"Miracles"

[Belly Bionic]

A friend sent me a link to this news story today:
http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headlines/26070944.html

It must be a slow news day if someone seeing the image of Jesus on
their cat is news. However, we hear about things like this pretty
regularly. A few weeks ago, DGG and I were in Salt Lake City,
visiting my mom, and we stopped to see the Mary Tree. People in the
neighborhood have built a shrine around a tree, and people from a
local Catholic church guard the tree in shifts 24 hours a day. We
climbed the little staircase to see the cut limb that supposedly
contains the image of the Blessed Virgin, but it's just a smudge of
tree sap.

There's also the example of the "Holy Fire" in Jerusalem (http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1I6wlobutc). Any thinking person can look at
this video and see clearly that there's nothing miraculous about the
fire. The guy who waves the fire around his face and neck doesn't get
burned because his skin doesn't stay in the fire long enough to burn.
You can watch hours of footage of "Holy Fire" on YouTube, and the one
constant is that you'll never see anyone just stick their hand or face
in the fire and leave it there, because they would get badly burned if
they did. What you do see is people waving their hands through the
fire, or waving the fire quickly around their face. It's the same
thing as firewalking. People walking on hot coals don't avoid burns
because they're protected by a deity or because they're more
enlightened than the rest of us. Anyone with the physical ability to
walk quickly can fire walk. They don't get burned because the coals
aren't as hot as they'd like you to believe, and the soles of their
feet don't stay in contact with the coals long enough to burn.

So why are so many religious people so determined to believe these
things? I can understand the belief in deities, since most cultures
indoctrinate people to believe such things from a young age, and it's
mostly interpretation of a book, but these things are clearly,
demonstrably, just-look-at-what's-right-in-front-of-your-face fake.
So why are so many people so desperate to be conned?

[4praise]

When I was living in North Idaho I visited this church and played
music at a few conferences there. I met the guy in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yklHO9RfQ54

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6itjLrGgLY0&feature=related

He is a normal guy - doesn't appear to have any "David Copperfield"
skills. He's been finding these gems - I've seen the gems - they are
about the size of a quarter in diameter and about 1/4 inch thick.
They have taken them to jewelers and they were unable to identify what
the stones are made of.

Frequently this guy will have "gold dust" suddenly cover his head and
his hands - I personally saw this happen once in a meeting and there
wasn't any explanation for it - he was standing there "clean" and then
suddenly he had this gold dust on him.

This is happening in a few places around the world (Puerto Rico,
Redding CA) right now but this is the only one that I can personally
attest to and say that I met the man, he's not an actor. And I even
saw the gold dust phenomenon in person.

On Jul 30, 11:11 am, Belly Bionic <bellybio...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A friend sent me a link to this news story today:http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headlines/26070944.html
>
> It must be a slow news day if someone seeing the image of Jesus on
> their cat is news. However, we hear about things like this pretty
> regularly. A few weeks ago, DGG and I were in Salt Lake City,
> visiting my mom, and we stopped to see the Mary Tree. People in the
> neighborhood have built a shrine around a tree, and people from a
> local Catholic church guard the tree in shifts 24 hours a day. We
> climbed the little staircase to see the cut limb that supposedly
> contains the image of the Blessed Virgin, but it's just a smudge of
> tree sap.
>

> There's also the example of the "Holy Fire" in Jerusalem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1I6wlobutc). Any thinking person can look at

[Drafterman]

On Jul 31, 1:06 am, 4praise <re...@rawministry.org> wrote:
> When I was living in North Idaho I visited this church and played
> music at a few conferences there.  I met the guy in this video
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yklHO9RfQ54
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6itjLrGgLY0&feature=related
>
> He is a normal guy - doesn't appear to have any "David Copperfield"
> skills.  He's been finding these gems - I've seen the gems - they are
> about the size of a quarter in diameter and about 1/4 inch thick.
> They have taken them to jewelers and they were unable to identify what
> the stones are made of.
>
> Frequently this guy will have "gold dust" suddenly cover his head and
> his hands - I personally saw this happen once in a meeting and there
> wasn't any explanation for it - he was standing there "clean" and then
> suddenly he had this gold dust on him.

Explanation: You were had.

> > So why are so many people so desperate to be conned?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[random]

Was any of the events ever checked in a controlled environment?

[Belly Bionic]

I watched both videos. I can't help noticing that someone from the
church (who isn't named and isn't on camera) is the one who verified
that the dust is real gold, and "gemologists" who also aren't named
and aren't on camera, supposedly said the gems can't be identified.
The person who talks about the gemstones on camera gives information
that is completely wrong. All gemstones do not have inclusions.
Natural gemstones without inclusions are rare, and therefore very
valuable, but they do exist. Lab grown gemstones are usually totally
free of inclusions. That's half the point of growing them in a lab.
If you're shopping for jewelry and your jeweler tells you that no
gemstone is totally free of inclusions, you should find a new jeweler,
especially if they're talking about lab grown stones. In verifying my
understanding of gemstones and inclusions for this post, I found
online retailers and wholesalers selling gemstones that look just like
the ones in the video. I'd be far more impressed if the gems
supposedly falling from the sky were, say, rainbow colored. Or if
they had intricate designs in the stones. As it is, they look very
much like common gemstones. There's nothing amazing about them that I
can see. Cubic Zirconia of that size, for example, is easy to get,
cheap, and readily available in all the colors this couple has.

I also can't help noticing that none of the stones were caught on
camera falling from the sky. No one but the man and his wife saw any
of them fall. The ones that supposedly fell while the camera crew was
filming were all "seen" by the man being interviewed, who claimed to
have seen one fall and then went and picked up a stone out of the
grass. The stones are small and could easily have been placed in the
grass before the camera crew arrived. The same is true of the gold
dust. When you saw it happen, did you actually see the gold falling
out of the sky? Or did the man excitedly point out that it had
happened, and then you saw the gold dust on his head? He looks like a
large man. Very few people would be able to see gold dust on his head
unless he deliberately showed it to them, and no one would notice the
tiny flecks of gold dust on his clothes unless they were looking very
closely for it. Since people don't generally look at the top of other
people's heads, it's something that would be very easy to "hide in
plain sight." The gold dust that is shown on his head in the video is
also readily available and while expensive, not prohibitively so. A 1
gram jar of 23k edible gold dust retails for less than $100. A jar of
culinary grade gold luster dust (which is what the dust on his head
looks like) is easy to get, looks just like gold and costs less than
$5. I've got more than enough of it in my pantry right now to
recreate this "miracle."

[Belly Bionic]

Edit: Upon further research, I've found that real, 24k gold dust can
be purchased for less than $20/gram if you know where to shop.

http://www.anoccasionalchocolate.com/edible-glitter.html

[DreadGeekGrrl]

Just a quick note:

The reason why firewalking works is because of the low heat
conductivity of coals. I'll put it in the context of a cake in the
oven. If you put your hand in the oven, you can keep it there because
even though the air is hot, it has fairly low conductivity. You can
touch the cake because the cake itself has *very* low conductivity.
But you can't touch the pan with a bare hand because metal has very
high conductivity. So what happens in firewalking is that the walkers
are exposing their feat to a low-conductive surface and the surface
area of the individual coals is also very small and the time in
contact is very short.

Cheers
DGG

On Jul 30, 11:11 am, Belly Bionic <bellybio...@gmail.com> wrote:

> A friend sent me a link to this news story today:http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headlines/26070944.html
>
> It must be a slow news day if someone seeing the image of Jesus on
> their cat is news.  However, we hear about things like this pretty
> regularly.  A few weeks ago, DGG and I were in Salt Lake City,
> visiting my mom, and we stopped to see the Mary Tree.  People in the
> neighborhood have built a shrine around a tree, and people from a
> local Catholic church guard the tree in shifts 24 hours a day.  We
> climbed the little staircase to see the cut limb that supposedly
> contains the image of the Blessed Virgin, but it's just a smudge of
> tree sap.
>

> There's also the example of the "Holy Fire" in Jerusalem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1I6wlobutc).  Any thinking person can look at

[DreadGeekGrrl]

4praise:

Several questions present themselves readily.

1> Is there any film of a gem falling from the sky or are all the gems
'found' in situ?
2> Regarding the gold dust was this done in a controlled environment?
Were there any magicians around? (I don't mean someone with an amateur
kit who knows a card trick or two but a real, professional magician
who is neutral on the matter.)
3> Did you eliminate the possibility that you were hoodwinked? If so,
how did you do so?

Cheers
DGG

On Jul 30, 10:06 pm, 4praise <re...@rawministry.org> wrote:

[Dag Yo]

> However, we hear about things like this pretty
> regularly. A few weeks ago, DGG and I were in Salt Lake City,
> visiting my mom, and we stopped to see the Mary Tree.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. And i'm mad that people guard
the damn thing -- presumably with the thought that "what i'm doing is
very important because God made it look like this with his magic
powers."

On Jul 30, 11:11 am, Belly Bionic <bellybio...@gmail.com> wrote:

> A friend sent me a link to this news story today:http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headlines/26070944.html
>
> It must be a slow news day if someone seeing the image of Jesus on
> their cat is news. However, we hear about things like this pretty
> regularly. A few weeks ago, DGG and I were in Salt Lake City,
> visiting my mom, and we stopped to see the Mary Tree. People in the
> neighborhood have built a shrine around a tree, and people from a
> local Catholic church guard the tree in shifts 24 hours a day. We
> climbed the little staircase to see the cut limb that supposedly
> contains the image of the Blessed Virgin, but it's just a smudge of
> tree sap.
>

> There's also the example of the "Holy Fire" in Jerusalem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1I6wlobutc). Any thinking person can look at

[Belly Bionic]

It wasn't anything we were forced to do. We were just driving around,
I was showing DGG the sights, since I grew up there and she'd never
really been to the city except to drive straight through. We weren't
harassed or anything. The "guards" are generally just sitting in
their car at the curb (the tree is in the parking strip at a little
neighborhood park), or sitting on one of the benches next to the
tree. We weren't harassed in any way, and we went because we're both
interested in such things and wanted to see it. We went to Temple
Square for the same reason.

[thea]

Just a story:

 

Years ago in Northern California after heavy rains, my father noticed an old man panning for gold in the gutters.

 

When my father approached him, he showed him the gold that he had gotten.  My father asked him how you tell the difference between real gold and fools gold. 

 

The old man told my father that real gold will shine in the shade - and fools gold only shines in the sunlight.

 

thea

 

[DreadGeekGrrl]

(In verifying my
understanding of gemstones and inclusions for this post,)

And herein we see a fundamental difference between the way a conscious
non-theist goes about defending her position and the way all but the
most rare of the theists go about doing so. As opposed to just
spouting off about some arcane and technical subject she was not
expert about, Belly went and did *research* to check her facts. And
not to a site where her preconceptions would necessarily be validated,
but to a reliable source she then went the extra step and explained
*why* she took the position she did as opposed to argument from fiat.
I'm not saying that *all* non-theists do this and *no* theists do.
But as a general trend, one of the differences between the way
believers (of just about any stripe) and questioners handle things is
that the former will happily wax long about even the most arcane of
matters without doing so much as even preliminary research much less
fact-checking while the latter will attempt, more often than not, to
develop at least a cursory understanding of a subject and to convey
that understanding as opposed to argument from fiat. We assume that if
we spout off about some subject someone is going to check up on it,
and we really don't want to have to eat that crow without any
condiments if we don't have to. I believe that many theists, for
reasons I will leave up to speculation, don't make that assumption
that they will be fact checked.


Cheers
DGG

On Jul 31, 1:14 pm, Belly Bionic <bellybio...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dag Yo]

My apologies, unfortunately letters on a screen have a nasty habit of
failing to convey all the inflection I would have used when saying
such a thing in person. It was an ironic apology. Ce la vie.

[4praise]

1 - not that I know of
2 - It was during a church meeting - he was in the back of the room,
the music was playing, he was standing there with no dust then the
dust appeared on him. I am well aware that a prestidigitator can pull
this sort of thing off but that's why I brought up this particular
video - I met this guy and he is a real average Joe. If he is faking
this, then he's actually made this his entire life's work - he's spent
50 years building up this image as an average guy so that he could
hoodwink people
3 - no. I did ask myself if there was ANY reason why this guy would
fake something like this. About the only reason I can think of would
be to get attention. The thing is that if it were left to him, this
wouldn't be on youtube - the pastors at the church are the ones that
are "promoting" it. That day that I saw him sweat gold at the church,
he was in the back and he didn't go to the front or try to point it
out to anyone. Secondly, I asked myself if He COULD pull it off. I
suppose anything is possible, but I can attest that his demeanor as
seen in the video is the same way that he is off camera. Atypical of
magician types.

If I were going to take a skeptics view of this, the path that I might
follow is perhaps trying to find a natural explanation - maybe there
is one. Maybe some people sweat gold ???

On Jul 31, 1:52 pm, DreadGeekGrrl <dreadg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 4praise:
>
> Several questions present themselves readily.
>
> 1> Is there any film of a gem falling from the sky or are all the gems
> 'found' in situ?
> 2> Regarding the gold dust was this done in a controlled environment?
> Were there any magicians around? (I don't mean someone with an amateur
> kit who knows a card trick or two but a real, professional magician
> who is neutral on the matter.)

> 3> Did you eliminate the poic ssibility that you were hoodwinked? If so,

[Dag Yo]

> If I were going to take a skeptics view of this, the path that I might
> follow is perhaps trying to find a natural explanation - maybe there
> is one. Maybe some people sweat gold ???

If I might suggest a different skeptical approach to take why don't
you ask yourself which is more likely; that this guy sweats gold and
and occasionally has cheap rocks thrown at him by winged extraplanar
entities...or that he's lying.

In fact, in the future if you'd ever like to guess what a skeptic
might think about about any of the multitude of things which you think
are true, but which skeptics generally scoff at, just try asking
yourself "which is more likely".

[Belly Bionic]

Does this story have any relevance to this thread? If so, perhaps you
could explain to us what that relevance might be? If not, then it
should not have been posted here.

[Belly Bionic]

D'oh! I'm really bad at catching those things online. Mea culpa.

[Belly Bionic]

On Jul 31, 11:08 pm, 4praise <re...@rawministry.org> wrote:

> 1 - not that I know of

So there's no rational reason to think that the stones actually *did*
fall from the sky, except that this guy says so.

> 2 - It was during a church meeting - he was in the back of the room,
> the music was playing, he was standing there with no dust then the
> dust appeared on him.  

Were you looking directly at him when it happened? Or was there no
dust, and then you looked elsewhere, and then when you looked at him
again, there was gold dust on him?

> I am well aware that a prestidigitator can pull
> this sort of thing off but that's why I brought up this particular
> video - I met this guy and he is a real average Joe.  

So? Con artists are usually seen as "a real average joe" by the
people they con, right up until the people in question realize they've
been conned. Con artists who appear to be what they are tend not to
be very successful.

DGG didn't ask if the guy performing the miracle is a professional
magician. She asked if there were a professional illusionist present
because someone who is well versed in the tricks of sleight of hand is
the most likely to spot it when others do it. David Copperfield, for
example, makes his living by fooling people who are looking right at
him. That doesn't mean he performs miracles, it means he's a very,
very good illusionist. This guy wouldn't need to be anywhere near
that good to get gold dust onto himself without anyone seeing him do
it. He'd only need to be slightly better than your uncle Joe who used
to pull quarters out of your ear. A professional would be able to
recognize such techniques where the average person would not.

> If he is faking
> this, then he's actually made this his entire life's work - he's spent
> 50 years building up this image as an average guy so that he could
> hoodwink  people

Or, he spent 50 years as an average guy, and then came up with a way
to hoodwink people. Or he spent 50 years as an average guy, and then
someone from his church convinced him to hoodwink people in order to
get converts, or strengthen other people's faith, or get more
donations for the church. Or he spent 50 years as an average guy, and
then developed a mental illness and has disassociated to a degree that
he doesn't realize he's conning himself. There are any number of
possibilities.

> 3 - no.  I did ask myself if there was ANY reason why this guy would
> fake something like this.  About the only reason I can think of would
> be to get attention.  

Or any of the reasons I listed above.

> The thing is that if it were left to him, this
> wouldn't be on youtube - the pastors at the church are the ones that
> are "promoting" it.  

And yet, he allowed the camera crew to come to his house. He
reproduced the "miracles" for them, right on cue. I didn't see anyone
with a gun to his head, forcing him to perform for the cameras. If
the pastors are the ones who are promoting it, then I'm inclined to
think that my earlier speculation that church leaders convinced him to
fake miracles to promote the church is the most likely scenario.

> That day that I saw him sweat gold at the church,
> he was in the back and he didn't go to the front or try to point it
> out to anyone.  

And yet, someone (you, at least) noticed. Did anyone point it out to
others? Did anyone other than you see it?

Religious cons have a long and colorful history in the US. "Faith
healers" who travel around the country doing tent revivals, but if you
follow them from town to town, you'll find that they "heal" the same
people, over and over again. Images of Jesus or Mary appearing in
places that just happen to be private property where the owners just
happen to charge admission or "ask for donations" to see the
"miracle." If there's a way to con believers, someone has done it
before and someone will do it again.

> Secondly, I asked myself if He COULD pull it off.  I
> suppose anything is possible, but I can attest that his demeanor as
> seen in the video is the same way that he is off camera.  Atypical of
> magician types.

But very typical of con artist types.

> If I were going to take a skeptics view of this, the path that I might
> follow is perhaps trying to find a natural explanation - maybe there
> is one.  Maybe some people sweat gold ???

Why would you think that? There's no evidence at all that humans are
capable of sweating gold. There's ample evidence that human are
physically incapable of sweating gold. There's also ample evidence
that humans lie to each other quite readily. What possible reason
would there be to go to "some humans sweat gold" before considering
"some humans lie?"

[DreadGeekGrrl]

On Jul 31, 11:08 pm, 4praise <re...@rawministry.org> wrote:

> 1 - not that I know of

Okay so the evidence is something that could very easily be faked.
There's no 'spontaneous' footage of this happening, only incidents
that could be staged. (I could have you here, filming me and 'find'
anything I had already placed. )

> 2 - It was during a church meeting - he was in the back of the room,
> the music was playing, he was standing there with no dust then the
> dust appeared on him.  I am well aware that a prestidigitator can pull
> this sort of thing off but that's why I brought up this particular
> video - I met this guy and he is a real average Joe.

Okay and this has to do with what? Lots of 'average Joe's' have magic
tricks as a hobby. What does someone who does magic at kid's parties,
for instance, look like when they aren't doing that? I expect they
look a lot like 'average Joe's'.

>  If he is faking
> this, then he's actually made this his entire life's work - he's spent
> 50 years building up this image as an average guy so that he could
> hoodwink  people

Umm, this leads to lots of speculation. Firstly, as you might
imagine, a con artist who strikes you as a con artist is a very bad
con artist. Secondly, is it so hard to believe that a con artist
would have a very solid persona? One that is, well, perfectly real
and ordinary?

> 3 - no.  I did ask myself if there was ANY reason why this guy would
> fake something like this.  About the only reason I can think of would
> be to get attention.

Which he appears to have gotten.

>  The thing is that if it were left to him, this
> wouldn't be on youtube - the pastors at the church are the ones that
> are "promoting" it.  That day that I saw him sweat gold at the church,
> he was in the back and he didn't go to the front or try to point it
> out to anyone.

And he hasn't asked them to stop which means he is still giving his
consent. It's his imagine, it IS left to him. If he didn't want it
on YouTube, he could have it removed quite easily. By merely asking
the pastors to take it down. If they refused then he could have
easily gotten a lawyer to convince the pastors to take it down. If
the pastors said that he signed a release, then he signed a release
and he *wants* it on YouTube. If he didn't sign a release, then the
pastors are using his image without his consent there isn't a judge
who would argue that in this circumstance, the pastors have greater
rights over this person's image than he does. So, the long and short
of it is that *given how the real world works* this image is on
YouTube because he consents for it to be there. No matter WHAT he
says, he is willing for it to be out there.

> If I were going to take a skeptics view of this, the path that I might
> follow is perhaps trying to find a natural explanation - maybe there
> is one.  Maybe some people sweat gold ???

Why do you think that this is the first place a skeptic would go?
That you believe so (yes, I know, I know you weren't really saying
this is what you thought skeptics would think) shows that you have no
real idea about how skeptics go about thinking about these things.
You appear to believe that we just find the first convenient reason to
dismiss something thus your 'maybe some people sweat gold' which is
certainly a dismissal but it's not a likely explanation and doesn't
comport with how the real world works. Skeptics try to have an
understanding of how the real world works and then presume that the
world pretty persistently works in a more or less reasonable fashion.
So the questions a skeptic would ask in this situation might start
with "well, is there some way this could be faked" and we might ask,
say, a magician 'if you wanted to create this effect, could you" and
describe the effect. If you could show the magician the trick, you
might wonder if she could figure it out for herself. The idea of
someone sweating gold raises lots of interesting questions and would
be as unlikely as gold appearing out of thin air. I find it
interesting that your idea of a conclusion a skeptic would start with
as a working hypothesis is so astoundingly unlikely. It appears that
the way you think, even when given time to do so, is of fantastical
things. Is there some reason you do not expect the world to be, most
of the time, rather mundane? It appears that the most reasonable
conclusion, that this is an illusion, is unavailable to you. Please,
take this advice in the friendly manner in which it is meant, don't
ever, ever, ever, play three-card-monty or any of its variants.

Cheers
DGG

[Belly Bionic]

How interesting. Yesterday, I left a comment on the YouTube video
posted below. Today, my comment is gone, and new comments are being
moderated. What possible reason could they have for censoring
comments? Maybe they don't want anyone pointing out how easy it would
be to fake this "miracle?"

On Jul 30, 10:06 pm, 4praise <re...@rawministry.org> wrote:

[4praise]

Just to follow up and answer some questions...

I never said that what I saw could not have any other possible
explanation. The main reason that I joined this thread was to say
that there is one video on youtube where I personally knew the
principals and I could vouch that they weren't actors or doctored
videos or anything of that sort.

I moved 1350 miles away from there in 2007 so I don't have contact at
this time and don't even know if it's still happening (this happened
in 2006)

In general I think that skepticism about such things is expected.
Every Christian that I have talked to about it is skeptical as well.
That is, Christians that I've talked to about it that didn't witness
it first hand. As far as I know, no one that ever saw the gold on
this guy has ever questioned it but when I tell other people about it
(Christians) they are generally skeptical - as I would be too if I
hadn't seen it.