Today is the feast of Archangels

[Alan Burns]

A brief extract from today's Word on Fire bulletin:

Do you remember how, a few years ago, there was an enormous interest in the culture in angels? One of my favorite stories had to do with a man who was flying a single-engine plane during a severe storm. At one point, his communication system failed, and he found himself without a means to make it to the airport.

Just as he was about to give up hope, a strong voice came through the radio. It gave directions to an airport the pilot knew nothing about. The voice guided him to the runway of a small airport. When he landed, he realised that the airport was abandoned. No personnel were on the ground or in the tower.

An accident? Or a sign that “there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio”?


And a copy of a post I made eight years ago:

A few weeks ago my wife and I were hosting a meal with two other Christian couples.  A piece of Bible text we discussed was the quote from Jesus that we all have Angels in heaven.  Our friend Helen seemed very moved by this reading, saying she had never come across it before.

Helen came up to us today after Mass to share something she had kept secret for twenty years.  It was twenty years ago when she was diagnosed with Multiple-Sclerosis, and she recalled walking down Stockton High Street in bright sunshine thinking about the warning she had just been given that her sight might soon fail due to MS.  She was looking at all the wonderful colours in the sunshine thinking soon she may never see them again in such vivid glory.

She was passing someone doing a street collection, and as she put her hand out to give a donation, the person took hold of her arm and said just one sentence: "Don't worry, your sight will never fail".  Helen was so frightened by this she walked quickly away, but then retraced her steps to try to speak to this person, but when she looked the person was gone.

Helen now needs to walk with crutches due to the MS, but her sight is still intact twenty years later.  Was it an angel sent to reassure her?

Personal witness stories are very powerful and hard to dismiss.
In order to dismiss the story you need to show that the person was either deluded or lying.
Or you can simply accept that angels do exist.

[SteveH]

Personal witness stories are anecdotal, hearsay, probably distorted and exaggerated by a process of Chinese whispers, and very easy to dismiss. The writer has also misquoted one of Shakespeare's most famous lines. It should be "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5). See what I mean about Chinese whispers?

[Stranger]

Personal witness stories are...

...pretty much worthless as evidence. Even first-hand eyewitness accounts of ordinary, everyday events are notoriously unreliable. You can find "personal witness stories" or anecdotes to support just about any crackpot idea you care to name. Certainly all religions, cults, and sects, together with the occult, and any paranormal nonsense you can dream up.

[Nearly Sane]

A brief extract from today's Word on Fire bulletin:

Do you remember how, a few years ago, there was an enormous interest in the culture in angels? One of my favorite stories had to do with a man who was flying a single-engine plane during a severe storm. At one point, his communication system failed, and he found himself without a means to make it to the airport.

Just as he was about to give up hope, a strong voice came through the radio. It gave directions to an airport the pilot knew nothing about. The voice guided him to the runway of a small airport. When he landed, he realised that the airport was abandoned. No personnel were on the ground or in the tower.

An accident? Or a sign that “there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio”?


And a copy of a post I made eight years ago:

A few weeks ago my wife and I were hosting a meal with two other Christian couples.  A piece of Bible text we discussed was the quote from Jesus that we all have Angels in heaven.  Our friend Helen seemed very moved by this reading, saying she had never come across it before.

Helen came up to us today after Mass to share something she had kept secret for twenty years.  It was twenty years ago when she was diagnosed with Multiple-Sclerosis, and she recalled walking down Stockton High Street in bright sunshine thinking about the warning she had just been given that her sight might soon fail due to MS.  She was looking at all the wonderful colours in the sunshine thinking soon she may never see them again in such vivid glory.

She was passing someone doing a street collection, and as she put her hand out to give a donation, the person took hold of her arm and said just one sentence: "Don't worry, your sight will never fail".  Helen was so frightened by this she walked quickly away, but then retraced her steps to try to speak to this person, but when she looked the person was gone.

Helen now needs to walk with crutches due to the MS, but her sight is still intact twenty years later.  Was it an angel sent to reassure her?

Personal witness stories are very powerful and hard to dismiss.
In order to dismiss the story you need to show that the person was either deluded or lying.
Or you can simply accept that angels do exist.

So you believe in alien abductions then.

[Enki]

A brief extract from today's Word on Fire bulletin:

Do you remember how, a few years ago, there was an enormous interest in the culture in angels? One of my favorite stories had to do with a man who was flying a single-engine plane during a severe storm. At one point, his communication system failed, and he found himself without a means to make it to the airport.

Just as he was about to give up hope, a strong voice came through the radio. It gave directions to an airport the pilot knew nothing about. The voice guided him to the runway of a small airport. When he landed, he realised that the airport was abandoned. No personnel were on the ground or in the tower.

An accident? Or a sign that “there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio”?


And a copy of a post I made eight years ago:

A few weeks ago my wife and I were hosting a meal with two other Christian couples.  A piece of Bible text we discussed was the quote from Jesus that we all have Angels in heaven.  Our friend Helen seemed very moved by this reading, saying she had never come across it before.

Helen came up to us today after Mass to share something she had kept secret for twenty years.  It was twenty years ago when she was diagnosed with Multiple-Sclerosis, and she recalled walking down Stockton High Street in bright sunshine thinking about the warning she had just been given that her sight might soon fail due to MS.  She was looking at all the wonderful colours in the sunshine thinking soon she may never see them again in such vivid glory.

She was passing someone doing a street collection, and as she put her hand out to give a donation, the person took hold of her arm and said just one sentence: "Don't worry, your sight will never fail".  Helen was so frightened by this she walked quickly away, but then retraced her steps to try to speak to this person, but when she looked the person was gone.

Helen now needs to walk with crutches due to the MS, but her sight is still intact twenty years later.  Was it an angel sent to reassure her?

Personal witness stories are very powerful and hard to dismiss.
In order to dismiss the story you need to show that the person was either deluded or lying.
Or you can simply accept that angels do exist.

Rather useless as evidence of angels, I would have said. They are simply anecdotal stories. The writer of the first one cannot even be arsed to quote accurately from Hamlet, as SteveH has pointed out.

[Sebastian Toe]

Personal witness stories are very powerful and hard to dismiss.
In order to dismiss the story you need to show that the person was either deluded or lying.
Or you can simply accept that angels do exist.

I'm glad that you brought this subject up.
You will of course now recognise that Mohammed was visited by an angel and that angel revealed to him that the Bible authors got some stuff not quite right.

Very powerful and hard to dismiss, isn't it?

[Alan Burns]

I'm glad that you brought this subject up.
You will of course now recognise that Mohammed was visited by an angel and that angel revealed to him that the Bible authors got some stuff not quite right.

Very powerful and hard to dismiss, isn't it?

Not all supernatural beings are good.
Have you ever read the Screwtape Letters?

[Alan Burns]

Personal witness stories are anecdotal, hearsay, probably distorted and exaggerated by a process of Chinese whispers, and very easy to dismiss. The writer has also misquoted one of Shakespeare's most famous lines. It should be "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5). See what I mean about Chinese whispers?

I can personally vouch for the fact that there were no Chinese whispers involved in Helen's witness.

[Stranger]

Not all supernatural beings are good.

Right, so we should only believe the anecdotes about your particular superstition and not the ones about others or alien abductions, magic spells, astrology, and so on, and so on, because........  you say so?

How very objective.   

[Sebastian Toe]

Not all supernatural beings are good.

Angels sent by god are not all good, is that what you are saying?

[jeremyp]

Personal witness stories are very powerful and hard to dismiss.
In order to dismiss the story you need to show that the person was either deluded or lying.
Or you can simply accept that angels do exist.

A random person on the internet is telling me a story that he heard from somebody else. Where could it possibly go wrong?

Well firstly, I don't know you. From your posts here you seem sincere but you could be a very clever troll.

The options I have are

1. you could be lying
2. You could have misheard the story
3. You could be exaggerating either deliberately or through confirmation bias.
4. The person who told you could be lying
5. The person who told you could be delusional
6. The person who told you could be exaggerating either deliberately or through confirmation bias.

7. There might be angels.

I've never come across an angel and I've never seen evidence other than anecdotes that angels exist. On the other hand people are mistaken or lying frequently, in my experience.

You should be able to see now why I don't find it hard to dismiss your friend's story.

One further point. Although MS can cause vision problems, it is only one of a number of very unpleasant symptoms MS sufferers can look forward to. In olden days, God would have cured Helen, at least if the stories are true. Instead he's saying "I've given you this very nasty incurable disease that will slowly destroy you, but be thankful I'm not taking your sight away". That's not really very comforting when looked at objectively.

[Alan Burns]

Angels sent by god are not all good, is that what you are saying?

Satan has helpers too.

[Sebastian Toe]

Satan has helpers too.

If you want to go down the Satan route, is it not possible that him and his helpers tricked the people who claim to have seen a risen Jesus?
That would be a good reason for Mohammed to have been given the corrected update!
Wouldn't it?

[Dicky Underpants]

Satan has helpers too.

And if you read Matthew 7:22 you will realise what a job you have to tell just whom you are serving.
All your anecdotes might suggest those involved were serving the Evil One.
What a pack of nonsense you've signed up to, Alan.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Personal witness stories are very powerful...

Only for the credulous.

...and hard to dismiss.

No, they're easy to dismiss for reasons I could explain to you but that you'd just ignore so there wouldn't be much point.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

[quote au²thor=bluehillside Retd. link=topic=20413.msg872191#msg872191 date=1697635101]
AB,

Only for the credulous.

No, they're easy to dismiss for reasons I could explain.

[/quote]
Go on then.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

"Optic neuritis, or inflammation of the optic (vision) nerve, is the first symptom of MS for about 20 percent of people who have the disease, and 50 percent of people who have MS experience it at some point in their disease course, according to a review published in June 2021 in Neurology and Therapy."

https://www.everydayhealth.com/multiple-sclerosis/symptoms/eye-complications-ms/#:~:text=Optic%20neuritis%2C%20or%20inflammation%20of,2021%20in%20Neurology%20and%20Therapy.

Seems your friend was fortunate enough to be in the 50% of MS sufferers who don't experience sight loss.

Hardly a miraculous occurrence right?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Go on then.

Explain why anecdotes aren't evidence? Seriousy?

Anecdotes aren't evidence because they're essentially subjective - ie prone to mistake, misremembering, wrong interpretation, exaggeration, lying, biases and various other failings. That you can find people who claim to have witnessed pretty much any mythical creature you've ever heard of should tell you that.

That's why the first test of evidence of objectivity.     

[jeremyp]

Go on then.

Witnesses could be mistaken could be lying. Or the people who wrote down the stories could have misheard them or constructed fictional witnesses.

Any one of these options is more credible than "a dead body came alive again".

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Witnesses could be mistaken could be lying.

Or they may not be. I think what you wanted to say was not ''could be'' but ''are''.

Or the people who wrote down the stories could have misheard them or constructed fictional witnesses.

[see previous comment]

Any one of these options is more credible than "a dead body came alive again".

More in certain contexts, I agree.

[Outrider]

Or they may not be. I think what you wanted to say was not ''could be'' but ''are''.

Hey, why argue with the point made when you can decide for yourself what strawman you wanted someone to say... At least you're open about your fallacies, now.

More in certain contexts, I agree.

Those contexts being 'real world' as opposed to 'fairy stories'.

O.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

"Optic neuritis, or inflammation of the optic (vision) nerve, is the first symptom of MS for about 20 percent of people who have the disease, and 50 percent of people who have MS experience it at some point in their disease course, according to a review published in June 2021 in Neurology and Therapy."

https://www.everydayhealth.com/multiple-sclerosis/symptoms/eye-complications-ms/#:~:text=Optic%20neuritis%2C%20or%20inflammation%20of,2021%20in%20Neurology%20and%20Therapy.

Seems your friend was fortunate enough to be in the 50% of MS sufferers who don't experience sight loss.

Hardly a miraculous occurrence right?

You totally missed the point.

The miracle was that a complete stranger who did not even know that Helen had MS was able to reassure her that she would not loose her sight.

[Gordon]

You totally missed the point.

The miracle was that a complete stranger who did not even know that Helen had MS was able to reassure her that she would not loose her sight.

A lucky guess, perhaps?

[jeremyp]

You totally missed the point.

The miracle was that a complete stranger who did not even know that Helen had MS was able to reassure her that she would not loose her sight.

I could go round randomly reassuring people they will not lose their sight. If I reassure enough people, through random chance, I'm likely to find myself reassuring people in danger of losing their sight. A proportion of those actually will not lose their sight. A proportion will. The former will think I am some kind of prophet. The latter will think I'm full of crap. No miracles needed, as long as they don't know about each other.

[jeremyp]

Or they may not be. I think what you wanted to say was not ''could be'' but ''are''.[see previous comment] More in certain contexts, I agree.

OK either the gospel writers were mistaken or lying or the alleged eye witnesses were - or somebody in the chain of passing the story from the former to the latter was.