Tests for a Miracle Witness
A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It
is paranormal.
Miracles are events that seem to be against nature or the way natural law
usually runs. In other words, they cannot be explained by nature. Examples are
the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing to children, the unexplained cure of incurable
illness, blood coming out of nowhere on Catholic communion wafers, the sun
spinning at Fatima in Portugal in 1917 and most importantly Jesus' supernatural
return from the dead.
A witness to a miracle is one subject. Those who endorse the testimony make up another subject. A miracle need not be very obvious but in all cases you know it from the effects.
The Berkshire Flying Saucer and alien abduction sightings and experiences took place in 1969. There were plenty of good witnesses. But yet when this was said to have been happening and there was a stir, nobody in the police had an inking. No papers carried the stories. The radio station said there were reports but the tapes, not surprisingly, are missing. If the stories are lies and self-deception and based on the Mandela effect that is important. [The Mandela effect is collective misremembering. You know it has taken place when people are reporting an event that could not have happened or happened in the way they said.] The stories did not appear decades later as with the gospels. It shows that remarkable coincidences can be almost miraculous but they are not miracles. They could be seen as miracles but we know we don’t need to go that far. All of that passes as a better “miracle” testimony - as in testimony that could pass for a wonder itself - than that for Jesus having risen.
It seems miraculous how so many thousands served and risked death for the shameless charlatan Joseph Smith Junior the founder of the Mormon Church. Christianity argues that it would be a miracle if the apostles of the risen Jesus were lying for they suffered and died for testifying. Even if you agree that they did sacrifice all for it - a debatable proposition - they are clearly trying to use a miracle to argue for a miracle. They are clearly reading a miracle of conviction and honesty into the situation. If science could agree with believing in miracles it would not agree with looking at unusual outcomes and saying a miracle was behind it. If it took that line with electricity we would learn nothing about it.
LESSONS FROM ETHICAL JOURNALISM
The Rules of Ethical Journalism are -
• Verify every reported fact.
• Quickly correct errors and disseminate the correction at least as widely as
the original content.
• Report all objectively credible sides of any issue while properly presenting
the proportional weight of the evidence.
• Put facts and quotes in their proper context.
• Go to original sources whenever possible, and give subjects an opportunity to
respond.
• Respect and preserve the confidentiality of sources.
• Accept neither payment nor gifts from anyone within the scope of your
reporting.
• Resist pressure from editors, advertisers, employers, or anyone else to
suppress facts that the public needs to know.
• Disclose any potential conflicts of interest.
• Never plagiarize; always attribute.
• Clearly distinguish opinions, advocacy and commentary from fact, and label
them accordingly.
• Clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content, and label it
accordingly.
• Subject copy to editorial review.
• Treat sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings
deserving of respect.
• Show compassion for those affected by news coverage, especially victims of
natural and man-made disasters, children and sex crime victims, and those
accused of crimes until they are tried in a court of law.
• Welcome questions and encourage civil, public discourse around journalistic
practices, coverage and news content.
No such precautions exist with gospel writers or miracle
writers. As bad as any miracle report from today is, it is nothing
compared to what the gospellers did. For example, despite the accusations
made by Jesus and the writers against the Jewish leaders, there was no way left
open for the leaders to reply. It is true that religion preachers
A person might be totally honest but a liar in relation to a miracle claim. It's
the one lie one can never get caught out for telling. If somebody stares at a
spot on the wall and says they are seeing the Virgin Mary there is no proof that
they are not seeing her.
Testimony to miracles that falls into at least one of the following categories:
1. -Absurd
2. -Random
3. -Failing to convey a noble picture of God or the Catholic faith
4. -Hypocritical (Hypocrites in religion cannot be trusted. The person who lies
in his spiritual life is lying about a far more serious matter than an
apparition and so cannot be trusted if he speaks of having visions. Apparitions
etc where there has been no examination of the witnesses to eliminate hypocrisy
- a little hypocrisy would be fine - are suspect eg Knock, Fatima etc.)
5. -Happening too much
are automatically denied consideration by the Church.
It proves that the Church is lying when it says it believes in miracles because
reliable people have spoken of experiencing them. This is because it wants to
filter the evidence and manipulate it. It uses science to “verify” the miracles
it wants to believe in. If miracles demand dishonesty then they are plainly
against science.
Belief in miracles is caused by acceptance of the testimony of the witnesses to
the miracles that suit the Christians to believe in. You never hear of the
Church investigating and authenticating a barely known apparition. It is only
popular ones they look at.
Suppose it is true that testimony is a good enough reason to believe in a
miracle. Suppose a testimony is evidence for a miracle. Some conditions must be
fulfilled.
- You must know the witness has good perception.
- The witness must be honest in religious and spiritual matters – and that
honesty matters more than any other kind of honesty they have. A person who
steals might still be telling the truth about experiencing a miracle. A person
who may be honest in all things except spiritual cannot be a good witness for a
miracle.
- A witness who you do not know is no good. Believing in what apostles said who
lived thousands of years ago is worse than believing a miracle story from a few
years before you were born.
- A witness believing something miraculous happened is only evidence of their
sincerity and not of their accuracy. But you have to test their sincerity first
and foremost and then test their accuracy. Otherwise you would have to examine
miracle claims and take them seriously enough to investigate carefully even if
those claims are made by liars.
If belief in miracles is really based on respect for human testimony, then
surely the more sincere the testimony is, the more credibility we should assign
to it. Surely the more ridiculous and bizarre the miracle reported, the more
sincere the witness can be. That is dangerous. It shows we should just assume
that miracles do not happen. Assuming they do forces us into absurdity.
You need suitable and sufficient verification of the person's truthfulness and
general accuracy in affidavit form from independent parties before you can
consider their testimony. You need to be sure they are not into religious and
spiritual lies. It is easy to find people who commit the sin of unrepentance for
a past sin - such as character defamation. Yet they lie to God by praying to him
and praising him and make great sacrifices for him. Except it is not for him. If
God is pure love they reject him by loving their sin. They pray in order to feel
good about their sin and they worship a version of God that does not match a God
of perfect love and holiness. The more they pray the less sense of certain sin
they have. They would easily lie about a vision or miracle. Then you need hard
evidence.
Is hard evidence the only acceptable evidence for a miracle? YES!