[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

Jim Westrich westrich at nodimension.com
Thu Jun 2 13:59:06 PDT 2005


Quoting Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com>:


>> Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> writes:
>> Doesn't the Roman Catholic Church have a pretty
>> rigorous (whatever that means in this context)
>> miracle-hoax-debunking process? They're not morons.
>
> As I understand it, what they do is have physicians
> and scientists scrutinize an alleged miracle to see
> if there is a natural explanation for it. If no such
> explanation can be found, then depending on
> the Church's agenda, it may or may not then
> be declared a miracle.

This presumes that "the miracle" is a physical phenomenon. This is not always the case (and in the last century or so the less likely case). Many women have been canonized and beatified for simply taking a beating (like St. Augistine's mom), being otherwise abused, or even raped by a man. The "miracle" in those cases is simply that they do not lose faith in God (or in some cases their abuser). The most recent of these cases was only 15 years ago. A woman who was severely beaten several times by her husband stuck by him--ultimately he repented and stopped abusing her which was *HER* miracle. Saint Rita's miracle was stopping her sons from avenging the murder of her abusive husband.

Jim



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