Knock Knock

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Hilarious. And you say your view of the Catholic Church isn't Protestant-biased? 😵

The Church does NOT have to accept ALL phenomena as religious. It's such a ridiculous claim that I don't even know where to start. So if I say I saw Jesus in my feces, the Church has to accept it? Are they hypocrites because they distance themselves from some phenomena claimed to be religious (by me) and they "profit enormously" from religious phenomena? I think you're just squinting too hard to see something.

If Catholic priests suddenly discovered honesty, the Church would close tomorrow.
And I'm the bigot? This is the typical Protestant stereotype of Catholic priests. That you even fail to recognize is more evidence of your bias.

Do curious bystanders bring rosary beads?
This is just deflection. Did they all bring rosary beads? Obviously not. How many did? The question remains unanswered.

Can the Church preach both faith and reason, without self-contradiction?
The Church of today has taught of faith and reason as being good complements and poor substitutes. There is no contradiction is accepting some things by faith and denying others through reason.

How can Archbishop Neary on one hand demand that Knock retains its 'authentic identity' and on the other ignore the plethora of tacky religious memorabilia and souvenir shops that line the main street in Knock?
LOL! You're really clutching at straws here, aren't you? I don't see much harm there or how the shops in the main street of Knock have anything to do with this.

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A 'clairvoyant' passing the hat for a collection that doesn't benefit the Church, the Shrine nor the faithful? Of course he is to be condemned as a charlatan.
And you know this...how? Why can't they simply see a charlatan and say so? After all, it's obvious to me that he is one.

The only reason is that you're a bigot (and have the gall to call me one!) who sees Catholic priests as dishonest (your claim above). And you take this as an axiomatic truth from which you derive your (sad) conclusions.

Why accept this by faith and not the sun spinning in the sky? Which is the more exceptional phenomena?
I'll repeat: It is not about how "exceptional" the phenomena is. The question is whether they believe it happened or not! And the priest is under no obligation to believe everything.

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I repeat: It's not a contradiction. The church has never claimed ALL unlikely phenomena are acceptable and actually many times has created commissions that investigate claims of miracles.

Having faith is not about being gullible about anything that is claimed to be divine, nor is stressing out the importance of reason about renouncing faith.

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I am sure they have reasons for accepting or rejecting or remaining agnostic on any phenomena. The only question is whether those reasons are the ones that you are guessing they are (money, self benefit etc) or whether they are other reasons. You are not doing a very good job at showing that your preferred set of reasons are the primary ones - if anything you seem to be claiming that there can be no reasons other than arbitrary ones and if the results seem to benefit the Church then they must be cheating.

It is my understanding that the Catholic Church almost never declares any phenomena to be undoubtedly genuine.

I fully agree that we should do away with superstitious nonsense, but poor arguments wont get us very far in that direction.

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Entirely sensible. The Catholic authorities have for a long time sought to distance the Church from so-called apparitions. One of the most famous ones is the apparition at Medjugorje. These kind of apparitions quickly develop into a cult. In the case of Medjugorje, the parish priest claimed that Mary herself dictated a set of prayers. While bishops must accept the possibility of Marian apparitions and angelic visitations (there is after all a long tradition, not only in Knock but more famously at Fatima), bishops have to be wary that religious fakes and the mentally unbalanced do not lead Catholics astray. Just consider this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1581424/Dozens-blinded-in-India-looking-for-Virgin-Mary.html

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What point remains? The Catholic Church is part of a religion that is based on the miracles and the supernatural. This is true of all Christian denominations because no Christian Church that believes in a historical Jesus can deny the supernatural because Jesus is allegedly part of it.

But now you come on your high horse and accuse them of asking people to be rational against an obvious charlatan. Oh, what hypocrites they are for not believing this particular claim. Really?

The thing is that the Protestant money-grubbing vision of Catholicism is too imprinted in your head and you interpret this trifle case under the money-grubbing light. But the fact remains that you have no way of knowing the "true" motive that you claim to know.

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Of course the Church prevents the gullible from following competition. It wouldn't have evolved from a cult itself into a worldwide religion by tolerating other beliefs.

I agree with Palynka. This is the old 'power-hungry Catholic' argument. Firstly, this isn't actually a case of competition or intolerance. It is Catholics themselves who have claimed this prophesy. Secondly, this is the standard response to apparitions. Putative apparitions can have dangerous consequences (the link I pointed to indicated 50 people have been blinded) and bishops have an obligation to point out the possibility of charlatans so that their own flock are not harmed. If an apparition is proved after a period of time and the person who claims the vision has been tested sane, then the bishop can allow public devotions.

Originally posted by Starrman
Out of interest, how can a spherical object of uniform colour and brightness (as seen by the human eye) be seen to spin?

It's not uniform. There are sunspots.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
It's not uniform. There are sunspots.

I have never seen sunspots by looking unaided directly at the sun. Have you?