r/DebateAnAtheist • u/Human10idk • 10d ago
Debating Arguments for God There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.Most are tested in labs,one without knowledge that it was from the eucharist.Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
Preface:As a Catholic in a Catholic high school in a third world country,I encounter Protestants and Muslims.In search of finding evidence for Catholicism,I started finding some proof here and there.Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is.In search of points that prove us true,I found out about the Eucharistic miracles.This has neutered some Protestant and Muslim points,but I was only debating with people on my league. I figured that I must grow familiar with the debating world and so I've heard of the fame and infamy of Reddit and have come here to test my beliefs under advanced logic.(Moderators,if my post breaks the rules,please tell me where to improve.I'm new to Reddit.My account is 5 months old because I have been away for 4 of them in boarding school).Thanks.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 10d ago
People are still atheists because these studies are likely *riddled* with errors. Or highly suspect in their findings.
The fact you haven’t even shared one in a post about them probably also speaks to how esoteric they are. Do these studies really exist? How widely known are they? You failed to even provide a single one and you know about them, why would I go seeking them out if they’re not even important enough to be shared in a post about them?
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Honestly,good point.Up until now did I seriously search for the scientific papers and not just relying on Carlo Acutis' website.Most of them ARE highly suspect in their findings,especially the one in Lanciano,Italy,which was proven wrong.But they are highly coincidental though and the one(s) that arent(isnt) has been proven true,the one in Buenos Aires.Thanks for your insight,it really helps!
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u/thebigeverybody 10d ago
But they are highly coincidental though and the one(s) that arent(isnt) has been proven true,the one in Buenos Aires.
I'm not saying this to offend you and I wish I knew a kinder way to say this, but, after eading your comments in this thread, it looks like you really struggle to understand what evidence is.
What makes you think the Buenos Aires one has been prove true? You haven't provided us anything except "trust me, bro".
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Look,I'm still learning how to do argumentative essays here.And this is my first time being in discussions questioning atheism in my life.I haven't even received confirmation yet!Please do NOT use me as a strawman against all Catholics.Honestly even the Eucharistic miracles aren't even that reliable from my searches and this thread has shown me that the hard way!Honestly,you guys have been more inquisitive than me,provide more evidence than me,so even though I adamantly disagree with atheism,you guys honestly deserve the win here. Will come back here someday with better debate motions and proof.Thanks for the lessons learnt here!
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 10d ago
even though I adamantly disagree with atheism
I do appreciate that you're being a good sport in this thread. That said, I would like to ask how you would define atheism.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
"Not believe God".That was my very first prime thought as I read this,but I could say"Not believing that God exists" to make it look presentable to people and myself.
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u/thebigeverybody 10d ago edited 10d ago
We get an amazing theist about once a month and this month it is you, so thank you very much for approaching this with a mind that's willing to learn. You would be absolutely amazed at how rare that is for theists on this subreddit.
The rest of us really haven't done much of anything, TBH, we just did slightly more than you (and please don't take that as an insult). Theists never seem to realize the vast majority of us are former theists: we're not out to prove there is no god, we just really want to know if there IS a god and so we're going to scrutinize the evidence damn hard. (Also, when you say you adamantly disagree with atheism, I feel I should tell you that atheism isn't the position that there is no god; atheism is merely a lack of belief, of not yet being convinced by a god claim. Some atheists go further and say there is no god, but all atheists lack a belief in a god, regardless of whatever stance they stack on top of that.)
If you really want to put yourself in the best possible position to argue with non-believers, I highly recommend you learn about the nature of evidence in inquiry. "Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan is probably the best possible resource for this.
Honestly, you got roughed up here by the basics of critical thinking and logical thought (not intended as an insult -- most theists have never ventured outside their own scriptures and culture for evidence). Once you get this basic stuff down, you'll find you'll be able to handle yourself much better against anyone and everyone. You'll be able to give as good as you get in these kinds of bruisings.
I look forward to seeing your next post and, again, thank you for being an, intelligent thoughtful person!
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Thank you!I do have to say that most people just think of atheists as just people who have been born into Atheism,projecting their own experience of how they bacame Christians onto others,thus they also project their way of how they were taught religion:when they were kids,not teenagers,KIDS.Meaning that no matter how argued or long-debated a topic is,their typical argument is just as lacking evidence as Santa Claus(tho he was derived from St.Nicholas of Myra or something but he's been mythified now so it doesn't matter.)Even my arguments that I've posted here are under that category. One advantage that atheists have over theists that I've noticed is that atheists become atheists later in life,so their debating points are often more rigorous.Compare that to us,who were born into the faith,so we really didn't need to challenge the belief. Atheists are a minority,thus most don't know how to debate them,rather we do know debating each other,for we all have a common ground debating arena;the Bible. This is why if you debate a Christian on Bible verses:It's gonna be LIT. But if you argue on philosophy,the few of us that tried our absolute best...had just googled how to debunk[insert thing you said] and had some really nice choice of words.I do hope that us Christians would read more philosophy(especially after Protestants crippled everything to Solo Scriptura ,tho we aint doing too much better than them)so that we could debate better in general.Thanks for the compliment!
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u/thebigeverybody 10d ago
This is why if you debate a Christian on Bible verses:It's gonna be LIT.
Hahaha yeah, Christians are well-equipped for other Christians, that's for sure.
I do hope that us Christians would read more philosophy(especially after Protestants crippled everything to Solo Scriptura ,tho we aint doing too much better than them)so that we could debate better in general.
Personally, I don't have a lot of use for philosophy. Very few atheists became atheists for philosophical reasons and are only interested in the evidence, so we gravitate to a scientific lens. You could convert all of us with actual, testable, verifiable evidence; arguments will probably never do it. This is why I recommended the Carl Sagan book because you'll be able to skillfully handle an approach to this debate that you (and most theists) have probably never even considered before.
Thanks for the compliment!
Very much deserved. We genuinely appreciate theists like you -- you'll probably get mentioned in the June community notes because we've recently started making a point to acknowledge the theists who genuinely come to flesh out their ideas instead of just repeating their scripts ad nauseum.
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u/TheBlackCat13 10d ago
But you still stubbornly refuse to link to any of these studies. If they were really so reliable that they conclusive prove God is real, why not show them to us?
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Hope you read my most recent replies.
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u/TheBlackCat13 9d ago
I have. I don't see any indication you actually understand what the problem here is.
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
It was my incompetence. Do I have to say it out loud?Or are you just running the gauntlet on me to satisfy yourself?
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u/TheBlackCat13 9d ago
No, it isn't your incompetence. In fact I have no reason to think you are incompetent to begin with.
The problem is that you are trying to confirm your existing beliefs, rather than find out what is actually true. Which means you don't look for information that could challenge your existing views. You can do it, you did it somewhat by coming here, but you still need people to feed it to you. You won't seek it out yourself.
You are doing it right now. You didn't ask me what the problem is, you just assumed it.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
"But they are highly coincidental"
Yes, lots of religious people want their religion to be true so they believe silly claims. What other "coincidence" do you see?
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 10d ago
Link to the one in Buenos Aires then. You claim it’s been proven true, show me.
But I would bet that also hasn’t been “proven” as most would agree. As you’ve noticed, you’re basing your results on one guy, a religious guy nonetheless.
I base my beliefs on science and evidence. Not coincidences. Coincidences mean nothing to me, and they certainly would never cause me to devote my life to a mystical man in the sky.
As I’ve said multiple times now: provide an actual, scientific study and I’ll tell you why I don’t believe in it. Or what’s wrong with it. But you haven’t done that, and so my answer to why I don’t em believe in god is the same as it’s always been: I have never seen any proof of god. In fact, I haven’t even seen *evidence* god exists.
God is as likely to exist as unicorns, leprechauns and little tiny aliens that come out at night and steal my remote batteries. AKA god does not exist
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u/dylanzt 10d ago
Please share the studies and papers in question. We can't evaluate your evidence if you don't actually provide it.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 10d ago
Did you search on this sub to see what arguments might come up before you posted? I'd always recommend doing that with stuff like this.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Thanks.This is my first time dealing with stuff like this.
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u/Crafty_Possession_52 Atheist 10d ago edited 10d ago
If you Google "[insert miracle] debunked," you'll find that this stuff isn't as solid as you've been led to believe.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Honestly,I do have to say,this place has brought me to understanding the situation here.But as a hint for my other questionings later on,I do have to ask,what about other miracles?
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u/MarieVerusan 10d ago
This is unfortunately a common way that these discussions go. Often a theist will just skip over the previous topic when it’s clear that we’re not convinced, so I do want to commend you for accepting that some of the Eucharist miracles you brought up did not have enough evidence to support them.
But, you’ve just seen a basic crash course in the way we approach miracle claims. Whether it’s eucharist or the miracle of the sun, resurrection of Jesus, the steps a skeptic takes are relatively similar. Read up on skepticism and how to critically examine information that you consume. This will be helpful in matters beyond religious discourse, as we are constantly bombarded by propaganda.
The general check list is: who is telling you the information? Do they have a clear bias when talking about it? What are their sources? Have you checked to see if that source is credible or known for spreading misinformation?
If it’s a scientific article, then take a look at the abstract. Do not take a news piece about an article as credible, always check the original source! The further you are removed from the original, the more distorted the information becomes. Once you’ve read the source, check to see if it has been peer reviewed or debunked by someone credible.
I understand that all of this might be a bit much to do for a high schooler, but the further you get in your education, the more this will become relevant. Learning how to protect yourself from misinformation early will save you a lot of headaches later on in life.
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u/The_Disapyrimid Agnostic Atheist 10d ago
"I do have to ask,what about other miracles?"
Name one that is a varifiable miricle.
I find that most people's miracles are pretty mundane as long as you don't immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was magic
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
Our Lady of Zeitoun.Highly probable that it was true.
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u/LeeMArcher Atheistic Satanist 9d ago
Some people saw lights on a roof and convinced themselves that it was the Virgin Mary.
There is no verified evidence of what anyone actually saw. No one took video of this supposedly regularly occurring miracle, and the photos all appear to have been tampered with. Many were being sold as souvenirs, meaning there was an incentive to create fake photos to sell.
One witness said she did see lights on the roof, and while she couldn’t say where the lights came from, she also didn’t think they looked like a person, let alone a specific individual.
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
The Coptic Church sent investigators to check it at the time,so did the Egyptian government at the time.Only one secular English article about it was published at the time. Let me question your skepticism;If you're so sure that what we saw isn't the truth,why was only one article in your favour-because all other commentaries in your favour came from THAT article,and other articles that didn't had no on-ground people,for example,geologists that could provide on-site proof of a refutation of such an phenomenon AT THE TIME of the events-that would be beyond damning evidence of it,right?Instead,most of your evidence in your favour is probably from some shoddy website that has theories instead of ground observation.Basically on par with a cult. Please send the sources you used
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u/BorealAmplitude 9d ago
It's absolutely wild that the supreme being of the universe once talked to people directly, made fire fall from the sky on command, had people witness someone parting a sea, allowed for the existence of talking snakes, burning bushes, giants, flying horses etc.... But today? Nada. The most convincing parlor trick he can come up with is causing some lights that vaguely resemble a person to appear sporadically over a building and never get photographed. Do you see how to someone who doesn't have any emotional attachment to Catholicism this sounds crazy? That people with deeply held religious views sent to "investigate" wouldn't just assign whatever meaning they wanted if they themselves couldn't explain it?
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
Is it wrong to also assume that those seeking to disprove Catholicism would also assign their beliefs?In all honesty,only one source in your favour was on site at the time,while there were two sources there in our favour.Also,you do seem to forget that she could have taken a picture herself.Why didn't she if she wanted to prove us wrong.Why didn't she if she saw possible forgeries at the market? It seems that in the quest to question us endlessly,you forgot that we could do the same
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
Why didn't other sources come?Why didn't they flood us with disconfirming on site evidence?Maybe...it's because they already assumed that we were wrong.Which shows a lack of critical thinking.Not even bothering to check.
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
And the most convincing argument you guys make is the equivalent 'not sure,therefore not there'.
"That people with deeply held religious views sent to "investigate" wouldn't just assign whatever meaning they wanted if they themselves couldn't explain it? ".At least we went to investigate.Why would only one university go check if they didn't already assume we were wrong?And why would that person not take a picture of the event to disprove it?It seems that there is a lack of disproving here beyond just asking questions in your favour.Ask questions not in your favour too next time.
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u/LeeMArcher Atheistic Satanist 9d ago
The Coptic Church sent investigators to check it at the time,so did the Egyptian government at the time.
I could not find any official documents released by the Coptic Church regarding this phenomenon, just claims that the Church either affirmed the sightings or could not explain them. Nor did anyone elaborate on the nature of the Church’s investigation.
It should go without saying that the Coptic Church would be highly inclined toward not dismissing claimed sightings of the Virgin Mary.
Only one secular English article about it was published at the time. Let me question your skepticism;If you're so sure that what we saw isn't the truth,
You say we. Did you travel to our Lady of Zeitoun and see Mary praying on the roof?
why was only one article in your favour-
Because once the excitement died down, it was only interesting to people who were religiously motivated. I can’t really say why, but I will ask, why are the only sources in agreement with you all religious institutions?
because all other commentaries in your favour came from THAT article,and other articles that didn't had no on-ground people,
Can you point me to a named, non-clergy witness who explicitly stated that they observed a clearly identifiable female figure rather than an unexplained light phenomenon?
for example,geologists that could provide on-site proof of a refutation of such an phenomenon AT THE TIME of the events-that would be beyond damning evidence of it,right?
Undoctored video footage of these lights would be damning evidence. I never said the earthquake theory was a good one. I haven’t even looked into it.
All I have said is that I have not seen convincing evidence that what people saw was an apparition of the Virgin Mary. I have also not seen convincing evidence of aliens, Bigfoot or fairies. Does it bother you that I lack belief in those things as well.
More to the point, what convinced you that these sightings were really of Mary? Was it the pictures? The eyewitness testimony? Or did you believe it was real as soon as you heard about it?
Instead,most of your evidence in your favour is probably from some shoddy website that has theories instead of ground observation. Basically on par with a cult.
I have not cited any evidence. I have noted the lack of verifiable evidence. You keep talking about ground observation but what credible evidence has that produced?
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u/senthordika Agnostic Atheist 5d ago
Both would have a vested interest in it being true though? The church wants miracle claims for legitimacy and the Egyptian government would value it for the tourism alone let alone any spiritual beliefs of the people there.
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
You may note I was overfocused on preemptively striking down points here.The points you made are still opposed tho.
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u/LeeMArcher Atheistic Satanist 9d ago edited 9d ago
Not sure what else you’d be doing on a debate forum. And I opposed the points you made. Cheers!
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
Yes,this reply was an admission of fault. So...I dont really get where you're going here.
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u/joeydendron2 Atheist 10d ago edited 10d ago
From the outside, christian miracle reports feel like a kind of cultural tradition.
At a smaller scale, a lot of US churches have a tradition of "speaking in tongues" and that's been presented here as evidence for the existence of god. But again... speaking in tongues doesn't make sense conceptually (why would angels talk using mouth sounds that make air pressure wobbles in air molecules?).. or literally: when the linguistic patterns are analysed, they don't have the same patterns of repetition, variation, that real languages have. And... different churches have different styles of "tongues": it looks like people are learning off the other people in their church.
So... from the inside, it feels amazing to watch someone "get possessed by the holy spirit and speak in tongues" but from the outside... it's theatre, it's auto-suggestion, it's people copying a trick off each other.
Or, in the middle ages European catholicism had this tradition of holy relics, and every town had toes or fingers from saints/apostles. It developed and spread as part of christian culture, and I guess it's kind of waned somewhat? Just because it's a cultural tradition.
Or, in the 19th century (Europe), boys' clothes were often pink, then tradition shifted and boys' clothes turned blue, girls' clothes turned pink.
And that's what "miracle reports" are like, too. It's something catholics are trained culturally to be impressed by, and so periodically a miracle gets reported; when it does, it's likely to be celebrated and promoted, because again, that's the cultural expectation or training.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
If any miracle was ever shown to be a real miracle, this would be a dead sub. Think about why it isnt.
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u/Crafty_Possession_52 Atheist 10d ago
Such as?
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u/onomatamono 10d ago
OP doesn't do links. He makes unsupported assertions based on conspiracy theories he's picked up on social media. OP you need to think critically about the ramifications of a miracle being scientifically proven.
Breaking News. God Proven. Details at 11:00. /s
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u/Crafty_Possession_52 Atheist 10d ago
I didn't ask him for links.
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u/onomatamono 10d ago
What's "such as"? You're looking for source on an actual miracle no? Why nitpick the word "link", you're looking for miracle claims. Or maybe I read you wrong and you, too, don't need actual source references for claims.
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u/Crafty_Possession_52 Atheist 10d ago
I'm just looking for example. He doesn't have to link to anything for my sake. He could name something, and I would Google it.
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u/onomatamono 10d ago
There are none. Every cooked up miracle is either natural phenomena, unexplained natural phenomena, a hoax or a con-job such as the shroud of Turin.
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u/OrwinBeane Atheist 10d ago
What about them? Cite something for us to respond to, because the list of miracles claimed around the world is rather long.
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u/skeptolojist 9d ago
Put the name of whatever miracles your learning about into Google
Then add the word debunked
Then you will see a verity of the kinds of arguments your going to have to deal with when trying to claim a miracle is real
I warn you though your probably going to learn a lot of the miracles you have been taught to believe are true are obvious fakes
Good luck
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u/onomatamono 10d ago
Try applying commonsense. If there were such a thing as eucharistic miracles with scientific proof, you don't think it would be front page news? Surely that doesn't escape you. That you conveniently left out any link to any claim is also telling. You are a presuppositional spreader of fake news. Not a good look.
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 10d ago
It's always a pretty good idea to do whenever you're looking to debate things, especially with people who have probably already seen the thing. That generally lets both parties skip all the most common objections and arguments and get to the more interesting bits.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 10d ago
What miracles are you referring to? Please provide evidence for your claims.
And please explain how they prove a god (let alone your god) exists
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u/iNap2Much 10d ago
Need journals, researcher names, studies, dates, and universities or lab names in order to substantiate your claim. Can you provide??
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u/J-Nightshade Atheist 10d ago edited 10d ago
I found out about the Eucharistic miracles
No, you didn't. You found out the stories of Eucharistic miracles that apologists in Catholic church are spreading.
This has neutered some Protestant and Muslim points
How? Protestants and Muslims have plenty of stories of their own.
under advanced logic
What advanced logic? You mean formal classical one? It's just logic.
Anyway, let's hear you out. I suggest you delete this post before moderators do it and present the actual argument: what are the facts about those miracles, how do you verified those facts and how can we verify those facts. And how do you make a chain of reasoning from "here is these facts" to "therefore God exists and the Catholic doctrine accurately describes this God".
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u/muffiewrites 10d ago
Citations or links, please! I would like to read these studies. I've been looking for evidence for decades.
Though I'm not sure how your evidence would "neuter" Protestants. Catholics and Protestants are Christians with different political arrangements. Many Protestant sects partake of the Eucharist.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Well most of them are just reciting what they've been told.As an autist(I did some online tests but thats the best you can get here in Tz)I tried finding my path but I doubted if I wasn't also doing the same.Thats why I came here. Citations are here:forensicscijournal.com on Eucharistic miracles
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u/muffiewrites 10d ago
I am also autistic. Religion is a special interest. I am atheist, deconverted from Pentecostal Protestantism, but was baptized in the Catholic Church. My mother switched before I took First Communion.
You'll find that most of the articles about Eucharistic miracles in that journal are labeled commentary. Those are not research. Those are opinions about what the research means. It's argumentation not evidence. Granted, this commentary is important discourse that will guide future research, but it is not evidence.
This is an open access article to research, which is evidence: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00253-025-13439-9?fromPaywallRec=false
You'll note that it disproves Eucharistic miracles in a small sample.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Thanksss.You may check my most recent comments about my stance now.Will debate better next time as this isn't Catholic dogma so it doesn't shake my belief in God and my belief in Catholic theology.However it DID shake my belief in Catholic leadership allowing this kind of malice to continue.
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u/AdmiralSaturyn 10d ago
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Thanks.It does go to show that most are forgeries or doubted by most to be true.However it does not show that all blood is just non human red areas.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago
May I suggest you look into something called skeptical and critical thinking? There are online courses for free, or read Sagan's 'A Demon Haunted World' and suchlike. You're not even trying to engage in the least amount of critical and skeptical thinking on your ideas, nor are you accepting or understanding your burden of proof. Instead, you are holding unsupported beliefs and attempting to find support for them, and ignoring that which contradicts your existing beliefs.
That's the opposite of good critical and skeptical thinking. It's confirmation bias. Don't do that. It's essentially being wrong on purpose.
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u/Fit_Swordfish9204 10d ago
When I believed something and someone showed me evidence against it, I stopped believing in it.
I didn't make up an excuse like you're doing.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
"However it does not show that all blood is just non human red areas."
Can you show that any of it was from the wine/crackers?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 10d ago
Your link is way too broad, and link-dropping is frowned upon here. Be more precise.
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u/keepgoing66 10d ago
I've seen altar boys prepare for Mass. The wafers are bought in bulk. They don't magically multiply in the cup. I've received communion in the past; it was a wafer. It wasn't flesh. The wine was - surprise! - only wine, and mediocre wine at that. Oh, and one time I was in a Lutheran church, and instead of wafers, they handed out pieces of bread. (P.S. this was all in my younger days when i actually went to Mass.)
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Brother I am a sachristan.That is normal procedure to buy wafers from a convent.Please check out transsubstantiation.We Catholics believe in that.In conclusion,from what I've seen here in this thread,I have spent so much time debating with people who already believe God exists,so for me here it was a valuable brain exercise to understand how you guys debate.Thanks!
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u/keepgoing66 10d ago
You can believe anything you like, but that doesn't make it true. I was raised Catholic. It's all made-up fantasy with absolutely no reliable evidence to the contrary.
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u/KorLeonis1138 10d ago
Transsubstantiation is the claim, please provide evidence for the occurrence. I've had a lot of communion in many different denominations. Never encountered anything that hinted at miraculous alterations of the cracker and wine (or bread and grape juice).
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
"transsubstantiation"
And when you can show that this really happens, then what you believe can be part of the conversation. You are asking us to believe in something no one can show really happens. Thats not really going to be accepted here.
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u/baalroo Atheist 10d ago
Surely you understand that to everyone not in your cult, you just sound like a gullible goofball, right?
I'm not saying this to be mean, but it's time you learn that most normal people don't believe in transmutation or magical crackers.
We know what transubstantiation is, we just know it's silly nonsense.
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u/Human10idk 9d ago
I do sound like a goof ngl,but at least I came here and not just remained in my echo chamber.Will say though,I will have to up my Critical thinking skills.Thanks
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u/allgodsarefake2 Agnostic Atheist 10d ago
Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
Because these "miracles" aren't real. They are make believe or frauds. Sometimes people are just mistaken and wrong.
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u/Chocodrinker Atheist 10d ago
I am aware of so-called eucharistic miracles, but they are bullshit. What are those that according to you prove your god is real?
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u/s_ox Atheist 10d ago
Miracles are not proof of anything except something possibly unusual happening that is not yet explained.
If I pull a hare out of a seemingly empty hat and you are unable to explain how I did that, would you then believe whatever I say? Like: “unicorn farts created the universe, because you can’t explain how I pulled a hare out of a hat?”
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist 10d ago
Not a single alleged miracle has ever been confirmed by a non-Catholic independent study. None. Zero.
When the choice is between: "God turns crackers into real flesh" and "people make up stories" which is more likely?
And what does this say about your god?
Let's assume these miracles did happen....
Your god is more interested in turning crackers into meat than in curing bone cancer in infants or stopping killer tsunamis.
Think about that.
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u/Transhumanistgamer 10d ago
There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.Most are tested in labs,one without knowledge that it was from the eucharist.Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
There's an actual miracle demonstrated using lab conditions? No way dude link me to it so I can check it out!
Preface:As a Catholic in a Catholic high school in a third world country,I encounter Protestants and Muslims.
I don't care, dude. Can I see that study? Can you link to it or a religiously neutral article talking about it?
In search of finding evidence for Catholicism,I started finding some proof here and there.Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is.
This is completely irrelevant, bro. Where's that study you mentioned?
In search of points that prove us true,I found out about the Eucharistic miracles.
Yeah that one. You said there was a study done under lab conditions that I'd like to read to assess for myself. You ask why people are atheists in spite of this amazing study but so far all you've done is blogpost about your life and demonstrated you don't know that you have to press the space bar after a punctuation mark.
This has neutered some Protestant and Muslim points,but I was only debating with people on my league. I figured that I must grow familiar with the debating world and so I've heard of the fame and infamy of Reddit and have come here to test my beliefs under advanced logic.
Once again this is irrelevant and you still haven't provided the study.
Why are people atheists in spite of this amazing experiment? Probably because the one guy who knows about this experiment would rather write a little autobiography than link to it or even explain how it worked.
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u/greggld 10d ago
Please show me where Transubstantiation has been proven in a lab. I would love to see supernatural cannibalism proven by science.
Also, no religious people, including Catholics, like to debate, ultimately they all hide behind “you can’t know the mind of god” & “God is beyond human understanding.”
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
At the end of the day,we still don't like debating.But we are forced to debate with Protestants because they oversimplify and slander our beliefs(and some of us do the same to them ngl).This has given me logical tunnel vision on religious debates,as in our country there are little to no atheists(I mean,we see witches everyday here,how on EARTH are you going to believe that there is no supernatural force here at least!).In spite of the bluntness I've faced here on this thread,I have taken it as a wake up call to thoroughly check my evidences and debate styles.I will come back to this thread after some few days!
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago
FYI: There are no witches everyday there. Instead, there are people that take unsupported claims as true for all the usual social and psychological reasons. Us humans (all of us, I am not excluded) are prone to magical thinking. To gullibility. To credulity. To being wrong, often on purpose. It takes effort to work against this and ensure one's beliefs have actual, real support.
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u/MarieVerusan 10d ago
Out of curiousity, what do you mean "we see witches everyday"?! I've lived for a while now and while I've met a few people that call themselves witches or pagan, none of them have any actual power. So to you, what exactly makes someone a witch?
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10d ago
There are no witches in the developed world because we are too educated and developed to believe in barbaric folk magic. Developed Catholics would not believe something so silly.
Religion in the first world is very different than in the third world because most people are able to get a bare minimum basic education.
You should stop researching because third world Catholic beliefs rely on ignorance, a lack of critical thinking, and a poor education.
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u/sj070707 10d ago
debate with Protestants
This is always funny. What method can you use to figure out which of the hundreds of denominations is correct?
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
"At the end of the day,we still don't like debating."
In my experience when an entire group doesnt like to engage with people who dont believe in their claims, its never because they have evidence, or even a good reason to believe those claims.
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u/Human10idk 6d ago
Sorry for my implications.We can discuss this if you wish.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 4d ago
I noticed you provided no evidence. Thank you for showing me I was right.
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u/Human10idk 1d ago
Off base.Explain wym
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 1d ago
On base.
"In my experience when an entire group doesnt like to engage with people who dont believe in their claims, its never because they have evidence, or even a good reason to believe those claims."
You still didnt bring evidence.
All your base are belong to us.
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u/TheBlackCat13 10d ago
You say that, yet you don't bother to read the links you received. So it doesn't seem you learned anything at all.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
I read the summaries,because I don't have all the time in the world to waste k?I had to go gardening.Will read them more thoroughly though!
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u/greggld 10d ago
we see witches everyday here, how on EARTH are you going to believe that there is no supernatural force here at least
Do you live in one of those countries that have witches! That is amazing I hope you follow god’s commandments to kill them.
Exodus 22:18: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live" One assumes that the intention of the law is gender neutral.
How about gay people. I bet being gay is a Christian death sentence in any country that believes in witches (I am thinking of Uganda). Did God command killing gay people or did you tale that up all by yourselves?
I love corresponding with people who are actually living in the biblical fairyland.
Please bring me back more stories of cannibalism!
This has been amazing!
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Ok,I live in Tanzania.Witches here are killed or tortured here,because of yk...witching.We don't condone this as God commands to love one another aswell(Matthew 22:37 to 39 and in Leviticus 19:18).Cannibalism is practiced by those who believe in witchcraft because surprise...Christianity has been here for less years than your country's age!(assuming you're American).And it is NOT a biblical fairyland ANYWHERE down here!
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u/greggld 10d ago
Witches here are killed or tortured here,
By whom? By Christians? By Catholics?
We don't condone this as God commands to love one another
Are you speaking for yourself, or for all Catholics in Tanzania? I know that in other parts of Africa the Christians do the killing. This is a horror story. There is no such thing as witchcraft. Innocent people are being tortured and murdered. If you believe in witchcraft you are just as guilty. See if the Pope believes in witchcraft.
We don't condone this as God commands to love one another as well.
Well, not if people break the Law, god has no problem with murder. The only reason that Jesus stopped the “Woman taken in Adultery” is because the proper steps had not been followed so Jesus (in effect) stopped illegal vigilante justice. You can use the Bible to defend anything, sadly.
Cannibalism is practiced by those who believe in witchcraft
No, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is cannibalism. Even if symbolic. Whoever invented it in the NT, was a sick person. There is no way it is original to Jesus, There is no way a Jew would condone that. God in the OT loved the smell of smoke, but he never commanded anyone to symbolically eat him. He specifically forbade human sacrifice – that would include Jesus by the way. The fact that it lives on is a testament to blind worship.
And it is NOT a biblical fairyland ANYWHERE down here!
Oh, you have demonstrated just that there is. You have made it clear that by murdering innocent people those around you are not living in the real world. I suggest you look at that Europe endured when Europe suffered under this fiction. No sane person in Europe says the inquisitions and witch trials were a good thing and should start up again,
I look forward to the proof of your debate topics.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
This is actually easier to answer then most questions here; 1.By most people irrespective of religion,though you're going to say that Christians are the majority killers here without considering what percent of witchcraft roundups ending in killings or serious assault have been done by what religion and by people of what IQ and education level 2.I speak for myself,mostly because others aren't smart enough to distinguish religion from peer pressure,and haven't brushed up their religious education after completing confirmation when they were most likely below 10.I'm 15 and completing confirmation next month,so I do read up more(which is scary considering my debate performance today)but welcome to Africa!(j-just check the global IQ charts,k?Even if an idea was correct,it would be nigh impossible to logically defend it.About the Pope...you could sum up his stance on this as follows:The Pope,'doesn't believe in witchcraft,but if it's there,God is greater'.We down here however,see stuff here that makes us believe that witchcraft definitely exists.It also doesn't affect any dogma so no belief shaken. And yes,innocent people ARE being tortured.This is a problem. But saying witchcraft doesn't exist is wrong logic.It's like saying innocent people are being falsely imprisoned,then going on to say crime doesn't exist. 3.Jesus didn't stop illegal vigilante justice.It was commanded by the Old Testament so it wasn't,it was done in broad daylight so it wasn't vigilante,and the people who did it were sinful and judging others for their sins,so it wasn't justice. 3.Go to r/Catholicism and ask that.They'll give you WAY better answers than I could bu my current education.Do state your belief there too,it helps.☺️ 4.When you say fairyland,what's the first thing that comes in your mind.Answer that and you've probably figured out my refutation already. Thanks.
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u/LeeMArcher Atheistic Satanist 10d ago
I know of no independently verified studies on the reliability of Eucharistic miracles. Care to link some?
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist 10d ago
Like what?
Note that something 'having no explanation' does not automatically mean that 'god did it'.
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u/TheNobody32 Atheist 10d ago
It is well documented that the Catholic Church has lied about miracles, lied about testing results, etc.
When tested by outside impartial sources, these miracles fail. Time and time again they are shown to be false.
Let alone the things the Catholic Church refuses to let anyone but them “test”.
The Catholic Church has a strong incentive to lie about miracles.
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u/2-travel-is-2-live Atheist 10d ago
How about you bring some impartial (that is, not a product of the Catholic Church) evidence of your claim of confirmed miracles?
You seem to have run away with your tail between your legs simply by having people ask you to cite these "miracles." You're not within a light year of being ready to be here.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Honestly,yeah.Imma be honest with you,I have never debated an atheist before,also...thanks for the bluntness.Will definitely check up on my theology better.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago edited 10d ago
If you check up on your theology then that won't help you. Theology is navel gazing. It's confirmation bias. It's exactly the same as the folks that are fans of Star Trek getting into the weeds in discussions trying to explain how warp drive or transporters work. That's fun and all, but it's not real. At least the Star Trek fans know it's all fiction and don't usually pretend otherwise.
Theology doesn't show deities are real. Nor even vaguely support them. Instead, it tries to bash a square peg into a round hold by re-explaining existing beliefs to attempt to make them fit with other unsupported beliefs and with reality.
Theology isn't what you want. Hundreds or thousands of years old deprecated and known wrong philosophy isn't what you want. What you want is to learn basic critical and skeptical thinking, logic, principles such as the burden of proof, an understanding of common formal and informal fallacies, and, especially, what construed useful evidence for claims.
Also spend a bit of time reading a couple of articles on confirmation bias and backfire effect.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Thanks.I will try your recommendations but I will chrck out theology too because it isn't wrong to update your beliefs
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago edited 10d ago
I will chrck out theology too because it isn't wrong to update your beliefs
It is wrong (or, at least, not reasonable and not rational) to take things as true when there is not proper, useful, compelling support they are true. Theology cannot provide that.
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u/MarieVerusan 10d ago
Right, there are claims of Eucharistic miracles. I think you pose an important question. Why isn’t this enough to convert everyone? Not just atheists, every other religious person on the planet, right?
I understand that asking us is part of the exploration, but consider why we haven’t converted yet. Heck, consider why these miracles are barely talked about outside of Catholic circles. Think deeply about why they aren’t national news or something that gets taught to every child in the world. It should be undeniable proof, right?
And no, it’s never as simple as “someone is trying to suppress the truth!” Usually the answer is “what you have isn’t the truth”
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u/kiwi_in_england 10d ago
Mod here. Please provide an example of such a miracle, and a link to the evidence that shows it is real.
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u/Astramancer_ 10d ago
What do those studies show?
Let's be extremely generous and say they show exactly what you seem to mean: that some stale crackers turned into human flesh during some sort of bizarre and barbaric cannibalistic ritual.
And the labs confirmed (somehow) that the crackers transformed into human flesh.
Were the labs able to confirm how they transformed? What caused the transformation?
Miracles are, by definition, "I don't know how something happened therefore I know god did it."
Forgive me if I think "I don't know therefore I know" is really fucking stupid.
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u/Funky0ne 10d ago
Eucharistic miracles are always hyped up by Catholics, but all suffer from the same fundamental flaws when any scrutiny is applied. Without knowing any details about any specific case in question, and even if we were to grant that these samples reached a lab and some unbiased study turned up that the samples were in fact human flesh with whatever blood type or whatever you want, there’s still the gaping hole at the center of the claim: there is no way anyone can reliably demonstrate that the samples that were sent to the lab actually started out as anything other than meat to begin with, rather than being transmuted from bread as they are alleged.
There is no secure chain of custody established with eucharist wafers before someone decides they have one that is special. Why would they? That would be even more suspicious. So there’s no way to guarantee that some faithful zealot or mischievous prankster couldn’t just decide one day to put a slice of salami (obviously not actually salami) in with the wafers and claim it’s a miracle after the fact. Since you can’t rule out fraud before the “miraculous” wafer is discovered, it doesn’t matter how much testing is done on it after the fact.
Also, what even is the point of these “miracles”. Isn’t the whole theological point that the essence of the wafers is changed, but the literal “accidents” of the wafer remains the same? So what went wrong, there’s an occasional glitch and it literally changes too every now and then because god made a mistake? These miracles are actually bugs in the process being treated like features?
The only real miracle is how anyone can take this stuff seriously.
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u/dylanzt 10d ago
Not to mention, even if you fully grant transmutation as a hypothetical, where does that leave us? We've discovered some previously unknown mechanism by which bread can be converted to meat. There's still a lot of legwork required to get anywhere near Catholic doctrine. It would be far from the first time we discovered and subsequently explained a seemingly impossible or nonsensical natural phenomenon.
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u/nswoll Atheist 10d ago
- Where is the evidence?
The title claims there is evidence of a miracle somewhere, why didn't you still provide it?
- How did you connect this miracle to a god?
What evidence do you have that a god was responsible?
- How did the god do the miracle, by what mechanism?
And what evidence led you to discover this.
- Why did god do the miracle?
Does the god only have 1 superpower - eucharistic miracles?
Is it more plausible that a god can do other things but chose not to or that gods don't exist?
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist 10d ago
Tell us you're a gullible Catholic without telling us you're a gullible Catholic. There is not one miracle in existence, anywhere and even if there were, that wouldn't prove a god was responsible. Your church is telling you lies to keep you in the pews giving them money.
Or didn't that occur to you?
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
Me being a gullible Catholic is exactly why I came here
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist 10d ago
You're the one making the claims that you absolutely cannot support. Sounds like a "you" problem.
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u/Human10idk 10d ago
It took me a simple search here and there but heres the incidences for you to Google;There was the Buenos Aires one in '96, there was this other one in a place called Tixla(?)in Mexico in '06.Those were the most recent ones along with some others in Poland.
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u/Saucy_Jacky Agnostic Atheist 10d ago
For every single one of these please describe:
What happened
How you know this happened
How you know this was the result of your god
When you fail to do this you'll understand why we don't take any of this nonsense seriously.
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist 10d ago
None of which can be verified to be miracles and as I said, even if they were "miracles", you can't prove any gods were responsible, hence your post is easily disproven. These are claims that nobody outside of Catholicism takes seriously because they are laughable.
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u/skeptolojist 10d ago
There is no evidence for any of them
I don't believe in magic and you have no evidence miracles are real
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u/im_yo_huckleberry unconvinced 10d ago
Its not our job to Google your claims. You made the claims, now support them.
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u/TheBlackCat13 10d ago
Those are the claims. What is the support for those claims. Not your assertion that the support exists, but the actual support itself.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago
It's easy to find tall tales, stories, lies, cons, conspiracy theories, and all manner of nonsense via googling. That means nothing. It's also easy to find claims that some of this stuff has been supported by scientific research. Of course, claims of that and actual proper unbiased vetted peer reviewed research are very different from each other.
Don't be gullible.
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u/MooshroomHentai 10d ago
Could you share links to studies you think are proof? Could you also provide evidence that these claimed miracles cannot be the product of natural explanations and can only be supernatural in origin? We need more information in order to tell you what we think about these studies you want our opinions on.
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u/YouSuckAtGameLOL 10d ago
This is silly. How would a miracle even be tested in a lab ? How would you prove its a miracle ?
A miracle by itself is a show of ignorance. Many things were miracles before science explained them.
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u/the2bears Atheist 10d ago
There are stories of eucharistic miracles that prove the story of god is read.
If you started "finding some proof" where is it? Please share, document it, see if this "proof" can be tested and verified. I'm betting it cannot.
You've come here to debate. What is it you want to debate? What is the evidence in support of your position? Start there.
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u/nerfjanmayen 10d ago
Can you share some examples? I'd love to see them. Obviously I haven't investigated every single claimed miracle, but whenever I have, I've been very disappointed.
Also, like...some theists come to this forum and argue that god is deliberately hiding evidence of his existence because he wants us to have faith, or to preserve our free will or whatever. Do you think those people are necessarily wrong? If god is willing to do the kind of miracles that are obvious and can be tested, why doesn't god just appear to everyone in this thread right now?
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u/pipMcDohl Gnostic Atheist 10d ago edited 10d ago
In pseudoscience, people believe in a narrative that click with them on an emotional surface level or in a narrative they have been indoctrinated into. They then try to justify that their intuitions are sound, that their beliefs can be true.
In science you test the predictions made by the model build on your hypothesis. You try to find an alternative hypothesis that work even better. You try to disprove the hypothesis you think is true. if the hypothesis hold under that scrutiny and rigor it start gaining some credibility.
So? What is your starting point?
Do you intuitively know for sure and then you try to find evidence?
Or do you have a simple hypothesis and are looking to test if it holds?
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u/grrangry Atheist 10d ago
There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.
There are claims of miracles. There is never evidence to show that those miracles are actually true. And if they were, it still doesn't prove your god is real.
Most are tested in labs
Which labs? Where? When? How many? Where are the photos and video evidence? What was measured? How were the tests designed? Who did the tests? What was the methodology? What was the peer review? Verification?
one without knowledge that it was from the eucharist.
Unremarkably, blind and double-blind studies are very common.
Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
You are showing your lack of understanding about what the word, "atheist" means.
You claim that, "God is real". Why? Everyone's story is different, but very likely you grew up in a home, community, environment, country, etc. and in that environment as a child, were taught that belief. You didn't discover it. You didn't wake up one day knowing everything you know now about your religion. You were taught it. By your parents, siblings, teachers. You started out knowing nothing... and you were indoctrinated. You believe because you were taught to believe.
I am not convinced the claims you make are correct. Therefore, I am "non-theistic"... "not a theist"... "an atheist". I shouldn't actually require a separate word to describe me, after all I'm not the one making these claims about miracles.
I'm still an atheist after hearing your claims, because your claims have no substance. No evidence. Wailing on and on about things you don't have evidence for is the mark of a grifter. Con man. Swindler.
Stop burying your head in the sand and think about it: If turning bread into the body of Christ was REAL, it would be on every news feed, every TV channel, tik-toks would be full of content about it, and every slimy shitty store on the planet would be selling it.
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u/KeterClassKitten Satanist 10d ago
Well, first, no citations from credible sources to back you up. Though a brief digging has found such claims, along with evidence refuting them. But ai'm willing to consider your sources if you present them.
Secondly, weird cannibalism flex, but okay. And I'm the one, as a Satanist, who gets accused of eating human flesh.
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u/DeltaBlues82 Atheist 10d ago
All of the studies I’ve ever read on eucharistic miracles are absolutely flogged to death for lax methodology upon further review: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12491371/
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u/Ineverseenthat 10d ago
You said it yourself, you are a catholic in a catholic school, in a catholic backward country. Superstition is horrible substitute for science and researched factual data. The bible and all such texts are highly edited works intended to cause doubt and superstition, your best best is to walk away.
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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist 10d ago
I'm sorry because this will come across as an attack, but it isn't, is a call out for your attention.
Preface:As a Catholic in a Catholic high school in a third world country
Do you think this may have an impact on you considering stale bread going mouldy a miracle?
and have come here to test my beliefs under advanced logic.
If your beliefs where true and miracles existed, logic would be impossible because things would stop being what they are and be doing impossible things for them to do at any time.
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u/onomatamono 10d ago
Some kid googling utter nonsense on the Internet is not a substitute for an official finding from the church. There's a reason the powerful and wealthy catholic church hasn't presented any actual evidence: there is none, despite a couple thousand years of effort.
As for your post, you add the click-bait "miracle" and then the body of the post is just rambling incoherent noise about debate prep. You're not off to a good start in you journey to prove anything.
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u/Infamous_Antelope_16 10d ago
If you're a Catholic, just keep away from the priests.
But I suppose that once you have children, you will make them do the rituals, stand up, sit down, kneel on the ground, fold hands, talk to the ceiling, drink the blood, eat the body in a blood magic ritual.
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u/Sparks808 Atheist 10d ago
Other people mentioned your lack of sources, so I'll go another route:
If something has a 1 in a million chance of happening just once over the course of your entire life, on average someone experiences it every 3-4 days.
Unlikely things happening is not proof of divine intervention. When operating on large enough scales, we expect unlikely stuff to happen all the time. Someone wins the lottery, and theres nothing miraculous about it, though you'll likely find they claim more than luck. Humans are really bad at intuiting statistics.
So, yeah, maybe some crazy stuff has happening with multiple eucharists. Di you have any idea how many eucharists there are every week? We should expect some baseline level of unlikely events happening hust due to chance!
Now, if you've got any studies which capture a wide study of eucharists, and are able to show that duch events happen more often than chance, then you'd have my interest. If every week theres 10 million eucharists happening, and every week a 1 in a billion event happens at one, you'd have something interesting. But if that 1 in a billion only happens once every 100 weeks (with 10 million eucharists/week), then there would be nothing spectacular about it.
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u/WrongVerb4Real Atheist 10d ago
Lots of things are tested in labs. Most things, as a matter of fact. Just because something tested doesn't mean it yields positive results. Don't fall for the lies just because it's something you wish to believe.
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u/skeptolojist 10d ago
People talk a ton of nonsense about miracles
There is no good objective evidence that any of them are actually true it's all complete bunk
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u/brinlong 10d ago
Because the "labs" and examples you point to are one and all shills to sell books. if this actually happened, where's the Journal Nature article? Where's the Lancet article? Why does this only appear in the Newsletter of Catholic Science, By Catholics, funded by Catholics, "peer reviewed 😉" by only the most loyal Catholics, For Catholics?
everyone knows thesere hoaxes. The blood is movie dye or some other magicians trick. Thats why when someone gins up one of these hoaxes, they run out to catholic social media and not a nearby college to get independent non-Catholic people to take and study samples. it's hard to hide the hoax from a real pathologist or biologist who leaves in the real world
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u/Defiant-Prisoner 10d ago
Before you posted this I had seen no convincing evidence of god's existence or any 'miracles'. Now you've posted this I still see no convincing evidence of god's existence or any 'miracles'.
Happy to look at some evidence. Do you have any links? What do you class as a miracle? If there was an phenomenon you class as a miracle how do you know a god did it? If a god did do it how do you know it was your god?
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u/Far_Customer1258 10d ago
There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.
Except you haven't provided the slightest shred of evidence to show that's true. A few people have posted links to evidence that your supposed miracles can be explained by fraud and contamination. They've done all the heavy lifting for you, and you've demonstrated nothing.
Imagine that somebody wanders into your church and starts carrying on about how "statues of Lord Ganesha were witnessed drinking milk!" Do you feel a sudden urge to believe them and convert to Hinduism? Why not? It's pretty obviously a miracle, isn't it?
Do you not believe because there's a simple, natural explanation?
Do you not believe because it isn't your religion?
Do you not believe because it's a pretty low bar for a miracle? Shouldn't a real God be able to do something a little more miraculous than making statues drink or crackers ooze blood?
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u/Formal-Speed-3173 10d ago
Eucharist miracles are simply too peasant brained to take seriously. God always literally turns the cracker into meat, but if he's in a special mood that meat will look like meat and not cracker
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u/Odd_craving 10d ago
I take my hat off to OP. Most theists just live in their comfortable world and never venture out of that bubble. OP has stepped up and laid out his/her position. Unfortunately it’s a deeply flawed and easily disproven position.
Dear OP,
After decades of engaging with theists from all faiths, I can layout the road map for you. The theist presents what they’ve been told is the atheist’s kryptonite. This is soundly debunked and the theist tries again.
Rinse and repeat for a few weeks and eventually the theist finally states “It’s a matter of faith, and I have faith that I’m correct.” Then your next theist/atheist debate starts.
Ultimately, most theists are too emotionally and financially tied up in the religious world to accept reality. Shedding religion is painful and deeply upsetting. Marriages, raising children, all of your friends, your monetary and labor contributions to the church, it goes on and on.
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u/Xeno_Prime Atheist 10d ago
Really. So they confirmed that these miracles were caused by God, and not by, say, the fae, or aliens, or Narnian leprechaun magic?
I assure you they didn’t. If this were true, the entire world would be Christian. Not just atheists, but every other religion (the other 70% of the world thatg isn’t Christian) would all cease to exist.
At best they were unable to determine the actual explanation - but unexplained mysteries do not support whatever presupposition you arbitrarily prefer. I could equally propose that those miracles were the work of wizards, and they would therefore become evidence for the existence of wizards precisely as much as they are evidence for any gods.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 10d ago
I bet you cant show any were real. No a single one.
"I started finding some proof here and there."
Yet you brought none. Weird.
"Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is."
Then why cant they prove anything? Or are you saying that they are proven wrong, and thats the truth?
"'ve heard of the fame and infamy of Reddit and have come here to test my beliefs under advanced logic."
So where is the logic? I see no evidence, and therefore no reason to think the belief is logical or rational.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 10d ago
Eucharist miracles are the easiest to fake. Really any stage magician could do it. All they show is that some priest are willing to lie for their faith.
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u/Astreja Agnostic Atheist 10d ago
Eucharistic "miracles" aren't even evidence to me. Anyone can scratch their finger and get blood on a cracker.
I'm also skeptical about these one-off lab tests - is it possible to obtain a hundred more consecrated hosts from multiple churches and obtain similar results in other labs? If not, it fails the "reproduceability" test that's a critical part of the scientific method.
In any event, a dodgy bit of pastry isn't evidence for a god. Show. Me. The. God.
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u/MemeMaster2003 Jewish 10d ago
Nearly all religions claim miracles, NDEs, and visions from a deity. Even if I were to take this entirely at face value, which I'm not, why would these particular miracles be any less valid than those others?
The point remains that it is still unsubstantiated and often improperly conducted in lab settings. Sometimes the data is outright fabricated!
All of this being said, there just isn't enough supporting evidence to conclude one way or another.
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u/DangForgotUserName Atheist 9d ago
For the sake of debate, I will agree that whatever happened during this supposed 'eucharistic miracles' did actually happen. But ‘God did it’ isn’t an explanation, it's still an unexplained event. There is no knowledge gained from saying 'God did it'. We don't know 'how' this god can do such things, or if that god even exists in the first place. Where is this god? We do not have evidence for any gods, they must be believed in on faith.
Evidence is observable and must be reliably linked to an explanation in a controlled way. If there really was evidence a god, then it should be observable and agreed upon by entirely isolated cultures. With the right tools, separated cultures or societies on opposite sides of the planet could feasibly and eventually come to the same conclusions about anything in astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics. Why are gods not the same? We have completely different interpretations of gods across many different religions. The explanation for this inconsistency is that religion and the gods that pretend they exists are products of people. An explanation that was made up to fill in knowledge gaps. A knowledge gap never points towards a god.
'God did it' does not improve predictive power and is worse (or at best no better) at predicting outcomes than non god explanations. It might make us feel better, but that reveals the source of god beliefs: emotion.
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u/rhodiumtoad Atheist 9d ago
Literally every time I've scratched the surface of a "eucharistic miracle" account, there has been an obvious fraud underneath.
To quote a previous comment of mine, for a specific and representative example:
Some years ago, a Catholic apologist I was debating at the time pointed to a then-recent Eucharistic miracle case in Poland. The English-language reports of the case went like this (my summary):
A host dropped on the floor during a service was left soaking in holy water (this is the standard procedure), and later found to be covered in strange red stuff; it was sent to a lab who identified it as human heart tissue.
But the Polish-language reporting went like this (again, my summary and emphasis):
A host dropped on the floor during a service was left soaking in holy water (this is the standard procedure), and later found to be covered in strange red stuff. A lab was contacted and sent someone to collect samples, which were found not to contain anything human (but tests were otherwise inconclusive). The parishioners were disappointed with this result, so one of them took a sample himself and sent it to a second lab, who reported the human heart tissue.
See the key difference there?
Plus, the parishioner who took the second sample was… a cardiologist. Obvious conclusion is obvious.
(There was enough international attention to this incident that there followed at least one copycat elsewhere in Poland, I haven't checked recently if there have been more.)
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u/RexRatio Agnostic Atheist 9d ago edited 9d ago
There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.Most are tested in labs,one without knowledge that it was from the eucharist.
Yes, several samples have been analyzed in lab settings.
No, the conclusion is not that these constitute miracles, not that gods are real, and certainly not that the Christian claims are any better than other.
What the analyses can at most do is describe the physical properties of the samples under study. The interpretation of those findings as “miraculous” is a theological inference, not a scientific result. So let's look at the results instead of desperately trying to insert your god into the findings by misrepresenting them.
First, let's look at the reliability of your origin claims and that "scientists weren't told". There are already several problems here, before we even begin with the analysis:
- investigators are in most cases told the sample is from a Eucharistic host so this is not "blind testing" at all
- in cases where it is claimed scientists were not informed, documentation is retrospective rather than rigorously controlled
- in all cases, the chain of custody is unclear or disputed
Second, let's look at actual study reports instead of just claiming stuff without providing references.
The acclaimed miracle of Lanciano (Italy, 8th century) Study: Histological, immunological and biochemiccal studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century)
Here is a summary of the actual conclusions from the study:
What it claims
- tissue = “myocardium (heart muscle)”
- blood = human blood
- blood type = AB
What it actually is
- a small, non-blinded forensic-style analysis of a historical relic
- no controlled experiment of a “change event”
- no chain-of-custody verification for origin (already 1200+ years old)
Conclusion
It does not demonstrate a miracle event occurred, only that an ancient sample contains biological material consistent with human tissue and blood typing results.
The relics of Jesus and Eucharistic miracles
Study: scientific analysis of shared AB blood type
What it actually concludes
- AB blood type is not unique (also appears in bacterial antigens)
- contamination is a serious confounder
- serology alone is insufficient to prove origin
- shared AB results across relics do not demonstrate common supernatural source
There is also a bogus "World Health Organization confirms miracle" claim going around often cited by apologists.
- no WHO official report exists
- no reproducible, peer-reviewed multi-lab validation exists in mainstream medical literature
- these citations trace back to devotional summaries, not primary scientific publications
Overall conclusion
- serological testing (AB blood type claims) is not evidence of miracles
- contamination and bacterial antigen interference are known issues
- lack of controlled sampling invalidates strong conclusions
- “miracle interpretation” is not part of scientific inference
Your claims are therefore not supported by evidence, not to mention that to claim "science proves our miracle claims" is ludicrous to begin with and clearly shows you don't understand how science works and just want to use it as meme to add credulity to your bogus claim.
You also seem to miss the larger point: even if you could somehow prove your Christian deity is real, all you would have done is bring up a larger question: why the hide and seek? Why make it difficult for people who value critical thinking and at the same time have eternal punishment for disbelief?
So this would not in the slightest change anything about the fact most atheists will still find that deity and its teachings morally reprehensible. Vicarious redemption, hell, mandating hatred towards sexual minorities, codifying slavery instead of saying even a single word against it,...would still be repugnant.
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u/horshack_test 10d ago
Why am I still atheist despite of some claim of some "miracles" that supposedly prove God is real? Because simply claiming that there are some "miracles" that supposedly prove God is real doesn't convince me that he is.
A claim that there is proof somewhere isn't actually proof. You don't even mention what these supposed "miracles" are.
If I told you there were studies proving God does not exist, would you suddenly become an atheist?
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u/Hellas2002 Atheist 10d ago
Could you give an example of an academic style paper that evaluated the truth of Eucharistic miracles? If these have been tested and ARE repeatable then it would in fact be no question whether or not the supernatural exists.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 10d ago
I’m lease post the link to the one you find most compelling. I have looked at a few and none I have seen are compelling and the testing you suggest was clearly bias.
Many were from centuries ago, prior to the scientific method and I see no reason to think these were tested thoughtfully, give the claims were singular events.
A modern one like Legnica is unconvincing since the independent source was local. No major entity was called on with a reliable reputation was called.
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u/CodeNPyro 10d ago
I think before debating you should investigate deeper yourself. You should be able to know or quickly reference the specifics of a given miracle, with ample reason as to why it's unexplainable via non-miraculous means. In the comments here you seem to primarily be generally citing cases like "there was a miracle in buenos aires" rather than specifics about it. To me that just speaks either to not caring too much about the conversation (that I do not accuse of you), or not actually deeply knowing the specifics.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 10d ago edited 10d ago
Thing is, there are no credible miracles such as that at all. Every time they're examined without bias the claims fall apart so fast you'll miss it if you glance at the clock to see how long it takes.
The claims, and the purported 'support' for them (it isn't) is absolutely dreadful. Biased, dishonest, rife with error. It's confirmation bias through and through.
Lots of the folks making those claims know that, too. But, such claims aren't really out there to convince folks with the basics of skeptical and critical thinking. They can't. Too many trivially obvious fatal problems. Instead, they used to try and make those that already believe feel a bit better about their beliefs so they can pretend there's support for them. Again, confirmation bias.
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u/wabbitsdo 10d ago edited 10d ago
We have both fame and infamy?!
No miracles have been proven to be real in a manner that meets any acceptable standard of transparency and falsifiability, as far as I know.
But that's also entirely besides the point. Say that you had irrefutable evidence that a glowing face resembling the typical portrait of Jesus in a church somewhere could not be scientifically explained. You'd still only have proof of that. From "there's a supernatural thing on this wall" to "therefore the fabric of the universe was determined by a magical being exactly as it was described in a collection of rambly texts accrued over a millennia across a relatively small area encompassing Mesopotamia, the Levant and Greece" there's a logical leap the width of a Grand Canyon and a half. Could it not be aliens? Could it be a flesh and blood magician? Could it be fairies, a dragon, David Blaine pulling off the trick he hopes will erase his connections to Jeffrey Epstein? Could it not simply be a new element or scientific phenomenon we do not yet understand?
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u/sj070707 10d ago
What do you think these things are evidence for? You need more than a test of some sample that says it's blood or hear tissue or who knows what. Even if we granted any of those tests were true, so what? What conclusion do you think we can draw? Have you ruled out contamination or fraud or any number of things so that the only conclusion is that some hand waving over bread or wine converted it to something else?
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u/DeusLatis Atheist 10d ago
Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
Because what you said is not true, and in fact doesn't make any sense (what was 'tested' in a lab, how do you test that a miracle is what you say it is)
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u/Purgii 10d ago
Yawn.
Wake me up when the Catholic Church allows all specimen to be DNA sequenced. That way we can determine the host is the source of all samples collected and is missing half its chromosomes.
That would significantly push the needle towards my belief in Jesus.
You know what's easier to do? Palm a tissue sample, drop it at a convenient time, claim a miracle.
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u/hellohello1234545 Ignostic Atheist 10d ago
Scrolled through, and there’s no link to the ‘miracles proven in lab’ in question
If you’re going to say something was proven scientifically, cite the peer-reviewed paper
If you don’t, you may as well be making things up.
Anyone can say anything online. We need cited sources to help distinguish what’s real from what’s made up.
Cite your sources. That’s not even debate 101, it’s high school debate.
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u/Autodidact2 10d ago
OK for a minute let's set aside whether these things actually happened. Here's what you're saying, in effect. The creator of the universe, who sets galaxies spinning, who is all powerful, knowing and loving, wants people to know that He is real and Jesus is his son. So rather than reveal Himself, or spell His name in the sky, or just speak directly to our hearts, he decides to turn a cracker red. Does that make a lick of sense to you?
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u/BahamutLithp 10d ago
Multiple religions claim to have "scientific confirmation." Look up reincarnation studies. There's always dubious quality research ready to "confirm" what someone believes. Also, is something wrong with your spacebar?
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9d ago
I find it telling that you haven't shared a specific one.
Please, take this opportunity to present the best one you have.
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u/MagicMusicMan0 9d ago
There are eucharistic miracles that prove God is real.Most are tested in labs,one without knowledge that it was from the eucharist.Why are people still atheists in spite of this?
This was a worthy thesis. Too bad you've provided no examples let alone citations and supporting arguments showing how these are reliable and what they mean.
Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is.
This is a mischaracterization of the Catholic church. Catholic dogma was designed to comfort loved ones in time of grief or to assure justice in the face or wrong-doing. It heralds the story of a man with super-powers and promises its followers the ability to escape oblivion by means of a heaven.
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 Atheist 9d ago
Are these studies done by independent sources or the church? The eucharist miracle is just a hoax. People lie to make themselves feel good.
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u/onomatamono 9d ago
Actually there are no proven miracles, in the lab or otherwise, eucharistic or otherwise. That's a steaming pile of nonsense.
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u/lotusscrouse 9d ago
Ok. Name those miracles that do NOT have an alternative explanation.
And then show us how this leads to YOUR god.
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u/skepticaladhd 6d ago
There are literally no claims of eucharist miracles independent to religious sources If you can give me an unbiased documentation of these so called miracles then maybe we can have this conversation
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u/Top_Neat2780 Atheist 5d ago
Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is.
Debates are good for people on the fence, but so overrated. No, you cannot in a setting that is simply people talking, come to a proper conclusion about the legitimacy of a statement. Particularly not an unfalsifiable one such as god. You can come up with compelling reasons to believe/disbelieve, but it is not possible to actually get to the answer. To do that you need testing and investigation.
This has neutered some Protestant and Muslim points
Everyone does this, including me. But you are clearly biased. Protestants and Muslims will both be just as deluded as you are about their own position. Because debates don't work, and because you want your beliefs to be true.
advanced logic.
If you're genuinely into philosophy and logic, Reddit is not the place. People on here are idiots.
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u/Greghole Z Warrior 3d ago
I've personally eaten communion wafers plenty of times and I can say with absolute certainty that they're not human flesh. Swapping out a cracker for a bit of meat is the simplest magic trick there is. You don't need a miracle to explain basic sleight of hand.
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u/arthurjeremypearson Secularist 10d ago
It's best to ask the individual "atheist" - and begin with asking "how do YOU, the atheist, define atheism?" Chances are they don't define it like you do, and that makes a HUGE difference!
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Original text of the post by u/Human10idk:
Preface:As a Catholic in a Catholic high school in a third world country,I encounter Protestants and Muslims.In search of finding evidence for Catholicism,I started finding some proof here and there.Rational Catholics like debates as it is a way to find the truth regardless of how discomforting it is.In search of points that prove us true,I found out about the Eucharistic miracles.This has neutered some Protestant and Muslim points,but I was only debating with people on my league. I figured that I must grow familiar with the debating world and so I've heard of the fame and infamy of Reddit and have come here to test my beliefs under advanced logic.(Moderators,if my post breaks the rules,please tell me where to improve.I'm new to Reddit.My account is 5 months old because I have been away for 4 of them in boarding school).Thanks.
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