Dear Atheists: If you have been asked to visit Medjugorje, please consider going!

Rising_Suns · Dec 31, 2010

To those who may not know, Medjugorje is a small village in Bosnia where the Mother of Jesus is said to have been appearing since 1981. The Catholic Church has not yet approved the apparitions, and some Catholics do not believe they are true. Nevertheless, thousands of conversions occur in Medjugorje every year, more than any other pilgrimage site in the world. Pope John Paul II was a firm believer in Medjugorje, and said it was the spiritual heart of the world.

The reason why I am posting this here, is because Medjugorje is really meant for atheists, not us Christians. The Blessed Mother of God desires your love more than anything else, and has continually asked us to pray and sacrifice ourselves out of love for you. Medjugorje is really for you. The mother of God has come down to earth for you.

This short testimony is only one example of what happens in Medjugorje every day; YouTube - maria vallejo-nagera conversion at medjugorje

Here is another video of a former atheist who was converted because of Medjugorje; YouTube - Father Don Calloway Testimony - Part 1 of 9

Another video of more testimonies; YouTube - Healing Miracles Book: Full of Grace

If you have a chance to visit Medjugorje, please do consider it. If someone you know has been asking you to come to Medjugorje, please go. You do not have to believe in God to go. Just think of it as a vacation, if nothing else, but try to be open. If you are a serious seeker, please consider this opportunity for God to touch your heart. Us Christians have much to learn about love, and together we can show the world that love triumphs over all obstacles.

Blessings,

Davide

chilehed · Jan 28, 2011

Rising Sun, you do a disservice to those on this forum by presenting the events at Medjugorje in this way. You say that the Church has not yet approved the apparitions, and neglect to mention that both of the Bishops insist that it's not a true apparition and that the Yugoslav Conference found no evidence that it is. You fail to observe that the alleged apparition has counseled disobedience the Bishop. You fail to mention the disobedience of the Bishop that has occurred and continues to occur. You fail to mention that the alleged seers are well known to have lied about the circumstances of their first meeting with the alleged apparition. And your assertion that JPII was a firm believer in the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje is not born out by the facts.

Those following this forum would be better advised to visit the site of an approved apparition, such as the one a Lourdes.

MattRose · Feb 1, 2011

chilehed said:
Rising Sun, you do a disservice to those on this forum by presenting the events at Medjugorje in this way. You say that the Church has not yet approved the apparitions, and neglect to mention that both of the Bishops insist that it's not a true apparition and that the Yugoslav Conference found no evidence that it is. You fail to observe that the alleged apparition has counseled disobedience the Bishop. You fail to mention the disobedience of the Bishop that has occurred and continues to occur. You fail to mention that the alleged seers are well known to have lied about the circumstances of their first meeting with the alleged apparition. And your assertion that JPII was a firm believer in the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje is not born out by the facts.

Those following this forum would be better advised to visit the site of an approved apparition, such as the one a Lourdes.

Is Lourdes the one where there is a pile of crutches and other braces that were left behind by people who claim they were healed after visiting?

chilehed · Feb 5, 2011

MattRose said:
Is Lourdes the one where there is a pile of crutches and other braces that were left behind by people who claim they were healed after visiting?

I've heard of that, and I think it's supposed to be Lourdes but I don't have any personal knowledge of it. But there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people claiming to have had miraculous healings at Lourdes. At least two of them have been confirmed.

MattRose · Feb 5, 2011

chilehed said:
I've heard of that, and I think it's supposed to be Lourdes but I don't have any personal knowledge of it. But there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people claiming to have had miraculous healings at Lourdes. At least two of them have been confirmed.

Since the 1860s, thousands of pilgrims have left their crutches and canes at the shrine. That was what I remembered reading. I suppose some people think they were healed and thus they no longer needed the crutches and things.

Fatally.Yours · Feb 5, 2011

MattRose said:
Is Lourdes the one where there is a pile of crutches and other braces that were left behind by people who claim they were healed after visiting?

Yep, that one's Lourdes. Personally I reckon it's just the placebo effect, but if it gets you off your crutches, then fantastic.

paul becke · Feb 5, 2011

"Yep, that one's Lourdes. Personally I reckon it's just the placebo effect, but if it gets you off your crutches, then fantastic."

Maybe, if you personally witnessed a miracle you wouldn't believe it. This was the case with the French author Emile Zola, who had said that he would believe miracles occurred at Lourdes, when he saw one with his own eyes. He did, but he didn't. There's always wriggle-room if a person wants it. That seems to be a deliberate divine policy, because Christianity is more about the heart - what we are attracted to - than the head (seat of the worldly intelligence).

Jack Traynor's Miracle at Lourdes

Miracles of Lourdes

It's a shame about the references to "conversion" of Protestants, as they have served as providential correctives to some of the negative "traditions of men" in our Church. But it was at a time when there was immense hostility between Protestants and Catholics, which lingers in parts of Scotland, as in Northern Ireland.

MattRose · Feb 6, 2011

paul becke said:
"Yep, that one's Lourdes. Personally I reckon it's just the placebo effect, but if it gets you off your crutches, then fantastic."

Maybe, if you personally witnessed a miracle you wouldn't believe it. This was the case with the French author Emile Zola, who had said that he would believe miracles occurred at Lourdes, when he saw one with his own eyes. He did, but he didn't. There's always wriggle-room if a person wants it. That seems to be a deliberate divine policy, because Christianity is more about the heart - what we are attracted to - than the head (seat of the worldly intelligence).

Jack Traynor's Miracle at Lourdes

Miracles of Lourdes

It's a shame about the references to "conversion" of Protestants, as they have served as providential correctives to some of the negative "traditions of men" in our Church. But it was at a time when there was immense hostility between Protestants and Catholics, which lingers in parts of Scotland, as in Northern Ireland.

I guess if they were boxes of glass eyes and prosthetic limbs right next to the crutches then we wouldn't be having this forum. Maybe God just hates amputees.

DomainRider · Feb 6, 2011

chilehed said:
... But there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people claiming to have had miraculous healings at Lourdes. At least two of them have been confirmed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Lourdes#The_Lourdes_Medical_Bureau :

To ensure claims of cures were examined properly and to protect the town from fraudulent claims of miracles, the Lourdes Medical Bureau (Bureau Medical) was established at the request of Pope Pius X. It is completely under medical and not ecclesiastical supervision. Approximately 7000 people have sought to have their case confirmed as a miracle, of which only 68 have been declared a scientifically inexplicable miracle by both the Bureau and the Catholic Church.
...
(despite receiving over eighty thousand pilgrims a year, less than 70 "declared miracles" have occurred) and ... all the declared miracles are for diseases that may have healed themselves anyway; nobody has reported the regrowing of a severed limb, for example.

Fraudulent claims? What Christian would do such a thing

The stats don't look convincing. In millions of visits you'd expect a few unusual cases.

BleedingHeart · Feb 6, 2011

DomainRider said:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Lourdes#The_Lourdes_Medical_Bureau :

Fraudulent claims? What Christian would do such a thing

The stats don't look convincing. In millions of visits you'd expect a few unusual cases.

Agreed. The thing is about most "miracles" (especially medical ones) these days is that they are just deviations from what usually happens.

chilehed · Feb 8, 2011

BleedingHeart said:
Agreed. The thing is about most "miracles" (especially medical ones) these days is that they are just deviations from what usually happens.

The Catholic Church is very careful about pronouncing something to be a miracle. Something that is merely a deviation from the norm doesn't make the cut - it must be something that is scientifically inexplicable.

An example might be someone in a coma, close to death from tubercular peritonitis, becoming completly cured in a half-hour in 1903. Another might be a man, who was rendered a paraplegic in a train accident in 1899, being cured as he was passed by a procession of the Blessed Sacrament as he was trying to get to Lourdes. Or else a soldier who was permanantly disabled and epileptic from a head wound in WW1 being completely cured immediately after praying at Lourdes.

DomainRider said:
The stats don't look convincing. In millions of visits you'd expect a few unusual cases.

I find it less convincing to utterly reject the idea that miracles happen on the grounds that they don't happen often.

MattRose · Feb 8, 2011

chilehed said:
The Catholic Church is very careful about pronouncing something to be a miracle. Something that is merely a deviation from the norm doesn't make the cut - it must be something that is scientifically inexplicable.

An example might be someone in a coma, close to death from tubercular peritonitis, becoming completly cured in a half-hour in 1903. Another might be a man, who was rendered a paraplegic in a train accident in 1899, being cured as he was passed by a procession of the Blessed Sacrament as he was trying to get to Lourdes. Or else a soldier who was permanantly disabled and epileptic from a head wound in WW1 being completely cured immediately after praying at Lourdes.

I find it less convincing to utterly reject the idea that miracles happen on the grounds that they don't happen often.

These 'miracles' are easily dismissed as nothing changed visibily. I think that's why it so easy to be skeptical about any of the 'miracles' that happen in the catholic church. Skeptics aren't always pessimists... they may just require more proof. Even Father Guido Sarduchi admitted that 3 of the miracles the catholic church recognizes are card tricks.

DomainRider · Feb 8, 2011

chilehed said:
I find it less convincing to utterly reject the idea that miracles happen on the grounds that they don't happen often.

I agree, that's why I said the stats weren't convincing, rather than utterly rejecting the idea - although the lack of cures for problems that may not have healed themselves anyway (e.g. amputations) does appear to constrain the Lourdes miracles to statistical chance. Currently inexplicable doesn't necessarily mean impossible - inexplicable recoveries & remissions also occur at this level of statistical significance in hospitals, without any significant religious context.

I wonder what the procedure would be for accredited miracles that are subsequently found to have a natural explanation...

chilehed · Feb 8, 2011

MattRose said:
These 'miracles' are easily dismissed as nothing changed visibily.

You haven't actually investigated any of them very closely, have you.

MattRose said:
Skeptics aren't always pessimists... they may just require more proof.

Often they require more than reason demands.

MattRose said:
Even Father Guido Sarduchi admitted that 3 of the miracles the catholic curch recognizes are card tricks.

You discredit yourself with such comments.

HarryCovert · Feb 8, 2011

chilehed said:
Rising Sun, you do a disservice to those on this forum by presenting the events at Medjugorje in this way. You say that the Church has not yet approved the apparitions, and neglect to mention that both of the Bishops insist that it's not a true apparition and that the Yugoslav Conference found no evidence that it is. You fail to observe that the alleged apparition has counseled disobedience the Bishop. You fail to mention the disobedience of the Bishop that has occurred and continues to occur. You fail to mention that the alleged seers are well known to have lied about the circumstances of their first meeting with the alleged apparition. And your assertion that JPII was a firm believer in the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje is not born out by the facts.

Those following this forum would be better advised to visit the site of an approved apparition, such as the one a Lourdes.

This is disconcerting given the fact that the apparitions at Medjugorje are taught as being approved in the RCIA class in our Parish.

chilehed · Feb 8, 2011

DomainRider said:
I agree, that's why I said the stats weren't convincing, rather than utterly rejecting the idea - although the lack of cures for problems that may not have healed themselves anyway (e.g. amputations) does appear to constrain the Lourdes miracles to statistical chance.

There's no lack of such cures. All it really takes is one to prove the point... and there's more than one.

DomainRider said:
Currently inexplicable doesn't necessarily mean impossible - inexplicable recoveries & remissions also occur at this level of statistical significance in hospitals, without any significant religious context.

Given your previous comment about cures approved by the Catholic Church, I submit that you also don't know enough about these cases to be able to judge the religious context.

DomainRider said:
I wonder what the procedure would be for accredited miracles that are subsequently found to have a natural explanation...

Until one has been identifed, it's a pointless question.

But I doubt that I can say anything that will lead you to make a close and impartial investigation of any of them. You seem to have your mind made up.

chilehed · Feb 8, 2011

HarryCovert said:
This is disconcerting given the fact that the apparitions at Medjugorje are taught as being approved in the RCIA class in our Parish.

It should be. They are most certainly NOT approved, and Catholic institutions are obligated to not act as if they are.

The website of the Diocese has an English language page summarisin the position of the Bishop. It's pretty damning.

DomainRider · Feb 8, 2011

chilehed said:
There's no lack of such cures. All it really takes is one to prove the point... and there's more than one.

Really? like an amputee whose limb grew back? Or have I mistaken your meaning?

Given your previous comment about cures approved by the Catholic Church, I submit that you also don't know enough about these cases to be able to judge the religious context.

The religious context we were talking about was a visit to Lourdes, wasn't it?

Until one has been identifed, it's a pointless question.

It could conceivably happen - I'd be surprised if the church authorities haven't prepared something.

But I doubt that I can say anything that will lead you to make a close and impartial investigation of any of them. You seem to have your mind made up.

My default position is sceptical, but I do like a mystery. I'd be interested if you have a link to a good source of information, I haven't found any detailed evidence on the Lourdes miracles. The majority occurred well before the refined investigation tools, techniques, & documentation of modern diagnostic medicine. Even recent ones are problematic. For example, the 67th, partially documented on the Lourdes web site, had divergent diagnoses and was initially declared as extraordinary, but inconclusive as a miracle in 1964, before finally being reassessed and passed in 2005. This kind of uncertainty, and the gap of 41 years before verification, naturally fosters some doubt.

MattRose · Feb 9, 2011

chilehed said:
Mattrose: Even Father Guido Sarduchi admitted that 3 of the miracles the catholic church recognizes are card tricks.

You discredit yourself with such comments.

No no, not at all. If I don't laugh at myself first, there are many others ready to do it for me.

MattRose · Feb 9, 2011

I'm with DomainRider on this (sorry DomanRider). What miracles have the catholic church recognized that involve something that we can visually prove, like a limb growing back?

Dear Atheists: If you have been asked to visit Medjugorje, please consider going!

'Christ's desolate heart is in need of comfort'

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