MIRACLES THAT REFUTE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It
is paranormal.
Many Catholic miracles profess to affirm the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was
conceived without the sin of Adam afflicting her with the tendency to sin and
with rejection by God.
Lourdes is the most famous example. There the lady called herself the Immaculate
Conception.
This same doctrine was propounded in the Miraculous Medal apparitions of St
Catherine Laboure. “O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse
to thee”, was required to be stamped on each medal by divine command.
All Catholic miracles are supposed to show that the Roman
Catholic doctrinal system is true so all of them are for the Immaculate
Conception if they are from the Catholic God for the Immaculate Conception is as
much dogma as the deity of Jesus Christ.
The error in all these apparitions is in the fact that
they appeal to human testimony to defend their claims to be from God and to be
the truth and yet they speak of a miracle, namely the Immaculate Conception,
that was not a sign at all. The Immaculate Conception doctrine defies the
principle that a miracle is intended to direct humanity to the truth of God and
affirms the superstitious delusion that God makes mistakes despite being
almighty and needs to repair them.
As creator, God must cause the soul to inherit Adam’s sin
and must have miraculously made this possible. To stop making it possible he has
to do a miracle to reverse the rule. God’s not letting Mary contract the sin
implies that he protected her from himself and his desire to give her the sin
and not the sin. A perfect God saving a woman from himself! What an absurdity!
It would be better salvation not to be born at all when God is so treacherous.
The Immaculate Conception was an unnecessary miracle because God should not have
had to miraculously save Mary from original sin when all he had to do was simply
not give it to her. The Church says we are all cleansed of original sin but not
as completely as Mary at our baptism. It is full of these unseen miracles for
which there is no need. If God had not made sure we would get original sin at
conception, nature would have taken its course and we would not need the miracle
of baptism. The unseen miracles make the consistent Catholic unable to say that
miracles are meant to be signs. The miracles that do purport to be signs
blaspheme the dogmas.
The miracles that are not necessary and not signs in
Roman Catholicism are the immaculate conception, baptismal salvation, original
sin, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, extreme unction – not needed
when you have the sacrament of penance, papal infallibility – no need for the
pope to be infallible for he could depend on the infallibility of the Church
when he needs infallibility, the canonisation of saints – not necessary for holy
people can be an example without being canonised and we can pray to unknown
saints. The list is endless.
Another one worth mentioning is the miracle of the divine inspiration of the
Letter of Paul to Philemon which is a totally unnecessary scripture. The Bible
is full of material that could have been done without or which was repetition.
If the Roman Catholic Church has miracles that are not signs as these doctrines
all imply then how can any other religion have them? They stand as evidence
against any religion that does. Miracles are evil when they draw people to such
terrible errors.
Ridiculous (when adhered to in the long-term) and bigoted go hand in hand for
the person who is not bigoted and really wants to be right will think carefully.
They are bigoted against their own God if God is truth and comes first for they
do not make sure they are right as far as possible.
A more serious error is the teaching of the Bible and the
Church that you need to be able to help people to have virtue and yet the Bible
promises that one day we will have perfect happiness in Heaven so we will not
have the bother of helping anybody. They say it is because God wants us to
sacrifice for others that he did not start again after the sin of Adam and Eve
plunged us into disaster. He should have made a new Adam and Eve who would not
sin to be our parents. The doctrine of Heaven denies the importance of virtue so
to say miracles are from Heaven (and most of them superficially seem as if they
are) then it follows that the miracles have no message worth listening to for
they are into lies. I know the doctrine of Heaven as presently taught says that
if you practice virtue on earth you will be saved in Heaven but if it really
respected virtue it would say the more virtue the better so we should live in a
state of great happiness but not perfect happiness after death so that there
will be room for helping others and be like that forever and ever.
The fact that Jesus was supposedly resurrected to go to this marvellous Heaven
where suffering and helping others at the expense of yourself is just a bad
memory warns us that if the resurrection happened then the Devil was behind it.
Christianity says it is a sin not to agree that its creed
is the truth. If we can be condemned for having wrong and therefore bad beliefs
then it follows that Christianity is sinful if it is wrong and all its ecumenism
and praise for other religions is sinful mockery before God.
And why should we trust Christianity when only one cult can be right and the
vast numbers of cults and religions shows that most people tend towards sinful
religious beliefs and to nonsense?
Christianity’s boast that it is a sin not to believe in Christianity gives other
religious organisations the right to say the same about their doctrines. Anyway,
we see that religion has to be divisive and nasty meaning that miracles that
boost religious belief are nasty and of no theological value.
If bad beliefs are bad then what about terrible beliefs like eternal punishing
and original sin and the suffering of Jesus to pay to God for sins he never
committed? If these beliefs are wrong then it is grossly sinful to accept them
and miracles that seem to verify the Christian faith are of satanic origin and
prove that miracles should never be regarded as evidence for any theological
system being true. Nicer beliefs are possible and if God is nice it follows that
the system with the nicest doctrines should be accepted. Miracles suggest that
God is nasty and are trying to smear him if it is not true.
The Church says that only the revelation given up to the death of the last of
Jesus' apostles is infallible and required for belief of the Catholic.
Subsequent revelation does not have the same authority and is only intended to
reiterate the apostolic revelations. The Church says that Mary appearing at
Fatima in 1917 was private revelation. It says the Bible is public revelation.
It uses these terms to distinguish between revelation that is infallible and
binding and that which is fallible and not binding.
The distinction between private revelation and public revelation is arbitrary.
Take Knock. You have a better testimony that Mary was seen at the Church gable
than you do that Jesus Christ rose from the dead or that God inspired the Bible
book of Ecclesiastes. The resurrection and the Bible are considered public
revelation.
Knock then is really evidence against Catholicism despite its seeming Catholic
context.
The use of miracles to defend Catholic doctrine is an abuse.
Further Reading ~
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press,
Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist Press, New
York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust,
London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A
Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY,
undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry Singer, Junction
Books, London, 1981
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books,
New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Jesus Relics, From the Holy Grail to the Turin Shroud, Joe Nickell, The
History Press, Gloucestershire, 2008
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus Press,
Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997
THE WEB
The Problem of Competing Claims by Richard Carrier
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4c.html