Talk:The Miracle of the Sun

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Contents 1 Talk page 1.1 RFC Response 1.2 Continuation of the discussion between LeContexte and Pat8722 1.3 request for pictures 1.4 Paring down extraneous information 1.5 Footnotes vanished... where? 1.6 all dry? 1.7 what footnoting technique should be used? 1.8 Need to complete citations 1.9 Removed link 1.10 Controversies of Recent Development 2 Sun dog? 3 Miracle of the Sun Photograph 4 NPOV

[edit] Talk page

The conclusion of this article ("There is no scientific evidence that explains the reports of the crowd that day. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that such a miracle did indeed occur.") is a non-sequitur, and surely not NPOV. LeContexte 10:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Please explain in what manner you believe the aforesaid quoted sentence "is an argument where the conclusion is drawn from premises which are not logically connected with it", as your sentence itself appears to be the relative equivalent to a non-sequitur. pat8722 13:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Let us accept, for the sake of argument, the premise of the sentence, i.e. that there is indeed no scientific evidence (sic) that explains the reports of the miracle alluded to in the article. It does not necessarily follow that the miracle occured. Perhaps there is a scientific explanation, but we haven't found it yet. Perhaps the reports were themselves mistaken (which is certainty a possibility given that other persons present claim to have seen nothing). Accordingly the conclusion of the sentence does not follow logically from the first half of the sentence - in other words, it is a non-sequitur. (Although this is really a red herring, for which I apologise: whether or not a non-sequitur, the sentence is plainly not NPOV) LeContexte 15:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The author doesn't say that it definitely was a miracle, only that it is reasonable to believe that it was a miracle. Given all the evidence cited, that the miracle was predicted, that it was witnessed even by unbelievers and skeptics, etc., that is certainly a valid conclusion. It would be extraordinarily obtuse to look at that evidence and insist it is unreasonable to believe that a miracle occurred.

Do you think it is also reasonable to believe that a miracle did not occur? LeContexte 17:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Based on our knowledge of the solar system and the quality of witness statements, it is not reasonable to believe that a miracle did not occur. To so believe must be based either on scientific evidence that the sun can act as it did, or that it can appear to act as it did, or on the impeachment of the witnesses, neither of which is reasonably expected. pat8722 22:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You have clearly spent some time editing this article, and have strong views on the subject. But you must appreciate that it is reasonable for others to take a different view. Certainly, some believe that the event was a miracle. Others believe it is more plausible that the event resulted from some combination of mass hysteria, optical illusion and the unusual political and social conditions at the time. The article must take a neutral point of view, and claims that the only reasonable conclusion is that a miracle occured is not a neutral point of view. LeContexte 23:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If you will be both truthful and objective, this matter will be resolved more readily. The article did not state that "the only reasonable conclusion is that a miracle occurred", it merely stated that that was a reasonable conclusion. The evidence therefore was cited. Known principles of science would have to be contradicted to explain the reported actions of the sun that day, or else the witnesses would have to be impeached, and you have not argued otherwise, nor shown otherwise. Likely because of your religous beliefs, the truth of my statement bothers you. I invite you to look at it through the eyes of science, rather than your pre-conceived notions of what truth must be. You can't find the truth if you automatically discard everything which does not fit with your preconceived notions. pat8722 21:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Earlier today the article included a discussion of alternative explanations (not added by me) and you reverted it. It is an entirely reasonable and consistent position to say that witness reports seem contradictory and unclear, and that the known phenomenon of hysteria at religious events is a more likely and more reasonable explanation than the unknown phenomenon of divine intervention (or, for that matter, intervention by space aliens, the devil, or the flying spaghetti monster). I am not asking for Wikipedia to represent this as the only point of view, or even as the most reasonable point of view, but Wikipedia must remain neutral as between this point of view and yours. I don't quite understand why this is controversial, but I will RfC for some further opinions. LeContexte 23:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I should add a further point: I don't think any Wikipedia article should state "it is reasonable to conclude that...". If a given authority has said that he/she/it considers a conclusion reasonable then we should state this, but is it not for an encyclopedia to reach conclusions. Putting a conclusion in the passive voice does not help matters. LeContexte 23:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree only with your last statement. Conclusions do not belong in wikipedia. Even though the conclusions are true, the facts can speak for themselves and lead the reader to make his own conclusion. The only scientific conclusion, is, however, a neutral point of view, so NPOV was never the real issue, lack of citation to a published work in which the conclusion is found, is the real issue. You probably saw it as an NPOV issue because you come to scientific evidence blinded by your religious beliefs (presumably atheism). I additionally point out that you again evidence your bias and untruthfulness when you accuse me of reverting the discussion of alternative explanations. I clearly left in the matter which was not merely the commentary of the editor and for which he presented sources, even though his citations were incomplete. I removed some known falsehoods which repeatedly appear on this site, and for which there are no citations. pat8722 00:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

For my reasons as stated, I have therefor removed the sentence which was the subject of this dispute. Next time, please cite at the beginning of your arguments the real reason for disputing the inclusion of particular sentence in wikipedia. pat8722 00:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think accusations of bias and untruthfulness are particularly helpful. My first comment was correct: the sentence was a non-sequitur and not NPOV. I'm not sure why you think anyone who is skeptical of the miracle of Fatima is likely to be an atheist, but I don't think my views are particularly relevant here. LeContexte 08:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

That sentence aside, the article is riddled with POV. For example: it is POV to claim that Our Lady "had promised" that a miracle would occur. It is POV for an article to contain an unsourced response to Nickell's claim which asserts, without reasoning that there is no scientific evidence explaining the reported phenomenon. It is POV/original research for an article to contain an unsourced rebuttal of Campbell's article. here is no scientific evidence however, that explains the phenomena at they were reported at Fatima by the eyewitnesses. It is POV to exclude from the article references to similar phenomenon occuring elsewhere (whether it be Medjugorje or Nancy Fowler's followers). So I don't agree that this issue is resolved. LeContexte 08:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

You have not demonstrated how your first comment was not the relative equivalent to a non-sequitur, nor have you demonstrated that the conclusion was not a NPOV. It is not necessary to further discuss that issue however, as the statement was removed when you made the only verfied complaint, that it was without citation. I haved added direct quotations and sources to address some of your other concerns. I removed the statements about other alleged appartions because they are argumentative, and not relevant, as the place to discuss and dispute alleged apparations at Medjugorje or the followers of Nancy Fowler are on their respective wiki pages. The Fatima page will become too confused, lengthy, and incoherent if attacks on Medjugorje or the followers of Nancy Fowler, must be debated here, too. pat8722 17:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As your objections have been addressed, I have removed the POV tag from the article. pat8722 16:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC Response

This article continues to fail NPOV. Strikingly, "Descriptions of the event as documented prior to 1980's are remarkably consistent." This judgement call is unattributed. I expect it is also disputed. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The questioned statement has been deleted as being without citation. Non-NPOV was not demonstrated - merely alleged without fact or argument, against wiki policy. pat8722 17:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Continuation of the discussion between LeContexte and Pat8722

I don't agree that the NPOV dispute is settled. For the reasons above, I think the article is riddled with POV. I'm also not sure it's helpful to remove the article from RfC. There are few links to this article and, accordingly, the discussion page is getting little traffic. It would be helpful to have input from others.

I have edited the article to remove judgment calls and include some skeptical religious and non-religious sources. If you consider any of the sources incorrect/misleading, it would be helpful if you could include appropriate sourced responses in the article. Some points to note:

1. de Marchi's name is inconsistently capitalised ("de" or "De") in the article, as well as in books and on the web (see, e.g., http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/tsfatima.htm where different forms are used in the same document). I have followed lower case throughout, as this is used in the majority of the sources, and is the capitalisation I'd expect an Italian name to have.

2. I can't find de Marchi's books (and they appear to all be out of print) and I may therefore be misrepresenting him. I'd be grateful if you could correct this. You may wish to add more material from him. That said, the article would benefit from the inclusion of supportive material from others. I may do this myself soon.

3. You may not think whether or not the event was unique is an important question: however according to Sullivan's book (see the article) those the Catholic Church charges with investigating reports of miracles do consider uniqueness an important factor in assessing the credibility of a miracle. So, for what it's worth, do I. This is, after all, the reason why miraculous claims for this event are more impressive than those for vegetables that look like Jesus.

4. I've removed unverified commentary in the witness testimonies: a poet being "noted", Almeida being an "atheist" (he appears to be have been a Catholic skeptical of the previous miracles - given the time/place it would be surprising were he an atheist but I am, of course, willing to be corrected).

5. When considering writings about a religious event, it is relevant to note an author's own religious beliefs (or lack thereof). I've tried to apply this consistently to those on both sides of the argument.

6. I have added references to authors who call de Marchi's account into question.

7. Is it really correct to say "The sun itself could not have actually moved so drastically given that this would have destabilized the entire solar system." This is not necessarily the case if, as is claimed, a miracle happened. However, I'm not sure the mechanics of how a miracle occur is particularly relevant, and have deleted the text for simplicity's sake.

8. I have deleted the passage "There is no scientific explanation as to how the crowd could have looked directly at the sun for up to 10 minutes without repeatedly turning away (witnesses reported feeling compelled to twice turn away from the sun because of "heat") or suffering vision loss." as (a) this is unsourced assertion; (b) it is unclear what point this is making - do any skeptics claim that witnesses looked directly at the sun for 10 minutes without turning away?

9. I have deleted the sentence "The reader may form his own opinion as to the likely effects of looking at the sun, whether through dust, or through a mere cloud, and compare his opinion to those of others and to the witness statements at Fatima." as this is unsourced and plainly POV.

10. I have deleted the response to Campbell's claims, as it appears original and unsourced.

11. I agree that the Judah Ruah reference on the anonymous website seems unsubstantiated, and I can find no references to it elsewhere. The paragraph should be deleted.

12. Final paragraph: do you mean the Documentaçao critica de Fatima? If it is to be mentioned then it needs to be given a more neutral treatment it seems inappropriate to dismiss its claims in this document without saying what the claims are. I cannot help here: my library has nothing bar the odd reference and the only useful internet sources I can find are in Portuguese (which, sadly, I do not speak beyond ordering from menus). As it stands, the passage is better off deleted, in my opinion.

13. It would be good to add some external links - supportive, skeptical and neutral (if such things exist!)

LeContexte 19:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

That Almeida was an atheist was reported by De Marchi. I will re-add the statement when I locate the exact page number. It should not be so hard for you to believe he was an atheist, given that he was writing for an anticlerical newspaper, and his articles prior to 13 October had been to satirize the events.

I will locate my sources about looking directly at the sun before I re-add the statement.

I would like to verify the below additions of yours:

Your statement: "It has been noted that relatively few witness testimonies of the event were obtained before World War II^[1]." Please cite the page number.

Your statement: "However a number of reports contradict de Marchi and claim that some denied seeing any phenomenon." I deleted this sentence as being unsourced.

Your statement: "Karl Rahner, the late liberal Catholic theologian, is reported by as noting" Please fill in the missing word.

Your statement: "Kevin McClure, a skeptical investigator of the paranormal, alleged that less than half of those present had seen any phenomenon and, on reviewing the reports of those who had, noted that he had never seen such a collection of contradictory accounts of a case in any of the research he had done in the previous ten years." Please cite page numbers.

Your statement: "[Jaki] assembled all available first person testimonies from the event" Please cite page number

Your statement: "McClure claims" Please cite a source

While I don't think it's appropriate to include mere opinions of authors on wikipages (as that is not very encyclopedic, and rightly open to the "non-NPOV" objection, I will postpone my argument on the point. I would ask, however, that you add the authors' bases for their opinions in this article, as that is more meaningful than the opinion itself.

I have deleted the paragraphs that deal with miracles in general, as such argument belongs on the wiki page for miracles, not on every wikipage that deals with a specific miracle. It is argumentative to include such commentary here, and would lead to a confused and incoherent article if both sides of the arguments on the possibility of miracles in general are now to be stated and argued here (and then presumably on every wikipage where an alleged miracle is described). I left in the miracle-commentary specific to the Fatima miracle. I note that this wikipage includes a link to the miracles wikipage, and I invite you to post your miracle-in-general commentary there, if you consider it be "encyclopedic" type commentary.

Based on his books which I have, De Marchi apparently prefers the capitalized version of his name, so that is what I have used in this article. Thank you for pointing that out.

pat8722 03:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. This has been very constructive - it looks like we are approaching an article we can both be happy with. I agree the sourcing and references need to be improved. I'm a bit tied up for the next couple of days but will sort this within the week, and reply to you properly then. LeContexte 11:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

My two pence; surely the phrase "The Miracle of the Sun is a miraculous event " in the opening statement is POV. The fact that it's qualifed later as alleging to have occured in neither here nor there. I think "The Miracle of the Sun is an alleged miraculous event that occured..." is a better re-write

[edit] request for pictures

User: Khnottel 0900, 21 Jan 06 (EST) Can anyone offer why this event attended by 70,000 people including many from the press, is not documented by photos? I see only one reference to some mysterious photographer who reportedly saw nothing ... but even searching on the Web I find no photos of this event.24.60.232.48 02:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Pictures of the crowd can be found at http://users.ev1.net/~seektress/fatima1.htm. I have added a link to it in the article. Thank you for your inquiry. pat8722 03:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me add that the allegations that a photographer "saw nothing" are unfounded. Portcult.com claims Almeida's photographer (Judah Ruah) saw nothing, but has no reference to support it. Had Almeida located anyone willing to deny the miracle that he, himself a skeptic, had witnessed, he surely would have included that fact in his report for O Seculo, which was anti-clerical and hoping to discount the promised miracle (that is why Almeida was sent to cover it). That Almeida did not report anyone claiming not to have seen, is solid evidence that he was not able to locate anyone who had not witnessed it, including Judah Ruah. The allegation that a photographer saw nothing is of very recent invention, and is always made without citation to any source for the allegation. pat8722 02:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe what Khnottel is asking for are pictures of the event, not of the crowd. If a photographer is covering a miracle, surely he photographs the miracle and not the people looking at it. A crowd of people is nothing special; a miracle is, well, miraculous. 83.132.98.35 14:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

But at the time you (83.132.98.35) wrote your comment, there IS a picture of the miracle in the article. You can see from the picture that the sun is darker than the light which it is radiating. To the best of my knowledge, the picture was not published until 1951. It would be reasonable to suppose there were other photos of the sun too, but it may take years, and the fulfillment of the message, before they are finally published. pat8722 18:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paring down extraneous information

"Richard Dawkins considers that it is improbable that 70,000 witnesses lied, or that there was a mass hallucination or a trick of the light. He considers it even less improbable that the that the sun actually moved. Dawkins believes that there is no alternative but to believe there was no miracle, on the grounds that miracles are not possible."

That's nice, but not terribly relevant. I don't think this belongs in the article at all -- I don't think 70,000 people lied, or that there was a mass hallucination, or that miracles are possible either, but that doesn't mean that the article should include my thoughts on the matter. I've removed the paragraph, but we should concentrate on paring down some of the extraneous theories such as this one. --Pyran 09:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes vanished... where?

hi everybody, I'm quite impressed by this article and I expected all the footnotes hinted by the numbered links to clarify the first section... but I don't know how to read them? Were they deleted by mistake? I'm working on October 13 to refurbish it to a higher level of accuracy (by the way if you have something to suggest I'm more than open to it) and I tripped over this goood article (and its discussion). - εΔω 10:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC) (I'm Italian: write as you like, I understand; forgive my poor English).

Footnotes can be found by selecting "edit this page" at the top of the article. Then do a search through the article for the word "ref", and you will see each of the footnotes by it's corresponding text. pat8722 14:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• That is not an appropriate citation style. The notes should be visible on the page without entering edit mode. Whoever made them that way should fix it. --Nelson Ricardo 02:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Having finally learned how to make the references display, I have added "==References== <references/>" to the article. pat8722

[edit] all dry?

I just wanted to comment that none of the listed scientific explanations address the fat that the drenched crowds became completely dry in a matter of minutes. (This comment was written by Lg1 on 01:25, 13 March 2006)

The statement about the "drying" is documented in the article by a reference citing John De Marchi "The Immaculate Heart" (1952) Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, at page p150. I thought it would detract from the drama of the cited quotations to include every available quotation about every available detail. You can read the entire story at "http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/tsfatima.htm, which contains the "The True Story of Fatima" written by John De Marchi, and which contains many very good first-person witness accounts. Although De Marchi limits his account of the drying to a short summary, which begins "The people, who had been drenched and soggy with the pelting, unremitting rain, were suddenly and completely dry-their shoes and stockings, their skirts and clothes...",^[2] John Haffert in "Meet the Witnesses" ^[3](a poorly structured book, missing the most important witness accounts), does include first person quotations about the miraculous drying, but for the most part the accounts read rather dull, as how many ways can you say "we become dry"? Here is an except from one the accounts, by Dominic Reis, who was 17 at the time, "There was a good three inches of water where I stood...it was raining just like you open a faucet...and then suddenly the rain stopped...In a few minutes the ground was as dry as this floor here...The clothes were dry and looked like they had just come from the laundry." ^[4] I have here omitted Reis' comments about the sun, to avoid being repetitive with the article. Given the drama of the sun, it seems like too small and distracting a detail to include quotations about the drying in the main article. There are about 10 such quotations in Haffert's book. pat8722 14:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what footnoting technique should be used?

Saxifrage has inserted into this article what he has termed the "harvard style" of footnoting, which at least two editors (including me) contend results in an article that is less readable than using that which most of us know as "standard footnoting techniques". I looked at the wikipedia: manual of style and did a search on "harvard" on that page, and did not find a hit relative to footnoting. Saxifrage is asked to be more specific in citing a policy under which he believes we must/should use his rather difficult footnoting technique. pat8722 23:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

See WP:CITE, which is linked from the Manual of Style. The link is not as prominent as I thought, so I should have been more specific.

Using <ref></ref> to "hide" references should only be done when those references are complete in themselves: remember that Wikipedia will eventually see print and so must conform to style guidelines in references section as well as the body of the article. I would have used footnote-style references, but this is not recommended when there are multiple references to the same work but to different page numbers. The references section should never have more than one entry for a given source, which is what was wrong with the article before I converted it to Harvard style. If each sentence in the article wasn't using a reference to a specific page number then it would have been trivial to collect them all into a single footnote for each of DeMarchi's books, but there was no way to do this while preserving the page numbers.

What this article really needs is a more correct use of citation to get rid of the mess of citations, not sweeping the citation mess into the footnotes section. I would suggest as a starter that someone who has DeMarchi's books on-hand should condense the citations so that there is only one or two per paragraph instead of one per sentence. Alternatively, if the page numbers are not actually required, the article can gracefully use the footnote style of citation using the <ref name=DeMarchi-a/> shortcut markup which will generate only two entries in the references section, instead of a hundred as before. — Saxifrage ✎ 07:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're not going to answer, I'll take it as tacit approval of my reasons and change it back. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

How do I know john de marchi didn't just make up the witness testimony or the number of people present?

Your entire bibliography was written by one guy, please expand it! I understand this happened a long time ago in portugal, but there must be other documentation I can refer to for verification. I've looked myself, but the library has nothing useful and I can't find anything on the internet either.

Please, alternate sources!

[edit] Need to complete citations

There are still a few citations that are incomplete. To make things simpler, I can going to use this version as a reference point. Cite 13 (the alleged miracle lasted ten minutes) and cite 20 need the page number, if available. Cite 17 (the first description) needs the exact book, although I suspect that it is DeMarchi 1952b. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed link

The two lines above were removed from the article. They were not inserted in a correct location and I thought maybe they should be talked about before being included.. and if so in the External Links section right? Lsjzl 07:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• After removal they were reinserted, and after being left alone for about 8 minutes still not corrected (wrong coding) so I decided to watch most of the video. I don't see that this as a video that NEEDS to be included without discussion so I invite the anon includer to discuss here. Merci! Lsjzl 07:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversies of Recent Development

Is it really relevant to mention that some anonymous website somewhere on the internet contains unsubstantiated claims regarding the phenomenon? It seems to me that this entire section should probably be removed. -Rosensteel 15:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I don't wan't to delete that section by myself, could some people give their opinion? I can't think of an argument to defend that section, anyhow; it seems like the owner of the site put it there. 9:56, 21 November 2006. --------- I've just seen that this section is cited three times in this talk page, all of them with distrust and with no answers in defense. I'm deleting it.

[edit] Sun dog?

Is it possible that the "miracle" was related to a Sun dog? Lukas 02:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miracle of the Sun Photograph

I have a source that contradicts the claim that the photograph presented at the top of the article is a picture of the actual miracle of the sun event in Fatima. The following quotation is taken from the book The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary by Kevin McClure:

"There are many photographs of the crowd witnessing the vision; but in spite of the presence of cameras there is no photograph of the event that is even vaguely authentic; the one usually presented is actually of a solar eclipse in another part of the world, taken some time before 1917." (pg. 78)

On the following page is the same picture as presented in the article (albeit blown up a bit) with the following caption: "The photograph often presented as the solar miracle at Fatima."

McClure does not indicate how he knows that the photograph is of a solar eclipse taken at an earlier date in a different place, but at the very least, we should acknowledge that the authenticity of the photograph is in dispute. Albie34423 07:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

This article is riddled with POV but the critical response section is in dire need of help. However, the vast majority of citations are only attributed to one source, De Marchi, who is a Catholic priest. I don't think we can call that a reliable source, especially for an article that is supposed to be POV free. My initial impression was this whole thing makes it seem like there is very little debate that a miracle did in fact occur. Which is obviously not the case as the majority of the religious world is not Catholic. Though on second reading it doesn't seem as bad as I thought.A mcmurray 09:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

While it is true that De Marchi was a Catholic Priest who very much believed in the miraculous nature of the solar event and the apparitions in general, he did spent several years in Fatima during the 1940s carefully investigating these events. This includes digging up contemporary reports and interviewing surviving witnesses. I have read De Marchi's book and the basic facts that he reports seem reliable enough. The largest difficulty with regards to this event is trying to interpret exactly what happened both in the sky and on the ground that day. Jaki's book provides far more details and witness accounts. He is, however, a Benedictine priest, although unlike De Marchi he has a background in science. Jaki interprets the events as a meteorological miracle - that is to say, the only thing miraculous about it is the sheer coincidence of its timing. Kevin McClure and Joe Nickell each offer critical treatments of the event in their respective books, but these overviews are short and lack the depth of Jaki's treatment. Do you have any suggestions for what might improve this article? Albie34423 02:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me read it thoroughly and intricately and get back to you?A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 23:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking forward to it. Albie34423 06:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool. I am usually more specific. Sorry. My WikiStress levels are through the roof, so I haven't been about as much as when I tagged this article and made the original post here. I promise I will get to it though.A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 19:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)