saint bernadette liar or deluded

shadowcomplex

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

ShooterSF

Who can tell? Give her the benefit of the doubt and say delusion.

MagicMarker

No idea, but it was one or the other.

fatmammycat

Yes.

oldrnwisr

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

I didn't think Lewis' trilemma extended to other Christian figures but in the words of Grampa Simpson:

"A little of column A, a little of column B."

Coriolanus

ShooterSF wrote: »

Who can tell? Give her the benefit of the doubt and say delusion.

This tbh. I'd rather believe (:o) that the religious are deluded than liars

Doctor DooM

Hate to the "the question is wrong" guy but you're making a mistake in thinking you can get a straight answer to your question, there's no one real specific atheist point of view, save for the lack of a belief in god concepts.

So some people will think she was a bit mental, some will think she was lying, some will not care, some will not know who she is, and some might even think aliens or ghosts did it.

it was ghosts. or delusion.

Dades

Also, she lived bloody years ago so who's to say which she was?

You could start the same thread for every saint and the answers would be the same. Why pick Saint Bernadette?

The Mad Hatter

OP, you could ask this in Christianity too and get exactly the same response from the non-catholic denominations.

Reports of a long-dead person having had visions has a raft of possible explanations (that she was lying, that she was experiencing hallucinations, that people have subsequently invented stories about her, that she was mistaken, and subsequent stories were embellished) - the question becomes: what exactly are you trying to prove with your post?

Dades

Dades wrote: »

You could start the same thread for every saint and the answers would be the same.

you in a hurry somewhere? :pac::pac:

sbsquarepants

Id say the question applies more to the like of this guy!www.joecolemanvisionary.com/

Back in Bernadettes day, mental illnesses for example were much more readily accepted as devine intervention or more likely demonic possession. Today the signs of schizophrenia etc are spotted for what they are. Tell people today you speak to jesus and odds are they can give you a pill that will shut him up.
The education level of those you tell also plays a part, there aren't too many pig ignorant peasants to be bamboozled these days.
The further back you go in time, the more likely it becomes that the whole thing was an "innocent" mix up. Even the so called experts back then didn't know what they were talking about. Today that's very unlikely, so the trilema becomes a dilema - spoofer or devine conduit?
Now i don't know Mr Coleman personaly, but im going to stick my neck out and say he isn't a devine conduit!

oldrnwisr

Dades wrote: »

Also, she lived bloody years ago so who's to say which she was?

You could start the same thread for every saint and the answers would be the same. Why pick Saint Bernadette?

Actually Dades, that's a great point. It reminded me of this little flurry of controversy from last year.

Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time

The article was quickly and comprehensively torn apart by many science bloggers including PZ and Tara Smith and was inevitably retracted.

The idea that you can determine a question such as the diagnosis of a disease in the bible or the mental health of a historical figure like Bernadette is impossible to the point of ridiculous.

cavedave

shadowcomplex

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

There is a part in 'don't sleep there are snakes' where all the amazon tribe see a man/spirit on the far side of the river. Everett does not see it but he really believes that they did see it.

What is this a picture of?


You are probably seeing a completely different picture to someone with a different cultural experience

As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another's views more readily. But I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally.

Daniel Everett

Was Bernadette seeing Jesus and Mary. She probably was. Did Jesus and Mary physically exist in the room in a take a picture of kind of way. Very unlikely

Zombrex

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

Both I would say. The first vision may have been a mistake and then when she found the attention lavished on her she made up the rest. Happens all the time

achtungbarry

The whole "Apparition of the Virgin" at Lourdes is simply another example of how the Catholic Church "catholosized" an event that had little or nothing to do with the Catholic religion much in the same way pagan festivals were taken over and transformed into more acceptable "Christian" events.

During the winter of 1858 a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous from the Pyreneen region of South West France reported seeing "a tiny figure dressed in white" or as she described her in the dialect of French she spoke "uo petito damisela"
It is important to note that the word "damiseala" had a very specifc connotation in this and other parts of France at the time. "Damisealas" was the name given to mythical "forest fairies" who dressed in white and disappeared if anybody came too close. At no time did the young girl claim to have seen the Virgin Mary.

The Catholic Church in the area were in fact quite concerned about the buzz created by this sighting (and subsequent sightings) and saw it as a threat to their own religious authority. Thousands of pilgrims visiting a Pagan shrine was obviously not ideal.

So the Catholic Church did what only the Catholic Church can do in these situations and claimed the "petito damisela" for themselves under the new guise of "La Vierge" in an attempt to divert the religious fervour back to themselves. On 18 January 1860, the local bishop declared that it was in fact The Virgin Mary that appeared to Bernadette Soubirous. Bernadette was then 'persuaded' that this was indeed the case.

This was common practice in France at the time and the hundreds of Pagan stone formations with crude crosses hammered or carved into them scattered around France are a testament to this.

Source : Graham Robb,The discovery of France. A great book for anyone with an interest in France.

I also lived in South West France (1999-2000) for a year and had roughly this same explanation given to me on numerous occasions by 3 amused colleagues from Lourdes delighted at seeing the hoards of visitors spending silly amounts of money in their town every year.

Just goes to show that Acid was as strong back then as it is now

Sarky

I sometimes look at the book of revelations and wonder how on earth so many people think the author was not absolutely out of his tree on some kind of hallucinogen.

robindch

Sarky wrote: »

I sometimes look at the book of revelations and wonder how on earth so many people think the author was not absolutely out of his tree on some kind of hallucinogen.

Skinner's Pigeons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_the_pigeon

alex73

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

Well I am sure all you Atheists will 100% conclude she was totally deluded...

Good think her delusion helped others recover, like John Traynor & Gabriel Garga.

But even us Catholics are not forced to believe in apparitions.

alex73

achtungbarry wrote: »

The whole "Apparition of the Virgin" at Lourdes is simply another example of how the Catholic Church "catholosized" an event that had little or nothing to do with the Catholic religion much in the same way pagan festivals were taken over and transformed into more acceptable "Christian" events.

During the winter of 1858 a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous from the Pyreneen region of South West France reported seeing "a tiny figure dressed in white" or as she described her in the dialect of French she spoke "uo petito damisela"
It is important to note that the word "damiseala" had a very specifc connotation in this and other parts of France at the time. "Damisealas" was the name given to mythical "forest fairies" who dressed in white and disappeared if anybody came too close. At no time did the young girl claim to have seen the Virgin Mary.

The Catholic Church in the area were in fact quite concerned about the buzz created by this sighting (and subsequent sightings) and saw it as a threat to their own religious authority. Thousands of pilgrims visiting a Pagan shrine was obviously not ideal.

So the Catholic Church did what only the Catholic Church can do in these situations and claimed the "petito damisela" for themselves under the new guise of "La Vierge" in an attempt to divert the religious fervour back to themselves. On 18 January 1860, the local bishop declared that it was in fact The Virgin Mary that appeared to Bernadette Soubirous. Bernadette was then 'persuaded' that this was indeed the case.

This was common practice in France at the time and the hundreds of Pagan stone formations with crude crosses hammered or carved into them scattered around France are a testament to this.

Source : Graham Robb,The discovery of France. A great book for anyone with an interest in France.

I also lived in South West France (1999-2000) for a year and had roughly this same explanation given to me on numerous occasions by 3 amused colleagues from Lourdes delighted at seeing the hoards of visitors spending silly amounts of money in their town every year.

Yeah you forgot to add that the Girl was given a message... "que soy era Immaculada Councepciou" I suppose she just invented it.


Strange how many religious topics end up in this forum.

alex73

alex73 wrote: »

Well I am sure all you Atheists will 100% conclude she was totally deluded...

Good think her delusion helped others recover, like John Traynor & Gabriel Garga.

But even us Catholics are not forced to believe in apparitions.

Recover from...?
And how do you know that they did?

Doctor DooM

alex73 wrote: »

Well I am sure all you Atheists will 100% conclude she was totally deluded...

Hey, that's not fair.



Some of us think she was lying

oldrnwisr

alex73 wrote: »

Well I am sure all you Atheists will 100% conclude she was totally deluded...

As long as you ignore the 19 posts before yours, then sure.

alex73 wrote: »

Good think her delusion helped others recover, like John Traynor & Gabriel Garga.

Wow, two logical fallacies in one single point. That's impressive. Now if you had actual evidence of something miraculous, that would be great.

oldrnwisr

alex73 wrote: »

Yeah you forgot to add that the Girl was given a message... "que soy era Immaculada Councepciou" I suppose she just invented it.

No, she wasn't given a message. She asked the apparition/dream/delusion who she was and got the answer que soy era Immaculada Counceptiou. So she mentioned a phrase which had been around for 400 years before she was even born and quoted it in her own native language as well. Some miracle.

Now if she had said it in Klingon or Sindarin, that would have been cause for comment.

robindch

alex73 wrote: »

But even us Catholics are not forced to believe in apparitions.

I think Paul of Tarsus might disagree with you on that one.

pH

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Basically st bernadette claimed to have seen 18 apparitions of what catholics belief is the jesuses mother mary, so was she deluded or telling lies from an atheists point of view

A far more interesting question is what Christians think is the truth about say Mohammed or Joseph Smith. Were they dishonest liars or delusional fools eh?

achtungbarry

alex73 wrote: »

Yeah you forgot to add that the Girl was given a message... "que soy era Immaculada Councepciou" I suppose she just invented it.


Strange how many religious topics end up in this forum.

.

You are correct to suspicious. It is highly unlikely that she invented this. Those who put pressure on her to change her story however ........

As mentioned the girl never claimed to have seen the 'Virgin Mary'.

She only changed her story after coming under pressure from the local church authorities. The whole 'virgin mary' and 'que soy era Immaculada Councepciou' only became part of the story almost 2 years after the first 'apparition' and after the intervention of the church.

stanley 2

Faith is a gift
if you havent been given it yet try a bit of prayer itle do no harm and maybe

Sarky

Tried it, got better results from getting things done by myself. Don't need prayer or faith, I'm quite content to forge my own path in a chaotic and ultimately rudderless universe. Maybe you could give it a try some time, it's tremendously liberating.

achtungbarry

stanley 2 wrote: »

Faith is a gift
if you havent been given it yet try a bit of prayer itle do no harm and maybe

'Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.'

I prefer to roll up my own sleeves to sort out my own problems or make good things happen in my life. I find it much more productive than asking a supernatural being to intervene on my behalf.

achtungbarry

alex73 wrote: »

Good think her delusion helped others recover, like John Traynor & Gabriel Garga.

That's just super. Now if you just provide us all with a little evidence to back up this claim, I'm sure we would all be grateful.

MagicMarker

lol, I googled John Traynor, apparently he was paralyzed for a number of years, then one morning got up and went for a run. Naturally the only results from google are religious websites.

Dades

alex73 wrote: »

Strange how many religious topics end up in this forum.

You really think that's strange? Really?

Long Term Louth wrote: »

Just wondering lads, who do atheists thank when they have a bit of luck?

"Bejasus", usually.

Dades

Dades wrote: »

You really think that's strange? Really?
.

It's almost as if we're in some sort of...religion subsection of the boards.

Zombrex

alex73 wrote: »

Well I am sure all you Atheists will 100% conclude she was totally deluded...

Good think her delusion helped others recover, like John Traynor & Gabriel Garga.

But even us Catholics are not forced to believe in apparitions.

Good thing the ghost of Elvis made my arthrites go away.... :rolleyes:

Zombrex

alex73 wrote: »

Strange how many religious topics end up in this forum.

Personally I always felt the humour forum made the A&A forum some what redundant, we could just post religious nonsense there and get a good old laugh out of it. But I guess the powers that be had other ideas ....

Zombrex

achtungbarry wrote: »

.

You are correct to suspicious. It is highly unlikely that she invented this. Those who put pressure on her to change her story however ........

As mentioned the girl never claimed to have seen the 'Virgin Mary'.

She only changed her story after coming under pressure from the local church authorities. The whole 'virgin mary' and 'que soy era Immaculada Councepciou' only became part of the story almost 2 years after the first 'apparition' and after the intervention of the church.

Wait wait wait wait just a darn minute there.

Are you suggesting that a religious story could have in fact been based more on embellishment and exaggeration that evolved along with the story itself to the point where, down the line, believers of the story had no way of assessing what was the original claims made and what had been added later.

Surely if such a thing was possible no one but the most naive and ignorant people would except such stories as accurate?

Since clearly religious people are not naive nor ignorant what you claim cannot be possible.

fatmammycat

stanley 2 wrote: »

Faith is a gift
if you havent been given it yet try a bit of prayer itle do no harm and maybe

Faith is a made up emotional crutch used be people who believe in magic, but are afraid to say they believe in magic, so they use belief in a supernatural being instead. How the 'faithful' have the audacity to expect other people to take them seriously amazes me.

branie

Lads, to quote the Song of Bernadette:

"For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible."

achtungbarry

branie wrote: »

Lads, to quote the Song of Bernadette:

"For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible."

I don't believe in any gods and I just gave an explanation of the events in Lourdes.

achtungbarry

achtungbarry wrote: »

I don't believe in any gods and I just gave an explanation of the events in Lourdes.

at least she is admitting "god did it" is not an explanation

ISAW

MagicMarker wrote: »

No idea, but it was one or the other.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I didn't think Lewis' trilemma extended to other Christian figures but in the words of Grampa Simpson:

"A little of column A, a little of column B."

Nevore wrote: »

This tbh. I'd rather believe (:o) that the religious are deluded than liars

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

OP, you could ask this in Christianity too and get exactly the same response from the non-catholic denominations.

Reports of a long-dead person having had visions has a raft of possible explanations (that she was lying, that she was experiencing hallucinations, that people have subsequently invented stories about her, that she was mistaken, and subsequent stories were embellished) - the question becomes: what exactly are you trying to prove with your post?

achtungbarry wrote: »

That's just super. Now if you just provide us all with a little evidence to back up this claim, I'm sure we would all be grateful.

Okay her is my skeptical take
the "lying or deluded" version is a false dichotomy

Bernadette spoke Gascon and used the word "aquero" meaning "that". She saw 18 apparations and the identification was not made til the 17th.
Apparenely on the 17th apparition Bernadette said (Qué soï era immaculado councepcioũ, a phonetic transcription of Que soi era immaculada concepcion) "I am the Immaculate conception" as a quote from the Lady. Four years earlier, Pope Pius IX had defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Her parents, teachers, and priests all later testified that she had never previously heard the expression 'immaculate conception' from them. She was a peasant girl and I think illiterate so how could she know about these "lofty" theological concepts?

That brings in the conspiracy theory that "someone else who knew theology was lying"
Also the church and others did investigate and records were kept.
There is also the idea that mass hallucination took place i.e. that people ate grain that could have been contaminated with ergot. Indeed the Lady did ask her to eat the grass several times and she did so!

As for no medical evidence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_Medical_Bureau

... an official organization within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, but is administered and run only by doctors. Its most noted function is the medical investigation of apparent cures associated with the shrine of Lourdes.

They are neither deluded nor lying either.

Lourdes is not a required belief of the RCC.

stanley 2

life has a way of showing people that there has to be somthing else what ever you care to call it .May be and i hope you dont have to expierence this burying your children enoughf of this as i said it is a gift you have tried prayer ok I try to pray for you to regards

cavedave

ISAW

Bernadette spoke Gascon and used the word "aquero" meaning "that". She saw 18 apparations and the identification was not made til the 17th.
Apparenely on the 17th apparition Bernadette said (Qué soï era immaculado councepcioũ, a phonetic transcription of Que soi era immaculada concepcion) "I am the Immaculate conception" as a quote from the Lady. Four years earlier, Pope Pius IX had defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Her parents, teachers, and priests all later testified that she had never previously heard the expression 'immaculate conception' from them. She was a peasant girl and I think illiterate so how could she know about these "lofty" theological concepts?

I am always very suspicious that aliens/spirits/apparitions give messages saying things like "tell mankind to be kind to each other". No ghost ever says to an illiterate pheasant "Quick take down these symbols they are a proof of the Riemann hypothesis". If that happened rather then whatever particular mumbo jumbo phrase happens to be be popular at the time I would find the apparition more convincing.


On medical miracles the question still arises as to why god hates amputees?

oldrnwisr

ISAW wrote: »

Bernadette spoke Gascon and used the word "aquero" meaning "that". She saw 18 apparations and the identification was not made til the 17th.
Apparenely on the 17th apparition Bernadette said (Qué soï era immaculado councepcioũ, a phonetic transcription of Que soi era immaculada concepcion) "I am the Immaculate conception" as a quote from the Lady. Four years earlier, Pope Pius IX had defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Her parents, teachers, and priests all later testified that she had never previously heard the expression 'immaculate conception' from them. She was a peasant girl and I think illiterate so how could she know about these "lofty" theological concepts?

That's not strictly true ISAW. While Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the phrase itself had been around over 400 years before the girl in question was even born.

From OSV's Encyclpoaedia of Catholic History:

"The foremost of these was the great Fransiscan John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), who formulated the concept of preredemption. For his triumphant work Duns Scotus is called "Herald of the Immaculate Conception.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception was approved in 1476 by Sixtus IV, and in 1568 it was extended to the entire church by Pope St. Pius V who just the year before had excommunicated Michael Baius (1513-1589) for denying that Mary was free from Original Sin."

The idea that the phrase immaculate conception was unknown in 1858 is ludicrous.

ISAW wrote: »

As for no medical evidence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_Medical_Bureau


They are neither deluded nor lying either.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

smokingman

stanley 2 wrote: »

life has a way of showing people that there has to be somthing else what ever you care to call it .May be and i hope you dont have to expierence this burying your children enoughf of this as i said it is a gift you have tried prayer ok I try to pray for you to regards

Just to be helpful, I'll put a voodoo doll imbued with all your problems in life into a fire for you. I know how much that will help and how grateful you would be.

fatmammycat

stanley 2 wrote: »

life has a way of showing people that there has to be somthing else what ever you care to call it .May be and i hope you dont have to expierence this burying your children enoughf of this as i said it is a gift you have tried prayer ok I try to pray for you to regards

Typical arrogance. And what if we have lost children and loved ones and still don't require this magical 'faith' in a deity to survive? What does that say about your needs?

Sarky

stanley 2 wrote: »

life has a way of showing people that there has to be somthing else what ever you care to call it .May be and i hope you dont have to expierence this burying your children enoughf of this as i said it is a gift you have tried prayer ok I try to pray for you to regards

Nope, but people have a way of only noticing the patterns in life that reinforce what they want to be true. They tend to ignore everything else, even when there's far more of it and it proves them wrong.

If I ever have kids and one of them dies on me, I'm more likely to cover them in jam and shoot them into space than bury them. Non-religious, remember?

And don't bother praying for me, I'm doing fine by myself. Maybe you could pray for something else, like world peace? By the looks of things, nobody has ever prayed for it before.

fatmammycat

I love it when people say they'll pray for you, reminds me of the heated argument I had with my mother a while back.
Her ( I'm atheist) : 'I'll pray for you!'
Me ( she's fat) : 'I'll diet for you.'

yeah, good luck with that.

Who the hell tries to bring "i hope you dont bury your children" up as some kind of theistic argument
ffs that's low

yeah well i hope you don't get mangled and die horribly and in pain. deal? :rolleyes: