Crying statues (virgin, blood, church, Mary, faith)

[Mr Spinkles]

For the purposes of this thread, let's ignore the philosophical/theological problems of crying statues. (How do you know it isn't Satan trying to lead people away from the "true" religion? Don't such miraculous demonstrations undermine the whole concept of 'faith'?)

First, let's have a reality check: in the past, things as simple as rust stains which resemble the Virgin Mary have made national news. If statues really did cry inexplicably, and if it really was confirmed by scientists and apparently not a hoax, there would be a media frenzy (but not before a massive pilgrimage by the faithful to see the miracle).

In fact, in the past, cases of supposed crying statues were followed by a media frenzy. So what happened? They were shown to be hoaxes. The "tears" were chicken fat oil, or the blood was morning dew which mixed with a red powder that had been secretly placed in the corners of the eyes of the statue. The sad truth is that even people who are normally honest can make stuff up in order to bolster their convictions. I'm glad, at least, that the Catholic Church normally has the good sense to have the tears tested chemically and the hoax revealed (although not even that stops hundreds of people from visiting many of these statues).

[Tawn]

Even if one were proven to be inexplicable.. that might mean our knowledge base might be inadequate.. also, were such things to be shown to be supernatural - one would have to question why God would bother. Theres much better ways to expend his energies surely?

[Fluffy]

For anyone who is interested in reading up on unusual phenomena such as crying statues then I strongly recommend the magazine 'Fortean Times' which looks at fortean findings from an impartial perspective and always documents its sources carefully. I am unsure if this is available in the US but it is definitely available in the UK.

The thing that interests me the most about phenomena such as this is the sheer scale of the amount of reports which occur worldwide. This, for me, highlights the vast amount of knowledge that we are yet to uncover since the explanation that people are making it up or coincidences doesn't sit well with me when they are used to try and explain the entire abundance of data.

Having said that I have repeatedly found the urge to lie about being able to perform magick simply to shut up the people who persecute me for holding such a conviction. So I can imagine that many other people might feel the urge to create a hoax so as to persuade other people what they feel they already "know".