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#41 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 12,881
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So your friend thinks that it is 'ridiculously unlikely that the guy is fibbing but finds it perfectly plausible that a dead Saint came back to earth and somehow burned the image of a silly looking hand into his arm?
And I don't get your friend's reasoning. So Nader's life changed. Is it uncommon for someone to perpetrate a hoax and for their life to change? Seems to me that achieving some sort of life change would be the entire point of perpetrating a hoax. |
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The non-theoretical character of metaphysics would not be in itself a defect; all arts have this non-theoretical character without thereby losing their high value for personal as well as for social life. The danger lies in the deceptive character of metaphysics; it gives the illusion of knowledge without actually giving any knowledge. This is the reason why we reject it. - Rudolf Carnap "Philosophy and Logical Syntax" |
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#42 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 12,881
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__________________
The non-theoretical character of metaphysics would not be in itself a defect; all arts have this non-theoretical character without thereby losing their high value for personal as well as for social life. The danger lies in the deceptive character of metaphysics; it gives the illusion of knowledge without actually giving any knowledge. This is the reason why we reject it. - Rudolf Carnap "Philosophy and Logical Syntax" |
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#43 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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I remember some of them, some of them are quite interesting but not fully convincing for me.
From my memory, his main arguments are these:
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#44 |
Schrödinger's cat
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 13,018
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I notice he's left out what is usually the most likely explanation, which is that the eyewitness is just honestly mistaken. Woo believers always do. It's almost as if they are completely unaware of how fallible their perceptions and memories are, despite that information having been freely available to them all their lives.
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The scientific method was invented specifically to compensate for the cognitive biases, and the fallibility of perception and memory, which led people to mistakenly believe in the supernatural in the first place. |
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"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett |
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#45 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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This sounds like a personal problem.
If you have no response to ""ridiculously unlikely" explanations such as lies", then there's not much we can do to help you. I mean, he had you at begging the question and reversing the burden of proof. As long as you let him get away with that, you've already lost. But debating this guy by proxy is annoying anyway. Do you really want to be carrying water for him like this? |
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#46 |
Muse
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Northumberland, UK
Posts: 785
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What a string of non-arguments, assertions, inaccuracies, special pleading and hand waving.
Ignores the role that Islam and the like played in the development of science. That manure of the bovine about atheists really being spritual is the standard rubbish of calling atheism a religion, which just shows he's arguing in bad faith or doesn't understand atheism. Morality is a purely human invention and does NOT require any sky fairy to justify it. Existence of the soul? Oh please. Some evidence would be a good start and yet in all the thopusands of years of human history none has been provided. Martyrdom...And...People die for all sorts of reasons and causes (or none), Christianity is not special in that way. He's not putting forward any arguments for anything. |
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#47 |
Muse
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Northumberland, UK
Posts: 785
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His "education" clearly did not equip him with rationality nor familiarity with the scientific process. Or else he's using a definition of rational which is not the same as everyone else's.
Oh looky: claims about the supernatural (which is what exactly?) and how scientists are closed minded...What? Because we don't automatically believe unsupported guff like any religious claims, but need some evidence? But, then, I won't count as I have scientific training and worked for years in mental health, so I know fine well what kinds of things folk can believe in or hallucinate or misperceive. |
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#48 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 28,338
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As I've already noted, in this or the other "miracle" thread - if a god does cheapo parlour tricks to convince the gullible while ignoring thousands of sick and dying children, then the god behind it is actually a disgustingly reprehensible scumbag.
It works to get good christian boys and girls wins at sport, makes pointless marks on people, but lets the little ******* die of starvation. That kind of pathetic wanna-prove-the-sky-fairy nonsense makes me sick. And angry. But atheists are immoral. |
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The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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#49 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 12,881
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__________________
The non-theoretical character of metaphysics would not be in itself a defect; all arts have this non-theoretical character without thereby losing their high value for personal as well as for social life. The danger lies in the deceptive character of metaphysics; it gives the illusion of knowledge without actually giving any knowledge. This is the reason why we reject it. - Rudolf Carnap "Philosophy and Logical Syntax" |
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#50 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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The usual guff.
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#51 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 28,338
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__________________
The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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#52 |
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,032
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It is most probably a fake religious devotion sign to raise money for his ministry.
![]() https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/n...perience-91640 Nader also started a prayer ministry called the Saint Charbel Family....... Charbel has devotees around the world, and the shrine at the monastery in Annaya, Lebanon, where he is buried, receives a large number of international visitors every year. One of these nights, Nov. 10, 1994, as he was praying.......After returning to his car, the man noticed his sweater was sticking to his arm, so he pulled up his sleeve and, he says, he discovered five fingers... Nader, ... is now the president of the Liban Message Movement, ..and the executive director of the Middle Eastern Catholic television station Noursat TV. //////////////////////// Dr. Nabil Hokayem, a Beirut plastic surgeon, examined the mark on Nader’s arm three times: first in 1994, soon after its appearance, and subsequently in the spring of 1995 and the summer of 1996. He told CNA that in his professional opinion, the mark is a third-degree burn, in the shape of what appeared “like five fingers, as if someone is holding [Nader] from behind.” ..complete crap. humans grab with their palm and fingers, and there is no palm print as Nadler can't reach the inside of his own arm when making the markings. Additionally thumbs go the other way and we shouldn't see any thumb marking at all. |
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#53 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
Posts: 10,113
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#54 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Denmark
Posts: 6,160
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Looks like burns to me. Has he stamped himself with acid or something similar?
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Steen -- Jack of all trades - master of none! |
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#55 |
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,032
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A Lebanese "plastic surgeon" claims the marking lasted from 1994 to 1996, however the same plastic surgeon claimed it looked like a hand holding him from behind, although the palm is missing and the thumb is in the wrong spot.
I suggest the palm is missing, as it is a self inflicted marking and Nader could not reach behind his inner arm. I also note the mark is on his left arm as he is right handed. ![]() |
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#56 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: People's Democratic Republic of Planet X
Posts: 40,334
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__________________
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set. "...just as a magnet attracts iron filings, "[shemp is] a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality." - Shakespeare |
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#57 |
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,032
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#58 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,445
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"Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick |
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#59 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Denmark
Posts: 6,160
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Steen -- Jack of all trades - master of none! |
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#60 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Sorth Dakonsin
Posts: 24,896
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I remember reading about a hazing ritual at some military academy where a symbol would get painted with a chemical, shoe glaze or brass polish or something, which turned the skin black. I'd be curious to see the palm side of this guy's right hand.
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Science is self-correcting. Woo is self-contradicting. |
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#61 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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#62 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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#63 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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I hope so. He tends to use emotional tactics, and this is what makes difficult. His arguments are often based on moral credibility. He was even talking about thought experiments, here is on example:
He said to imagine that I have 4 friends who are sincere, honest, rational, non deluded, have no mental/neurological disorders, have no habits of making dirty jokes/tricks and I trust them from childhood. One day they come to me. I notice that one of the friends has slightly torn clothes and bruises. I, being curious ask them what happened to him. 3 of friends tell me that they saw him breaking the window and jumping from the 15th floor while he was drunk. One of them started praying to God to save his life. He fell on asphalt. They rushed down and when they reached him, to their amazement they saw him already standing with slightly torn clothes and bruises. He asked whether I would believe if they really told me such story or I would stubbornly continue to defend my "narrow" naturalistic worldview even by discrediting my friends' testimonies. He said that "denying Charbel's miracle stories is even worse than denying this thought experiment's story, since the Catholic church has documented over 20000 miracles related to this saint from all over the world. The best thing that atheists can do is to believe in conspiracy theory". |
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#64 |
Master Poster
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 2,331
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I can explain it in three steps.
1. Someone made up a story. 2. Others believed the made-up story and invented more stories. 3. Repeat. |
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#65 |
Muse
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Acho Dene Koe
Posts: 958
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I bet the palm is missing because after he burned the fingers on his arm he readjusted his level of commitment.
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#66 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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The appeal to emotion is a well-known logical fallacy. His use of it should make things very easy for you.
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Here, he's begging the question that the kinds of stories he's asking you to believe are stories of this nature. In reality, none of his stories involve four of your friends of impeccable character and absolutely reliable narration.
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He's telling you the Catholic Church is even more trustworthy than your four imaginary friends of impeccable character and absolutely reliable narration. Begging the question again. It's absurd, and should make things very easy for you to dismiss his claims. And that's before we even get to the discussion of the fact that the Catholic Church has a vested interest in perpetuating belief in miracles, and has even engaged in conspiracies in the past to protect its interests. And that is before we even get to their actual documentation of miracles. Instead of listening to him tell you that the Catholic Church has documented miracles, you should be demanding that he produce such documents for your skeptical examination. Reversing the burden of proof is yet another well-known fallacy. Once again, this makes it easier for you, not harder. The only thing making this difficult for you is you. Here's an idea. Instead of trying to get us to fight your battles for you by proxy, do this: Next time he mouths off about documentation, ask him to show you the Catholic Church's documentation of Charbel's miracles, and decide for yourself how compelling it is. |
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#67 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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By harder I mean emotionally, not intellectually. When I'm trying to address his claims, he uses even more emotional arguments by telling crazy stories that happened with his aunt. He told me one story about his aunt praying for someone (who lived in another country) with an "incurable" mental disorder (he didn't tell the diagnosis unfortunately). According to her a couple of days later that person had a vision of Jesus asking him to repent of his sins, after repenting that person was completely cured. After that alleged thing that person called her and asked her to help him to find his 2 daughters who left him (probably because he was a difficult person + that mysterious mental disorder). That person and she (aunt) had no information about daughters' location. She decided to pray to the God to know their locations. According to her, God answered her prayer by telepathically telling the daughters' precise location, and it indeed turned out to be in our country in some brothel...
I guess it's better just to avoid any religious debates with him. |
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#68 |
Muse
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Northumberland, UK
Posts: 785
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#69 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 19,136
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"Here, unless you skeptics can conclusively debunk this
Skeptics freely admit they can't conclusively explain a lot of the phenomena and observations that are attributed to various supernatural, paranormal, or conspiratorial causes. This is simply the problem of history; we can't rewind the clock and replay those events, paying closer attention to parts that might test a hypothesis. And we can't necessary extract that evidence from what the record of the event has left us. So for the most part we're content to leave them unexplained, with the tentative presumption that the cause was probably mundane. What made the mark on the subject's arm? All we can do is guess, because we can't even look at the marks ourselves to rule in or out any specific chemical agents that might be consistent with the appearance of the marks. Or we can't rule in or out specific pathologies. The claim is made that doctors were unable to find a medical cause. But again it's all hearsay. What doctors? What were there exact findings? Skeptics can say that mysterious occurrences are consistent with known phenomena. And this lets us reason parsimoniously about possible specific causes. But often that's the best we can do, even with piles of evidence. We can't be exactly sure what sparked the Apollo 1 fire, even after months of investigation, a forensic disassembly of the spacecraft, piles of recorded sensor data, and the design documents. All we can say is that it is consistent with an electrical spark from abraded wires igniting nearby combustibles in a saturated oxygen environment. The same is often true in other happenstance tragedies. We may not have an answer, but we can think through things enough to say that some hypothesis is at least consistent with known phenomena, and therefore the explanation is probably mundane. So yes, solving mysteries is something that's likely to appeal to many of the regulars here. But unless you give us a way to test hypotheses with evidence, no one here is likely to be interested in it as a skeptical exercise. And I can't see that anyone would be inclined to commit to any explanation by way of debunking. |
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#70 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 28,338
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__________________
The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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#71 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 19,136
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That would probably be wise. If his mode of debate is simply to tell you supernatural anecdotes and expect you to believe them, there's not much toehold for an intellectual exercise. Some people believe in religion partly because they want to believe in a magical universe that's on their side. That is, the desire to believe in magic is simply there, and no amount of rational discussion is likely to unseat it.
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#72 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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There is no religious debate here. Just unverifiable, unreliable, third-hand apocryphal tales that you are taking way too seriously for no good reason at all.
Do you really imagine there's a point to trying to debunk "this guy told me that his aunt told him that this other guy told her... and none of it is verifiable"? |
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#73 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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It's completely impossible since there is zero physical evidence in favor or against. From the other hand these anecdotes made me more interested in psychology just to understand why people make such extraordinary claims. I was much more vulnerable to emotional arguments, such as moral credibility.
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#74 |
Safely Ignored
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 10,902
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People are inclined to think that about their own religion. And their own definition of "truth".
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#75 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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#76 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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Moral credibility for him is trusting people even when they tell unbelievable stories just because they seem to be sane, sincere, honest, not deluded or mentally ill. This was illustrated in his thought experiment of the miraculously survived friend. According to him many people who claim to experience miracles are very sane, sincere, honest, kind, have no interests in money or in being the center of attention. He thinks that it's very difficult to doubt their claims since there is no reason to for them to lie and it's very hard to imagine that they are hallucinating, mistaken or deluded. He claims that most miracles changed their lives to the better, they became more spiritual. He doesn't deny that some people abuse miracles, but he argues that despite that miracles really happen.
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#77 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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Thanks.
And have you asked him to support this claim? Have you rejected the claim if/when he doesn't support it? ETA: I mean, for me, "moral credibility" would only apply to people I know personally very well, whom I already have ample reason to believe they have unimpeachable moral character and absolutely reliable narration. It's not something I'd accord to second- and third-hand narrators of unverifiable anecdotes. And to be honest? I don't think I know anyone like that personally, either. If I did know someone like that, and they told me such a wildly implausible story, my first thought would be whether I knew them as well as I thought I did. What is it about the unsupported claim of miracles being reported by unimpeachable witnesses that you find so difficult to dismiss without evidence? |
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#78 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 31,712
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__________________
1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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#79 |
Scholar
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Armenia, Yerevan
Posts: 107
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He actually tried to back up this claims with St Charbel's miracles and sent me links. He told me that the people who were cured miraculously were sincerely believing in God. He said these people are very grateful to God, are very kind, and they don't seem to be insane or deluded. He claimed that this is the reason that he can't imagine that these people are lying, mistaken/deluded, etc.
I brought here one of the most impressive miracle claims, just wanted to know if someone has done more research on this (I mean finding something fishy in such story, I'm not very skilled in this and have limited knowledge). There are probably Lebanese who are more familiar with this saint's stories and probably flaws in them. |
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#80 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 49,693
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