(Part 2) Top products from r/Ghosts

>Not as many outside the Western Sphere have been subjected to scientific scrutiny, though,

Which is why they cannot be considered "major miracles". Their understanding of what a miracle is or not is quite irrelevant: if they regard it as "normal", then by all means: show us how "normal" it is indeed by proving their miracles do happen, and hold up against the same scrutiny Catholic miracles are subjected to. If there is something that defies the laws of nature - as we understand in the scientific sense -, and we can prove it as such, then this can be considered a major miracle. An example could be found here: St. Charbel restores woman's eyesight.

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There are, of course, numerous cases of inexplicable cures associated with Lourdes. Then there is the Tilma, the Shroud, the miracle of Our Lady of Fatima attested to even by anti-Catholic Socialist sources of the time.

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> I don’t believe the Catholic church can show scientifically tested miracles of any sort

I am not sorry to say, but this just exposes ignorance on the topic at hand. Every major miracle is called such and approved, because they have been scientifically tested - via negativa, of course, as one can only test miracles by ruling out all possible natural causes.

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> but not only has the Vatican not claimed it to be authentic, but it cannot be dated to any earlier than 500 AD (and has more often been dated to the Middle Ages)

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The findings on the Shroud show us that the way the image was imprinted onto the Shroud was impossible for people of those times to achieve. You can then accept the testimony of scientific scrutiny, or come up with some excuse to avoid the logical conclusion. But your manner of disregarding this, reminds me of the latter part of this article.

More evidence on the Shroud's dating.


>Even when I was a fervent teenage Catholic, I knew the Church has hardly been internally consistent. No organization that has promoted words of peace and love by means of the sword gets that distinction.

This is a terrible manner of argumentation, which does not even follow the rules of logic. If I were to say one thing, and that statement is true, then act opposite to the said statement, would that then make the statement false? Or would it simply mean that I did not act according to the true statement, and instead decided to act in another manner?
I'd sidestep the incorrect assumption here that Christianity is a pacifistic religion, and that it was "spread by means of the sword". People should perhaps study more on the Crusades and the Conquest of the Americas and Asia by the Spanish Empire instead of relying on the leyenda negra.

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> The Bible itself is not internally consistent—it has two different versions of Jesus’ ancestry, for starters; and the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is different; in Mark (the earlier gospel), the tree is withered the next morning, while in Matthew it withered immediately, before the disciples’ eyes.

These are things that made you leave the faith? These are things that can be resolved within less than 20 minutes of research (e.g. on the fig's withering's timing). Of course, Christ has two versions of His ancestry: one - as per the law - from his stepfather, St. Joseph, and the other from His Mother, the Bl. Virgin.
There is actually a neat book discussing many apparent/seeming contradictions (e.g. when one says it is the "1st hour, but another says it is the 6th hour": with one using the Jewish manner of counting the hours of the day, while the other using the Roman manner): The Book of Non-Contradiction


>And no, “their gods are really demons” does not count as “reasonable,” especially since many old gods and goddesses were turned into saints.

Your not liking the internal explanation of Christianity - i.e. that the false gods of heathens are devils - is not sufficient to claim this unreasonable. It is perfectly in conformity with Christian doctrine that devils may perform sham miracles, and that they are tricksters and deceivers, and that they are prideful entities, whose chief tried to make himself equal to God. So no, your disregarding of the Christian tradition is not relevant here.
As far as "old gods got turned to saints": this is pure nonsense. This is not serious study, but amateurish nonsense similar to "Zeitgeist".


>I was both a Catholic and an atheist…as well as an agnostic, and (briefly) a Pentecostal. The reason I am not Catholic any more is because I finally had to recognize that Christianity’s claims to special holiness were not substantially different from those of many other religions, and that the Church has blood on its hands equal to almost any other religion. (What the Aztecs achieved through great efforts in a short time, the Church more than made up for in its many more centuries of existence.)

If a man and a woman claim to both be male, then the claim coming from both is the same. But in one case, the claim is truthful, and in the other simply false. Simply because different religions have similar claims does not mean they are all wrong: certainly they cannot all be right, whilst contradicting each other. And they can all be wrong as well. But it is also equally possible that one is right, and all the rest wrong. It does not follow that all have to be wrong.
As far as "blood" on the hands of Christians, that is a rather weak reasoning. Even the worst criminal in history could speak truth. The veracity of doctrine is not affected by the morality of the person speaking it.
Now, while some who professed to be Christians indeed have committed crimes (just as you have people claiming to be "Christians" nowadays, and are murdering the unborn), it'd be ridiculous to disregard the religion because of the actions of those who fail to live up to its standards. Quite on the contrary, the Aztec religion itself demanded human sacrifices in the hundreds of thousands: a major reason why the Conquistadores found so many Native American allies against them (i.e. the peoples who yearned for liberation from the diabolical tyrrany of the Aztecs). That was indeed Just Warfare on the part of Spain.


>That’s ironic, as I consider it equally possible that Tilma is a miracle of the Aztec Goddess Tenanting Tonantzin , on whose sacred hill (former site of her temple) Juan Diego encountered his vision. Indigenous mestizos apparently even now believe she appeared to Juan in the guise of Mary to inspire hope in her oppressed people, and to allow them to worship her without fear of persecution.

A rather interesting revisionist approach. Considering the response of the indigenous peoples was mass conversion, and the apparition took place to a Catholic, who was then asked to go to the bishop, and to build a Catholic shrine. I know that there are people who wish to revise history in favour of their superstitions. But the records do not support such interpretation. Ironic that you would stoop to such level, when the reliability of historical records was what got us this far in the first place.

Ok, I want you to read what I am writing closely, not because I am trying to belittle your view or your beliefs in ghosts (which are yours to hold and I don't know your experience) but because we are talking about a way of knowing the world and I think it's important to think this through. First I will define some terms to make sure we know we are talking about the same thing:

Double blind: The person doing the experiment (the person on-site doing the testing) does not know exactly what the goal is. The people being studied also do not know what the goal is. This prevents the experimenter from fudging the data with his/her biases (e.g. not taking it seriously because he or she doubts the process, or looking for patterns in what is essentially random because he/she wants ghosts to be real.) It also prevents the people being studied from telling the experimenter what they think he/she wants to hear.

Experimental design: This means, among other things, randomization. You don't have people who already 100% believe in ghosts as part of your experiment, but nor do you fill it with a bunch of skeptics. You have as much as possible random sampling. You also
have more than one person you are experimenting on. The results of one experiment could be a function of coincidence, luck, whatever. Random chance. So you do it again. Multiple measures. Multiple participants. Different times of day or night, if this is relevant. This also means you control as many things as possible that could be effecting the outcome. If you wanted to do a longitudinal study you'd test the same things over a longer period of time.

You have two groups being experimented on differently--one group uses the Ouiji Board in the way you want it to be tested. The other group does not use the Ouiji Board properly but just sits with it in the room talking about whatever (or however you design this). Then you look at results and see: Are they all later having spooky experiences? If so then it's not because of how the Ouiji board was used (You still don't know why, and you'd have to explore this further.) Or you could have one group use the Ouiji board and another group just sit in a room watching a scary movie. Then see: Are they all having spooky experiences? Then it wasn't the Ouiji board that caused it. Again, you still don't know why. Occam's razor would suggest the easiest answer is probably the right answer: I.e. It's just emotions, it's just imagination. Again, you could explore as long as you wanted.

There are all kinds of ways to design studies, and each design is used to fit the question of interest (in this case, do Ouiji boards do anything?) But you have a question, and you have ways in which you can answer that question using your brain. If Joe uses the Ouiji Board at the same time as Sue, and Sue has no ill effects but Joe does, does this mean Sue is magically immune? Or does it mean Joe is imagining things? You can use experiments to test exactly this!

This doesn't even get into testing physical manifestations, a la Ghostbusters where you are looking at whatever ways you have of measuring sounds or what we see or whatever. Scientific thinking in the way I am describing it is meant to test whether any of this is in the imagination only or if something is actually going on. If it is, then you will need relevant people to explore what that something is.

IF you found something was actually going on, then breakthrough! you have done what no one else has done. Now it is time to analyze using physical measures.

If you do NOT accept this kind of analysis then that's up to you, but realize this lack of willingness to doubt yourself, to hold your assumptions and beliefs up to the light of scientific analysis, is equivalent to washing your hands of reason. It's what allows charlatans of all types to peddle mystic woo and rake in the cash from the gullible wishing for contact with the spirit world, for healing from crystals, for whatever. And it's dangerous and not good for a society to have people unwilling to make these connections.

Science, meanwhile, is not a religion. It is precisely science to say "We don't have all the answers." What science doesn't do is say "Well, we don't have all the answers, so I will assume demons are following me around." Science is about questioning, about exploration, about testing.

I highly recommend Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World. In it, he writes about his own life and his hopes, for years, this is Carl Sagan's hopes, that the weird supernatural shit we all read about as kids was actually real. And he is amazingly well-balanced and refreshingly unjudgmental in the book.

I hope this doesn't come off as me being an ass. The fact is 300 years ago if anyone had been doing well-designed studies they certainly would not have concluded that infection was jus random chance. They may not have known it was bacteria--just like if the Ouiji board did in fact do something you don't know that the thing being done is being done by a demon--but they would have known it was something. Again, as a result of scrupulous and rigorous testing, not quick assumption that conveniently confirmed their own beliefs (that's actually what often did happen, with unfortunate results.)

Edit: TL;DR: Whether or to what degree Ouiji boards are "real" and work can be tested by anyone with the time and willingness.

lolz @ "gross catholic high school". bonus points if that is actually, somehow, the real name.

i have zero clues why this particular book is in yr trunk. the fact that you have a surplus of books there currently, of which it sounds as though you have not taken good stock of, is promising, regardless of identifying stamp being present or not. i mean, a random book when you have a zillion others already there makes a lot of sense compared to one random book just showing up in yr otherwise empty trunk, y'know?

anyway, here is the same book on amazon, fwiw.