This one was so sad I thought it was worth highlighting:

to be financially free, I would like the miracle spring water,

i need funds to be all my debts
i need funds to buy 100 homes for Beaver First Nations in the Peace Region

I need funds to pay for my sons traffic ticket fines and also I have 1 traffic ticket fine to be paid in full  in the name of Jesus

I need a financial break threw for myself and also for my son
we need housing for all of our family members
we need to be finances to pay for a lawyer to get our reserve land back, that our ancestors had signed for, the land has been taken over by other people, the influx started in the late 1980s  in the name of jesus we need to be finances, to be debt free and healthy in jesus’s name

Doesn’t that break your heart? They want some “miracle spring water” that some swindler must be selling to take away their financial debts. It makes me want to throttle those crooks who prey on human weakness and fear.

But we all know that if you really want a miracle, you have to turn to science.

Here’s a video of a formerly deaf baby hearing for the first time (or shortly thereafter):

It was done with a Cochlear implant:

A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear.

Have you ever observed a miracle — something that could only happen through supernatural intervention? Or have you ever observed something you thought was a miracle at the time, but not anymore?

The Shroud of Turin is back in the news, thanks to the Alien Autopsy Channel – erm, the Ice Road Trucker Channel – I mean, the History Channel. A team of 3d modeling and computer graphics experts led by Ray Downing have been working with images of the shroud to create a 3d image of the face that supposedly produced it.

[Shroud researched John] Jackson and others have posited that the image on the Shroud of Turin contains unique three-dimensional information in the form of shading variations that indicate how close the body was from the cloth. The tip of the nose, for instance, appears darker because it was near or touching the linen at the time the imprint was formed. As Ray explains it, “It is as if there is an instruction set inside a picture for building a sculpture.”

For some reason, the History Channel’s attempts to be sensational frequently get passed off as newsworthy. I first heard about this story on the evening news, and MSNBC science blogger Alan Boyle has a post about it. At least Boyle has the decency to give Joe Nickell the chance to play token skeptic:

“There are two approaches to this,” Nickell told me. “There’s ordinary science, and then there’s what I call shroud science. Ordinary science starts with evidence, and lets the evidence lead wherever it will. This is the approach used by a ‘CSI’ team. Shroud science is quite different, and it starts with the answer. They start by saying, ‘This is the shroud of our Lord,’ and then they take whatever steps they need to get to that answer.”

Nickell is skeptical … not only about the Shroud of Turin, but also about the prospects for settling the shroud debate to everyone’s satisfaction.

“Shroud science is backward from ordinary science,” he said. “It’s very discouraging to me that the media have been so willing to give it a pass.”

Here’s the thing I don’t understand about the Shroud. It depicts a man with shoulder length hair hanging down around his face. Having had extremely long hair in my time, I have to point out that if the man were lying down, the hair would not be framing his face.

For more than a week, Ria Ramkissoon watched passively as her one-year-old son wasted away, denied food and water because the older woman she lived with said it was God’s will.

Javon Thompson was possessed by an evil spirit, Ramkissoon was told, because he didn’t say “Amen” during a mealtime prayer. Javon didn’t talk much, given his age, but he had said “Amen” before, Ramkissoon testified in a US court in Baltimore.

On the day Javon died, Ramkissoon was told to “nurture him back to life”. She mashed up some carrots and tried to feed the boy, but he was no longer able to swallow. Ramkissoon put her hands on his chest to confirm that his heart had stopped beating.

Ramkissoon and several other people knelt down and prayed that he would rise from the dead. For weeks afterward, Ramkissoon spent much of her time in a room with her son’s emaciated body — talking to him, dancing, even giving him water. She thought she could bring him back.

Ramkissoon told the tale of her son’s excruciating death from the witness stand on Wednesday, at the trial of the woman she says told her not to feed the boy. Queen Antoinette was the leader of a small religious cult, according to police and prosecutors, and she faces murder charges alongside her daughter, Trevia Williams, and another follower, Marcus A. Cobbs. [...]

His body was hidden in a suitcase for more than a year and has since been buried. But even now, she maintains her faith in his resurrection.

“I still believe that my son is coming back,” Ramkissoon said. “I have no problem saying what really happened because I believe he’s coming back.

“Queen said God told her he would come back. I believe it. I choose to believe it,” she said. “Even now, despite everything, I choose to believe it for my reasons.”

Later, she acknowledged that her faith makes her sound crazy. “I don’t have a problem sounding crazy in court,” she said.

“Right leg, grow in Jesus name”… What a crock. Notice they never provide real medical evidence of any of this — no before/after x-rays.  And they never do things like this on anyone who has very uneven legs or are cripples. Because you can’t stretch and shift the body to compensate for what didn’t happen.

The most logical answer to why God won’t heal amputees is that either God doesn’t care or doesn’t exist. This would also explain the lack of miraculous healings for people with Lou Gehrig’s diseases, long-term quadriplegics, untreated AIDS patients and those with Parkinson’s disease, mental retardation, Down syndrome, and a host of other maladies.

Christian apologists offer different explanations to try to make sense of why bad things happen to good people. Among their explanations for why people who have lost limbs are never made whole by God (also detailed on the “Why Does God Hate Amputees?” website): healings for amputees aren’t part of God’s plan; the lord answers prayers by saying “No”; God needs to remain hidden, and regenerating a limb would display the Lord’s miraculous powers too openly; God has a special purpose for amputees—just the way they are; and God answers the prayers of amputees by having scientists develop artificial limbs.

These explanations remind me of my parents’ answers when I started to question whether Santa Claus was real. How does he get down our chimney when he’s so fat? He can squeeze himself down to fit. How can he deliver presents to every child in the whole entire world in one night? He moves faster than we can imagine. How big does his bag need to get to carry all the presents? It’s a magic, bottomless bag. How can he eat cookies and milk in so many homes? He just does. My parents’ valiant but ultimately weak explanations held off the truth for a year, but eventually, like all children, I had to face the truth.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 210-211

A “miracle” baby has brought a kind of mystical hope to people in Russia’s mostly Muslim southern fringe who are increasingly desperate in the face of Islamist violence.

From hunchbacked grandmas to schoolboys, hundreds of pilgrims lined up this week in blazing sunshine to get a glimpse of 9-month-old baby Ali Yakubov, on whose body they say verses from the Koran appear and fade every few days.

Pinkish in color and several centimeters high, the Koranic verse “Be thankful or grateful to Allah” was printed on the infant’s right leg in clearly legible Arabic script this week, religious leaders said. Visiting foreign journalists later saw a single letter after the rest had vanished….

Up to 2,000 pilgrims from Russia’s 20 million Muslim population come daily to see the docile, blue-eyed baby, whose pink brick house has become a shrine.

Holy crap. Two thousand people a day come to see this little paragon of foolery? I wish these people would use their brains.

Thomas Paine figured it out long ago: “Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course, but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is therefore at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”

Update: Here’s a picture. As other commenters mentioned, it looks like dermatographia or someone simply scratching the poor child:

Why is logic so much more superior to an emotional way of thinking? I was raised in Pentecostalism, and I always witnessed amazing miraculous acts – people getting “healed” right in front of me, speaking in tongues, and general “proof” as given by the Holy Spirit. What, is it all a big scam and lie? People I’ve known for years that I’ve known with diseases and cancer suddenly don’t have them any more for no reason? I mean, you can’t explain that. Am I a blimey ignorant fool for assuming that it’s God when there is no other explanation?

I think dismissing miracles, especially after you witness one in person or see the intimidating practice of Pentecostalism in action — is extremely ignorant. Also, one thing that really irritates me about agnostics is the demands of proof.

Why Trust Reason?

When it comes to finding truth, reason is superior over emotion because it works. It’s really as simple as that. Emotion can only tell you that you’re experiencing emotion — it cannot tell you anything about the cause of the experience, nor any truth claim behind it.

I once argued with a pair of Mormons on my doorstep. I thought I had thoroughly decimated their arguments, but they kept pleading with me to “just read the Book of Mormon” and it would tell me it was true. How would it do that? They said I would feel a burning in my heart, and that was evidence the book was really from God.

Bullshit. It could be indigestion. It could be anger. It could be I like the story — or hate it. But a “burning in my heart” does not mean their claim is true. It just means I had a burning sensation. You can see this easily by changing their claim: “If you feel a burning in your heart while you read Harry Potter, then it means God wrote the book and wants you to become a clown.” Doesn’t sound all that convincing now, does it?

Unfortunately, I used the same argument as an evangelical Christian. “The Bible is God’s Word,” I would tell people, “Just read it for yourself, God will testify with his Holy Spirit that it is indeed inspired by God. You’ll feel it in your heart and God will bring you to himself. Please, dear sinner, read this book!” Some people would read it and shrug their shoulders. But others would read it and have a life-changing experience. But Mormons have similar experiences. So do Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and others.

Experience Is Valid, But It’s Not Proof

Whose experience is valid? All of them, of course! Experiences are experiences and all people have them. But just because someone has an experience does not mean all their religious claims are true, it only means they had experiences, just like everyone else.

If we trust in experience, we are doomed to subjectivity. Yet there is no other way to test religious claims, since they can never produce real evidence for their claims.

All religions play on emotions like fear, guilt, love and acceptance. Without emotion, they are doomed, because they do not have sufficient evidence to convince skeptics. That is why you rarely hear of someone converted because of the overwhelming evidence for Jesus’ resurrection — no, they start out saying that they were at a low point, and they met a Christian who told them about the love of Jesus who can save them from their guilt and give them a new life, or they started going to church and becoming part of the community.

Emotion, not reason. If the person had started asking questions about how they knew this Jesus existed and what exactly he said, it is very unlikely they would have continued down the path to faith.

Miracles Would Be Proof

Jennifer says that it is “ignorant” to dismiss miracles. And if there were real miracles, I would agree — why would someone dismiss amazing things that really happened? But no one has been able produce a real miracle. Thousands of miracles have been disproven or shown to be lies, and not one has been shown to be anything amazing. People can only say that “a friend” saw something, or point to an ancient book that says a miracle happened. No proof but hearsay.

The healing “miracles” that happen in churches are always subjective or things that can go away on their own. You never see amputee’s limbs growing back. If we did, we’d all believe in miracles — who wouldn’t want to believe in them?

What do you think — should we trust reason over emotion?

It’s sad that people fall for that — they think God is telling him things when he’s just using the same old tricks that have been used by frauds and magicians for centuries.

And yet, he survived.

A couple hundred years ago he would have been dead — doctors would not have been able to perform the surgery nor could they have fought the infection he had. Thanks to modern medicine, he had a chance to survive.

The Woo Begins

But that’s not how area Catholics see it. Chase’s mother said:

“Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf. It was absolutely a miracle.”

Did you catch that? Because some people prayed to a dead priest, Chase survived.

In fact the church is so serious about this being a miracle that they are officially “investigating” it:

Prompted in part by what the Kear family has said publicly, and partly by a preliminary investigation begun by the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, a Vatican investigator named Andrea Ambrosi will arrive from Italy in Wichita on Friday….

Ambrosi, a lawyer by training, is coming here to thoroughly “and skeptically” investigate whether Chase’s story is a miracle, said the Rev. John Hotze, the judicial vicar for the Wichita diocese. The church requires miracles to elevate a person to sainthood.

I can’t wait to see his “skeptical” report. Somehow, I think we have different definitions of what that means.

Is It a Miracle?

The entire idea of this being a miracle is ridiculous. No matter how you look at it, Chase survived only because he lived in a time when there was modern medicine. He was rushed to a hospital on a helicopter — without that, he likely would have died before a doctor could have reached him. He had surgery and part of his skull removed. He was given antibiotics and other medicines.

A miracle is when the impossible happens — it’s something supernatural. A miracle is not when doctors save a man’s life — that’s science.

A miracle is when a man with his head cut off comes to life after a week of being dead. It’s when a leg grows back in a few seconds. But, of course, those sorts of things don’t really happen. They’re impossible.

So we’re left with two options. We can believe Chase survived based on the prayers of some Catholics to a dead priest. Or we can believe he survived because he lived in a time with modern medicine and was close enough to get to skilled doctors before he was dead.

No one is stubborn enough to believe only the first option — they must give at least some credit to those who saved Chase’s life.

But if they do that, then there’s no way of knowing how much the prayer helped, if it helped at all. We all know doctors and medicine save lives. Nobody knows if prayer helps anything.

Not a Miracle, But That’s Okay

There’s no reason to think this is a miracle, except in the sense of it being amazing and unlikely. But there is no evidence of any involvement of a deity, or some magical powers in mumbling words.

There is only evidence of humans helping their fellow humans. Not a miracle, but good enough for me.

Empire of Miracles

He healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, and said, Behold, I am coming quickly!

Jesus Christ?

Not this time. The Lord’s good buddy Oral Roberts, of course.

The Oklahoma-born Charismatic faith-healer Roberts had queues of thousands of sick waiting for his healing touch. He also raised people from the dead. Hundreds of them.

He received his commission from the Lord directly — Jesus appeared to him countless times in person. Oral dropped out of Bible College to travel America in the ‘40s, setting up folding chairs under giant circus tents for revival.

And a circus it was. There was weeping and shouting and a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, as demons and diseases departed from the masses. “I personally laid hands on more than 1.5 million individuals who had all manner of sickness and disease,” wrote Roberts in When You See the Invisible, You Can Do the Impossible.

“I also engaged the demon spirits in tens of thousands, calling to them, ‘come out you foul tormenting spirits of Satan’…. people saw healing for the first time since the days when Jesus and his disciples publicly healed the sick…”

“All of us in the ministry could talk … of certain dead ones being raised,” the big O told 5,000 at a conference in 1987. His son Richard said that same year, “dozens and dozens of documented instances of people who have been raised from the dead.”

Baby, We Can Talk All Night

Pullquote: Oral said God would kill him if the sum fell short of $8 million.

Add to those marvels his gift of prophecy — but perhaps the greatest blessing of the Holy Spirit was giving Oral his name. Tremendous oratory skills granted him a different kind of power than other brilliant speakers like Hitler.

That power included bilking the public for country clubs, Beverly Hills properties, vacations via private jet, fancy cars, horses… his school has faced dire financial problems, but the Roberts families have not — his daughter-in-law once spent $39,000 in one clothing store!  (Allegedly, Oral now maintains a humble salary in his old age.)

Once, Oral told his public that God asked him for $8 million. Oral said God would kill him if the sum fell short. The prophecy came true, of course — Roberts made over 9 million and did not die.

Not long after Roberts learned that God wanted him to be rich, he also had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Christ telling him to build a City of Faith, a medical center/prayer/faith healing school, to add to the university he’d previously prophesied and built. His own personal Jesus may have loomed large, promising a cure for cancer, but the medical center shut down quickly. No cure in sight so far.

The university with the giant praying hands towering into the sky goes on, though it’s riddled with the usual money-funneling scandals. There were bizarre allegations against Roberts’ son’s wife for wee-hour conversations with teenage boys — and cell phone bills of $800 per month.

Tragedy, not Triumph

Pullquote: “I’m coming back … and I’m going to get my rightful place. I’m going to rule and I’m going to reign … when I get back from the other side.”
Oral Roberts

Further woes included the death of son Ronald in 1982, found shot in his van. It was rather uncertainly ruled a suicide and swept under the rug. Ron was an openly gay antiques dealer, says the LGBT community, including MCC, the “gay” church. The Roberts’ deny this. His suicide was blamed on army trauma from Vietnam.

Sadly, Oral’s daughter Rebecca died in a plane crash with her husband. A grandchild also died just after birth.

As of this writing, none of these have been raised from the dead.

The “documented proofs” of Roberts’ healing touch vanish under scrutiny. Many who appeared on his shows with testimony of cures died hours or days later, but these unimportant details were never aired. It has been said that a little hope never hurt anyone, but I beg to differ. I also vote we start charging these con men with murder, because thousands of hopeful believers turn from treatments that could help them.

If there are any doubts of Oral’s intentions, one need only listen to his own prophecies of returning with Christ in the clouds. “I’m coming back … and I’m going to get my rightful place. I’m going to rule and I’m going to reign … when I get back from the other side.”

All that said, Oral is distinguishable from most other televangelists. He was, as far as I can tell, never caught with his pants down.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.

Unlike most people of “faith,” she says she has actual evidence for a miracle. That’s quite a claim — let’s see what she’s got.

An Unreasonable Story

She starts off telling the story of The Miracle of Lanciano, where a doubting Basilian monk in 700 CE turned the bread & wine into real flesh and blood during a mass.

That’s interesting and all… but this story is from an anonymous source in the 17th century — almost 1,000 years after the alleged event was said to happen.

In other words, it’s yet another fantastical story with no evidence.

Things aren’t looking reasonable so far.

A Reportedly Rigorous Investigation by an Allegedly Eminent Scientist

What else does she have?

Various ecclesiastical investigation [sic] (“Recognitions”) were conducted since 1574. Then, with permission from Rome in 1970-’71 and taken up again partly in 1981 there took place a scientific investigation by the “most illustrious scientist” Prof. Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and assisted by Prof. Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena.

Dr. Linoli, an alleged cynic in regards to the Miracle, reportedly sent a telegram to the Franciscan Friars who tend the church where the Miracle had been kept in 1970, reiterating the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made Flesh.” But, Dr. Linoli quickly became convinced that the mystery before him was of a miraculous nature.

I’ve bolded two words in that second paragraph that stick out like a sore thumb. Allegedly? I thought we were talking about evidence strong enough to convince atheists?

But when it comes to miracles, I’ve found it always boils down to “allegedly.”

By the way, who is this “most illustrious scientist Prof. Odoardo Linoli”? I can’t find anything about him on Google, other than Catholics raving about this study. What exactly has he contributed to science to make him a “most illustrious scientist”? It seems like they’re building up an argument from authority, but this person certainly doesn’t seem eminent in his field — no one has even heard of him.

I also find it suspicious that it was under “various ecclesiastical investigations” from 1574 – 1970. What exactly did they do? How can we be sure no one tampered with the evidence — if there was any to begin with? With how corrupt things were back then, it would surprise me if someone didn’t!

How do we know what the scientists were studying had anything to do with this alleged miracle?

The Shocking Evidence!

The evidence seems to be the conclusion of this study. Here is how Dyan summarizes it:

The analyses on the samples extracted from the miraculous host were conducted with absolute and unquestionable scientific precision and they were documented with a series of microscopic photographs…

• The Flesh is real flesh and the Blood is real blood.
• Both the Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species….
• The preservation of the Flesh and the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.
• [etc]

So the tests claim there is real flesh and blood in a Catholic museum. I can do tests and show you something is real flesh and blood, too. Does that mean you’d believe me if I said it came from a twinkie and orange juice?

That is, just because they have flesh and blood locked up somewhere doesn’t mean it was magically transformed by a doubting priest in 700 CE from a cracker and wine.

When someone claims something is done with “absolute and unquestionable scientific precision” I wonder if they are operating in the same universe as me. Can anything be done with “absolute and unquestionable scientific precision,” especially a study regarding an alleged miracle? It makes me suspicious.

WHO Cares?

Another claim is that the World Health Organization did a 15-month scientific study confirming this miracle:

In 1973, the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed its own scientific commission to scrutinize Dr. Linoli’s findings. During a 15-month period, over 500 tests were conducted, all of which supported the conclusions listed above. WHO’s scientific research was published in New York and Geneva in 1976, confirming “science’s failure to explain the Miracle.”

Bu can anyone confirm this? I can’t find anything official about it, and I doubt the WHO would say “science’s failure to explain the Miracle” — only a Catholic would write like that (can you really imagine WHO saying the Miracle, like a fawning monk?).

In looking this up, I found numerous articles that are almost identical to Dyan’s article, but with small details changed — it’s like chasing down the source of an email forward. For instance:

In the extract summarizing the scientific investigations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN), published in December of 1976 in New York and Geneva, it was declared that “science, aware of its limitations, is forced to admit the impossibility of giving an explanation.” (source)

That sounds more plausible, but if that quote is correct (which is different from Dyan’s), I wonder what the context was. What is the source of their quote and where can we see it?

“Will Atheists Accept This Science?”

So when Dyan asks, “Will Atheists accept this science?” the answer is yes and no.

Yes, I can preliminarily accept that what was studied was flesh and blood (though of course more studies must be done and this study should be critically examined for bias and rigor — if anyone can find the original study).

But no, the evidence does not lead me to accept something magical happened, and I don’t know why anyone would find it convincing, unless they already believed in the first place.

Is Anyone Convinced?

As much as I would love to believe miracles happen, this isn’t compelling evidence.

As Thomas Paine said, is this more likely to be truth, or a lie? These sort of stories are rampant throughout history, throughout all religions. I see no reason to accept any of them, this one included.

What about you? Does this sway any of you atheists?

What about our Protestant readers? Has this convinced you of transubstantiation?

(Also, if you’re a wikipedia contributor, please consider making The Miracle of Lanciano more neutral.)

Update 5/30: Dyan has completely changed her post, without annotation, removing all her previous claims about the eucharist miracle. It is now an evangelistic tract about why “God hides,” which is the opposite of her point before (that God was revealed through scientifically studying this miracle). She hasn’t admitted to being wrong or her claims not standing up to scrutiny. Typical slimy Christian tactics!

This is what World found out about some of his so-called “healings”:

At the height of what many called a revival, WORLD asked Bentley to talk about the healings, like Fogle’s, and asked for a list of people who had been healed at the services. His associates told me Bentley was out of the country and a list could not be produced. But six weeks and more than a dozen requests later, the ministry eventually sent a list of 13 names. Fogle was No. 12 on the list, along with this note: “Healed through the Outpouring and is back to fishing.”

That was on Aug. 8, 2008. There was just one problem. Two weeks earlier, on July 22, Christopher A. Fogle—according to his obituary in the Keokuk (Iowa) Daily Gate City, “left this life . . . after a courageous battle with cancer.”

A review of the list nearly one year later reveals that Fogle is not the only person “healed” who is now dead. When I called Phyllis Mills, of Trinity, N.C., on April 22, to hear the testimony of her healing, a polite family member said, “Phyllis passed away a few days ago. In fact, we’re on our way to her funeral now.”

Mills, 66 at the time of her death, had lung cancer and was undergoing aggressive treatments when she was, according to the list, “healed at the revival.” Mills “was taking radiation, but was sent home according to notes on Bentley’s list, with “no trace of cancer in her body.”

I feel like Todd could be held responsible for some of these deaths. Through fraud, he convinced people they were healed and then asked them for money. Blinded by hope and faith, they believed him and generously gave.

If they were healed, why should they continue treatment? Why should they continue taking medications?

So they stopped.

And they died.

And Todd Bentley made a hell of a lot of money, committed adultery, then found a new wife — laughing all the way.

(via; see also The Rise and Fall of Todd Bentley)

The Virgin Mary has been discovered on a griddle in a Las Palmas restaurant and has been attracting worshippers. This is the caption for the above photo:

Lucha Libre wrestlers Renegado and Mr. Tempest look at an image of the Virgin Mary said to have appeared on a griddle at Las Palmas restaurant in Calexico. “I follow Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Mr. Tempest said after the viewing. “This is amazing. It’s a true miracle.”

There’s nothing like the absurdity of wrestlers worshipping a dirty cooking griddle.

(Photo: Todd Krainin)