if the natural explanation is counter intuitive we should prefer it over talk of spirits

The Virgin Mary appeared to me in a dream when I was a kid (I'm male btw), and I had neither an understanding nor did I care about "socially progressive and secular fashoins underway".
Of course you'll dismiss my experience as "merely a dream and a product of your mind", but my point is you are clearly projecting your own wishes for what the apparitions should represent rather than looking at them objectively.
The purpose of the apparitions in Catholic doctrine is not to provide proof of God's existence, but to admonish those who believe not to lose faith. Trying to debunk them, for this reason, is pretty much useless, because if you only believe Catholicism is right just because of the apparitions you are not doing it right.

educate yourself
youtube.com/watch?v=IhabDczs0uE

>but even the church biases a natural explanation over a supernatural one.

That's why every dumb schmuck who sees Mary in his toast doesn't get his vision confirmed by the Church.

It should, therefore, mean something that certain visions and appearances--Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, Akita, and others--have in fact been confirmed by the Church, and declared "worthy of belief."

>posts some convoluted apologetics and still acts sanctimonious about it

Here's your (You)

>stating facts equals to "convoluted apologetics"
>stating facts means being sanctimonious

your rightful place is

Except the Church's standards for worthy of belief are a lot lower than mine.

Look up the term night terror and get back to me

Having a dream of a religious figure you already believe in in a dream isn't very impressive, unless you also believe in Jupiter because he used to appear to Romans.

Also why did Mary announce the war would end that day? It did not

The only fact you posted is the Catholic understanding of miracles, along with a smug dismissal of anyone who didn't take your alleged religious experiences seriously .

You have a reductive view of the supernatural. Have you considered trying on an expansive one?

You assume night terrors are to blame for nightly disturbances involving entities. Have you ever thought of flipping that around, and thinking that entities are responsible for night terrors?

>Church "investigation"

Which in most cases consists of solely interviewing the 'visionaries', and declaring it a miracle so long as the account(s) are generally consistent.

Please tell me how the Church investigated Lourdes? That's right, all they did was ask Bernadette to tell her story multiple times. No one besides Bernadette even saw anything. Same with Fatima: nobody besides Lucia even saw anything. The Church investigators merely asked the children to tell their stories. No investigation, no technical analyses, just picking up any case that doesn't sound completely crazy and whipping it up into a spectacle to reassert Church authority.

>Look up the term night terror and get back to me
ok I just did
kidshealth.org/en/parents/terrors.html
>"Unlike nightmares, which kids often remember, kids won't have any memory of a night terror the next day because they were in deep sleep when it happened — and there are no mental images to recall."
What do you have to say for yourself now, fedora-tipper?
>Having a dream of a religious figure you already believe in in a dream isn't very impressive, unless you also believe in Jupiter because he used to appear to Romans
Again, I didn't make the example to prove that apparitions are real. Your reading comprehension is lacking. I know that it wasn't just a dream because of the exceptional nature of what I saw, and especially how I saw it. When you recollect a dream, you know it's a dream. What I remember didn't have the same feature of any other dream I ever had, it was real. It's anecdotal evidence though, so you can have disbelief in it, I don't really care, and neither did I imply I cared in my first post itt

>Also why did Mary announce the war would end that day? It did not
She didn't announce the war wuold end that specific day, only that it would end.
I don't really care about convincing you of anything. There's no point in arguing with people who absolutely DON'T WANT to see.

You are projecting your own bias in the way you read my posts. My experience was supposed to show that you don't need certain "ideas" or "features" to have a tangible proof of the existence of God. I could also mention for example that there are plenty of males who were atheists (or from another religion) who got converted by a direct experience of the supernatural
youtube.com/watch?v=DfO0raZlMCQ
The only sanctimonious person here is someone who cannot accept the fact that others come to different conclusions than him with the same data, because "muh rationality is suprime and you are dumb".

Lucia's two siblings saw things, and everyone saw the Miracle of the Sun.

The miracle of Satan

When will you pagans realize none comes to the father but through the son.

honoring Jesus's mother doesn't mean rejecting him. If someone honored your mother, would you disown them?
It's useless to discuss with protestants about this because you'll never unterstand Mary for they way we see her, but rather for the way you want to believe that we see her.

First of all, they were cousins. Second, you're wrong. The boy claimed to be unable to see anything at first, and it was only later that he began saying he saw the lady. The younger girl claimed she could not often hear what the "Lady" was saying, and only Lucia could communicate with her.

It's obvious Lucia was manipulating these two into going along with the story. As for the "Sun Miracle", people didn't see anything supernatural - they literally stared at the sun and their eyes began to play tricks on them. You try staring at the sun, see if you don't see it "move". Besides, many people reporyed seeing absolutely nothing.

>people didn't see anything supernatural - they literally stared at the sun and their eyes began to play tricks on them. You try staring at the sun, see if you don't see it "move"
Look up the testimony of José Maria Proença de Almeida Garrett, who was a professor of natural sciences

Should I never be afraid of loving man too much because Jesus loved man more than I ever could?

> If someone honored your mother, would you disown them?
If I was king (of kings) and they were treating her like an empress dowager, yes.

Sorry I meant sleep paralysis

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I was raised Catholic and considered myself so for most of my life. I wont go into all of it but I had a few incredible experiences when I was still religious, most happened when I was very young or near/during sleep. it was through similar experiences that did not involve religion I realized they were figments of my mind and I could even influence what they said to me.

>"muh rationality is suprime and you are dumb".

dont recall saying that, nor do I want to be lectured on civil discourse by someone calling names and suggesting people who disagree with him get off the board

>Should I never be afraid of loving man too much because Jesus loved man more than I ever could?
Indeed, you should never be afraid to love someone as much as you can, man or woman. Your implication is that because you can love someone, then it is ok to buttfuck them. It's a non-sequitur. By your logic you shouldn't love your children otherwise you'll become an incestuous pedophile.
>If I was king (of kings) and they were treating her like an empress dowager, yes.
In the davidi kingdom the mother of the kind took the role of queen. Either way nobody is treating her like an "empress". We are treating her like Jesus's mother, which is, with the worth that is bestowed upon her by God in virtue of her role in birthing Jesus into the world. Period.

I don't see anything that could have been supernatural. Sounds like a combination of staring directly at the sun, the extremely emotionally charged atmospherr of the crowd, and attempting to conform to a group.

I have experienced sleep paralysis, we all have, and it was nothing like what I experienced. For instance when you wake up after sleep paralysis you can't move for some seconds, or you have trouble moving inside the dream. None of which happen. Also you wake up in a disorderly state of mind, which also didn't happen. I woke up feeling incredibly relaxed and without any bodily problem.
> wont go into all of it but I had a few incredible experiences when I was still religious
Like what? I cannot judge your experiences, maybe yours were a product of your mind. But if I am to accept that yours were a product of your mind because you say so, then you also have to accept that mine weren't because I say so. You can believe that my experiences were genuine without changing your mind on yours, they don't exclude each other. Regarding me, I never made a big deal out of it when I was a kid, I had no idea of the significance of it, and how unworthy of such a gift I was. Only growing up, and re-thinking about the experience I realised what it meant, and that a guide in my life was.

>dont recall saying that, nor do I want to be lectured on civil discourse by someone calling names and suggesting people who disagree with him get off the board
Sorry but I was the first one to be told to leave the board and accused of being sanctimonious. If being called a fedora-tipper is too much for you and pushes you to use it as some sort of moral argument to be even more sanctimonious (thus proving my point) I suggest growing up.

a professor of natural sciences in a University wasn't able to come up with that as an explanation for his experience, and even said he had never experienced something like that? Your interpretation doesn't seem very rational to me

People saw the sun dance at Medjugorje

So either you believe demons can also control the sun, or masses of believers staring at something results in these things

>because in a place with fake apparitions people try to claim legitimacy by ripping off a certified miracle, then that means the certified miracle resulting from an approve apparition is also fake
People didn't see the sun dance in Medjugorje. They only claimed to see it spinning on itself (big difference). Also it was always some small group of people claiming it, it was always without warning etc. etc. Apart from trying to rip-off the miracle of the sun, there's nothing that links the two events other than your desperate wish to prove that one is wrong by delegitimating the other.

By your logic I should think that Bieber can play the guitar as well as Steve Vai because both can play the guitar and say they are very good at playing the guitar.

This is the problem with people who DON'T WANT to see. They will see what isn't there, and disregard what is there, all for their proud wish to have their prejudice confirmed.

situations differ, once still in the end state of Sleep paralysis I got up from bed, still seeing things. Ive had calm conversions and panics from being attacked. The point is the brain can create all these things. I dont assert it being the product of my mind because I say so, but because there is overwhelming evidence the mind can create these types of hallucinations and they are not that unusual.

People constantly report sun miracles at any Marian events. Ive even seen account of it outside a religious context. You can choice to read it as a conscious attempt to rip it off, or you can give people some credit and say they are all honestly seeing something, bought on by faith an staring at a bright fixed object.

>This is the problem with people who DON'T WANT to see. They will see what isn't there, and disregard what is there, all for their proud wish to have their prejudice confirmed.

I know, I am trying to help you but alias your very set in your ways.

>situations differ, once still in the end state of Sleep paralysis I got up from bed, still seeing things
Again, I didn't see her after waking up. I saw her in the dream. When I woke up, I woke up as normally as I wake up everyday, and didn't experience any weird sensation or view or whatever after opening my eyes and regaining consciousness.

>The point is the brain can create all these things. I dont assert it being the product of my mind because I say so, but because there is overwhelming evidence the mind can create these types of hallucinations and they are not that unusual.
Sorry but that's not how it works. The mind can create hallucinations, but if you are not prone to hallucinations you can easily know what is an hallucination and what isn't. Again, I can't speak for your experience, but just because some experiences can be a product of the mind, that doesn't mean mine were. What I saw, I saw in a dream, but it wasn't like a dream. When I saw her I knew immediately that she wasn't part of the dream and that she was a foreign elements to the dream.

I think your mystifying a very vivid dream. There is absolutely no logical reason to conclude your experience is unique to you or to Christians. Pagans have dreams like this.

> but if you are not prone to hallucinations you can easily know what is an hallucination and what isn't.

doubtful. I suspect most ghosts are the result of people failing to do just this.

People who claim that, are not really faithful people. They are people who want to experience spirituality but that is always shunned by the Church, because it allows at best self-delusion, and at worst demonic apparitions.
Nobody claims that there aren't misguided people. The problem is that the miracle of the sun was a very unique event, that had characteristics never again repeated. A misguided person might try to appeal to the authority of that miracle which happened in the past, but they do so for themselves and nobody in the Church enables their delusion.
Basically you point to those people being deceived, and you claim that legitimate miracles were also works of deception, even though you have nothing to prove it but your own wishful thining and bogus social commentary that takes for granted your ability to mind-read people at the time and put words in their mouth. If that isn't being intellectually dishonest, I don't know what is.

>I know, I am trying to help you but alias your very set in your ways.
I guess I shouldn't call you sanctimonious when you write stuff like this right? Or I'll hurt your feelings. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

>I think your mystifying a very vivid dream.
proof? evidence? Sorry but you are in no position and have no data to judge my experience
>. There is absolutely no logical reason to conclude your experience is unique to you or to Christians
You know what there is no logical reason to conclude? That you can claim that it was my own delusion. You have no reason to believe that but your own bias. Just because you were an impressionable kid with a lot of fantasy doesn't mean that the every individual is like you.
>unique to you or to Christians. Pagans have dreams like this.
You are changing the subject. I didn't judge what other religious people believe. I testify for the truthfulness of apparitions recognised by the Church and the supernatural event I experienced.
>doubtful. I suspect most ghosts are the result of people failing to do just this.
Last I checked you don't know me, so you are no authority to say I am prone to hallucinations. I can assure you I am not, and I have actually always made fun of people after watching horror movies because they get sensitive and scared of any sound or object, but I remain objective and I'm not gullible.
I am a very pragmatic person in all aspects and I don't see ghosts or any other paranormal thing. I don't believe in aliens and I like science a lot actually. But I have to be objective and testify to the truth of what I experienced. Knowing that I cannot convince someone like you of it, which is fine. But don't try and claim moral and intellectual superiority just because you disregard something I saw as my own delusion. It's not your call to make and it doesn't make you right just because you want my experiences to conform to your personal beliefs.

Unlike you, I am not a Christian, and not above snide remarks to those who insult me, I think Ive been incredibly polite considering your holier than thou attitude.

Fatima is certainly the biggest sun miracle reported but hardly the only one, nor is it alone in the history of weird mass hallucinations. I will bias a psychological explanation for these weird events over a supernatural one, since at least in my mind there is compelling evidence that humans are incredibly vulnerable to their own minds.

You accuse me of not wanting it to be true, I could say the opposite of you, you clearly want it to be true. its a red herring, a distraction from the question at hand.

I am in a position because neither you or I are unique. Generally speaking our brains work largely the same way and our mental processes of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities hardwired into them.

No one deserves to have everything they say taken at face value, especially when talk of visions and messages of the divine enter into the picture. If I insisted I talked to some pagan god I would hope you would be equally critical of me.

>considering your holier than thou attitude.
pot calling the kettle black

>I will bias a psychological explanation for these weird events over a supernatural one, since at least in my mind there is compelling evidence that humans are incredibly vulnerable to their own minds.
You are free to do so, and to be wrong. You make again the fallacy of false equivalency. The miracle of the sun had particular characterisics I said, and you cannot assume all supernatural events into one basket as if by disproving one you have disproven them all.
The point is that because it is a miracolous event, by not being there you put yourself in as much legitimacy to claim its fakeness as those who claim it truthfulness now. You don't have the "intellectual and scientifical" superiority that you claim to have in your posts. If you were there at the time, expriencing the event, ok. But you weren't.
My point is it's ok if you don't believe in it, but you clearly speak of it as though your position is more rational just because you don't accept it's miraculous nature. Miracles are such exactly because they are exceptional events that unless experienced cannot be properly reconducted to a standard interpretation given to all other events.

>you clearly want it to be true
Wrong, you are projecting again.. I have already said that miracles are not necessary for having faith, and they certainly aren't for me. It is you who desperately want his explanation to be the "rational" one and the "correct" one, becaue it would delegitimize religion and enable your own beliefs, or rather disbelief.

>I am in a position because neither you or I are unique
not an argument. The fact that we are both human has nothing to do with us experiencing the same things. You can be human and never climb the everest, doesn't mean that another human didn't do it.
>Generally speaking our brains work largely the same way and our mental processes of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities hardwired into them
See above.
>No one deserves to have everything they say taken at face value, especially when talk of visions and messages of the divine enter into the picture
I am not saying that you should believe me just because I say so, only that you cannot disregard it and claim my experience was a product of my own imagination just because your personal beliefs don't allow you to entertain the idea of supernatural events or apparitions occurring. Is that so much to ask? Or does your arrogance not allow you to have even a little of intellectual modesty?

>weird mass hallucinations

Wouldn't it just be simpler to assume that mass hallucinations are supernatural events widely observed? Why do they have to be hallucinations? Maybe they really happened. This wouldn't necessarily defend a uniquely Christian view of them, of course.

>pot calling the kettle black

I dont think I am better than you, though you started our conversation by insulting me, I just think you are incredibly wrong.

>You are free to do so, and to be wrong. You make again the fallacy of false equivalency. The miracle of the sun had particular characterisics I said, and you cannot assume all supernatural events into one basket as if by disproving one you have disproved them all.

a compilations of miraculous claims or peculiar characteristics, does not in itself show that the event or miracle is not part of a a larger pattern. it is not logically incumbent on me to address every aspect of such an event because most of those characteristics are not provable or relevant to the central events.

I dont fault people for believing in such a seemingly miraculous thing, but I will not hesitate to lay out why I dont think it is miraculous or analyze the event from a secular perspective like in OP's post.

>Wrong, you are projecting again..

I think your continued presence in these threads shows you have a bone to pick with the secular perspective on this event, but even if you dont the issue is still a red herring.

>You can be human and never climb the everest, doesn't mean that another human didn't do it.

Irrelevant to my point. your confusing hardwired flaws with subjective experiences.

>only that you cannot disregard it and claim my experience was a product of my own imagination.

I cannot prove your subjective experience is anything from afar, but I can conjecture based on available knowledge. I can bias the seen over the unseen.

>intellectual modesty?

disagreeing with your world view isn't arrogance. Announcing I think you are wrong is not arrogance. I bias the seen over the unseen. I bias systematization of material evidence over tradition and personal experience. I am not calling you stupid for disagreeing with me, but I will argue that you are wrong

because there is some evidence humans are susceptible to seeing things are suggestion, and because we have no scientific verification of said supernatural elements.

So I weight hallucination in the one hand and spirit in the other and have decided hallucination is heavier

on suggestion*

>we have no scientific verification of said supernatural elements.

What about when people claim to have been healed at these events?

>though you started our conversation by insulting me
wrong, that what you did, you keep projecting
> does not in itself show that the event or miracle is not part of a a larger pattern
Neither does it show it is though. You think it is part of a larger pattern because your bias brings you to believe that. The point is, your wishful thinking is not a "fact".
>it is not logically incumbent on me to address every aspect of such an event because most of those characteristics are not provable or relevant to the central events.
But that's wrong. The truthfulness of the event is heavily reliant on its characteristics. By showing that you do not care about the details of the even, you show that you do not care about the event itself but only about what elements of it you can use to discredit it and legitimize your lack of beliefs, which in this case appears to be based on prejudice rather than evidence.
>I think your continued presence in these threads shows you have a bone to pick with the secular perspective on this event, but even if you dont the issue is still a red herring.
I am prompted to address your errors and your misinterpretations, especially when you address and quote me directly. I am not the one trying to claim that someone else's experiences are delusions just because he didn't have those same exact experiences himself.
>Irrelevant to my point. your confusing hardwired flaws with subjective experiences.
Not at all. You want more examples? Just because you haven't experienced true love in your life doesn't mean that true love doesn't exist. Also you misrepresent my argument. I'll reformulate: you might climb the Everest and find it a horrible experience, someone else will also do it and find it wonderful. Your experience doesn't negate his and doesn't prove that climbing the Everest is inherently bad. Just because you came to the conclusion that your supernatural events were self-delusion, doesn't mean mine were.

Well spontaneous remission or healing is not really proof of the divine or supernatural. We cannot explain it in all cases, but diseases sometimes go into remission on their own, and things doctors though would never heal sometimes do.

We cannot fall into the trap of saying, "I dont know how therefore God did it"

>wrong, that what you did, you keep projecting

You might note there is more than one person in this thread. my first comment to you wasyours to me was >either does it show it is though.

Not by itself, but I think others have made the case.

>but that's wrong. The truthfulness of the event is heavily reliant on its characteristics

true, what what those characteristics are determine their relevancy. I could claim my great grandmother saw the mirile thousands of miles away in America. My claim would not be relevant.

> I am not the one trying to claim that someone else's experiences are delusions just because he didn't have those same exact experiences himself.

You seem to think I mean it as an insult, I do not.

>I am prompted to address your errors and your misinterpretations,

prompted by what?

>all. You want more examples? Just because you haven't experienced true love in your life doesn't mean that true love doesn't exist. Also you misrepresent my argument. I'll reformulate: you might climb the Everest and find it a horrible experience, someone else will also do it and find it wonderful. Your experience doesn't negate his and doesn't prove that climbing the Everest is inherently bad. Just because you came to the conclusion that your supernatural events were self-delusion, doesn't mean mine were.

Again, that really has nothing to do with it.

To use an analogy every pc running a certain operating system has slightly different programs and files on it, but they all have the same basic operating system with the same basic flaws in its programing. If you do certain things the operating system will commit an error or crash.

My mistake this was my first comment to you

Not necessarily. From historical evidence and experimentation we know that, for example, eyewitness testimony is actually extremely unreliable but people tend to trust it. There is a pretty famous experiment where participants are asked to list all the objects they remember seeing in a photo or diagram quickly presented to them, and they tend to list objects one would "expect" to see but were not actually presented. (For example, a photo of a scene with a desk, a wheeled reclinable chair, a computer, white paper and pencils, etc might cause someone to "remember" seeing an object like a printer despite not actually being presented, because the context of "office" reconstructs an inaccurate memory upon recall). There are youtube videos you can use to test the effect for yourself, where when presented with a list of words you will "remember" terms not presented based on the context generated by all the others.

So what is actually simpler? That there exists this entire different world of the supernatural where none of the currently established rules apply, or that all the individuals reporting this supernatural experience were human?

>Not by itself, but I think others have made the case.
So what? Others have made the opposite case. Literally not an argument.
>You seem to think I mean it as an insult, I do not.
doesn't change the point
>prompted by what?
Already said it, by the fact you address me and quote me directly
>Again, that really has nothing to do with it.
It does. The point is, you think that any religious experience is a self-delusion, but just because you say so doesn't mean it's true. People can have hallucinations, but you have no proof that all religious experiences are hallucinations, or that them being inevitably hallucinations is "part of the operating system". It's just your bias speaking.

I want the Christcuck to leave.

>Personally, I believe the visions were born from the fantasies and imaginations of precocious children, which then happened to be seized upon by the Church in attempts to assert its relevance in a stage where it saw its power diminishing.

How Marxist of you. You do realize that reducing phenomena to a single entity like power, is literally monotheism too right?

No, obviously you don't.

You're on the wrong board, if you were expecting to be coddled about your cute but childish belief in an actual miracle.

...

Mare means ocean in Latin. Mary always wears a blue shawl. She is a symbol for the ocean.

The ocean is a symbol for oneness/god/totality/de-individuation/continuity/the womb/death/etc.

These are universal aspects of human existence. They manifest to people in unconscious, irrational imagery when they cannot be realised and integreated in rational consciousness.

That's my Jungian take on it anyway.

>So what is actually simpler? That there exists this entire different world of the supernatural where none of the currently established rules apply, or that all the individuals reporting this supernatural experience were human?

I think when you take a macro view of things, the former view is actually the simpler one.

Particularly since we're on a history board, and the intervention of the supernatural in history is something that I feel needs more attention. I think you can't have a proper study of history without some admission of extraordinary circumstances.

That isnt how Occam's razor would work because it involves a great series of assumptions.
For example: How would the immaterial even interact with the material? with Halluciations we already have a pretty clear picture of how that would work, with supernatural you have to start from scratch in terms of establishing causality and mechanisms which would allow it to work.

>So what? Others have made the opposite case. Literally not an argument.

I wasn't making an argument, I was pointing to other arguments which I think are better than the counter arguments

what promted you to enter this thread and other threads like it? is it not because you disagree with the premise and want people to know the other side?

>The point is, you think that any religious experience is a self-delusion, but just because you say so doesn't mean it's true.

That is what I believe but I never argued it was true because I say so.