Saturday, October 19, 2019

What To Make Of "Eucharistic Miracles"?

If you are not Catholic, this term may not be known to you. If so, here is a link explaining eucharistic miracles.

To clarify, miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (especially a deity), magic, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader. (link). So, for science to accept ANY miracle is a very high bar indeed (link, link). For further information on miracles in general, here is a link to all of my posts addressing the topic. 

Now, let's look at some of the many examples of supposed eucharistic miracles. Below are several links in support of these phenomena:

https://aleteia.org/2018/02/27/4-amazing-eucharistic-miracles-from-the-last-20-years/

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/eucharistic-miracles-evidence-of-the-real-presence-0

https://dowym.com/voices/5-incredible-eucharistic-miracles-from-the-last-25-years/

https://churchpop.com/2015/06/28/5-extraordinary-eucharistic-miracles-with-pictures/

If you read the above links and are not a science-based thinker, I think these phenomena would be fairly powerful evidence of miracles. However, let's be skeptical and look at these more carefully:

  • Many of the cases have poor provenance or place of origin. In all of the cases, a priest is involved with "guarding" the Host. The possibility of switching out of a regular host for the "miracle" specimen is possible. There have been magicians, artists, and other craftspersons for hundreds of years who could have formulated these miracle Hosts.
  • The chain of custody may be broken.
  • All of them are reported after the supposed event, thus, there never has been a situation where the original condition of the supposed miraculous Host was known so that a valid scientific experiment could be carried out.
  • The motivation for fraud in these situations is high. All of these cases could be frauds using natural materials (link).
  • These are extraordinary claims, thus require extraordinary evidence. Since Christianity has been falsified from the beginning because there were no literal Adam and Eve, thus no "Original Sin" (link), there was no need for a "Savior" or a Church providing a conduit to such.
My assessment of these claims of eucharistic miracles is that "I don't know" and the evidence does not reach the extraordinary level for me to accept them as authentic. This lengthy article "Science and Miracles" may further enlighten you about where I am coming from here.

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Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.

Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.
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