Lourdes shrine closes healing pools

[Tired of the Nonsense]

CATHOLIC HERALD
March 3, 2020
Lourdes shrine closes healing pools as precaution against coronavirus
https://catholicherald.co.uk/lourdes-sh ... ronavirus/

What does this say about the church's confidence in the "miraculous" properties of the water at Lourdes?

[marco]

About 6 million people visit Lourdes each year hoping for miraculous cures by partaking of the water. In all the time it has been in operation, there have only been 67 miracles accepted by the church. Any hospital with a success rate like that would have shut down long ago.

To be clinically fair it is not quite the same thing, brunumb. Hospitals are in the business of curing. Bernadette herself was never healed of her illness and accepted the spring waters were not for her. The criteria for "miracle" remains very strict for the reason that opprobrium and scorn would fall on any enthusiasm to credit Mary with cures that were proved false. The inexplicable is given the label of miracle.

In hard terms something odd has happened; a combination of faith perhaps, psychology and the body's own ability to summon its chemical assistance. Blindness cured after bathing, ulcerated neck cured after bathing, congenital heart disease (that killed two siblings) cured after healing; a 2-year old boy dying of consumption cured after bathing... The common element is that medical knowledge proclaimed the illnesses incurable. But they were cured. The 15 year old ulcerated boy who was cured begged his parents to take him to Lourdes as a last resort but they refused, and a neighbour brought him some water from the grotto. It is at the least very interesting. A wiser world might explain it for us without involving the kindness of Christ's mother. That is just a convenient sticker for our ignorance; it seems fatuous however simply to deny something extraordinary has happened.

[marco]

Do the people who run the healing pools KNOW that the waters have healing powers or not. Simple yes or no question.

Scepticism is an essential part of scientific examination but the attribution of fakery to those in charge of the site does not apply in the case of the dying 2-year old boy whose mother took in him the early days when authorities made it forbidden to visit the site. The mother brought her infant there and bathed him despite protests. He was cured.

The proper answer is something extraordinary happened and we do not know how. Our antagonism towards religious superstition should not get in the way of our willingness to accept the unusual, without attaching to it divine interference.

[marco]

Of course, even a single genuine miracle is more than enough to thoroughly undermine any atheist rhetoric about "no evidence" for the existence of a god. Perhaps that is why we see some of these, shall we say, less than perfectly reasoned attempts to claim that the shrine's officials know that those miracles aren't real - a claim which many critics on this forum wouldn't even make for themselves!

In this argument I am in some agreement with you. Mithrae. There is sufficient rigour applied to separate dubious from extraordinary but the extraordinary does exist. I cannot see the point in counting cures and attributing them to "chance", whatever that means, when medical knowledge has declared that the sufferer cannot be cured. If medical science is wrong then it is incumbent on us to find out what has intervened; what methodology has been used that is as yet inaccessible to science.

The stumbling block is the picture of a nice lady, terribly choosy in what she decides to cure. This reduces the situation to silliness. If water has the power to heal one in a million and I am declared to be in the vestibule of death, then I drink. But I drink sceptically and presumably uselessly. The mother who defied guards and went to the early grotto to plunge her dying child in the water had what most do not have: utter belief. Those who attribute psychology, which certainly seems a factor, cannot offer it to the barely conscious baby. In what way did his mum's determination effect a cure?

Finally it may be that chance occasionally descends at the moment we are desperate for answers. Chance does not explain the mechanism by which the declared incurable was cured. So I am happy to accept that we are ignorant in many areas and it would be appropriate to seek reasons rather than kick the hapless blessed Virgin and deride the Papacy. They may have nothing to do with what has happened, but there is something worth investigating. A miracle is another way of confessing our ignorance - that's all.

[AgnosticBoy]

Correction: Those who are wise stay at home and reduce chances of being infected.

If that was true, why does CDC guidelines allow for "essential" workers, like healthcare workers, to continue to work? Because we need people to treat the sick, right?

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced at the White House that essential employees, such as health care and food supply workers, who have been within 6 feet of a confirmed or suspected case of the virus can return to work under certain circumstances if they are not experiencing symptoms.

The new guidelines are being issued as the nation mourns more than 14,000 deaths from the virus and grapples with a devastated economy and medical crises from coast to coast.

https://apnews.com/fab319a90ead9aae057f7fab059c2ccb

So infected workers can return back to work because it is necessary?!

So please tell me, why it isn't necessary to also restart our economy? Very soon, if or when people start becoming restless from staying in doors and losing their businesses, their livelihood, and start needing more food, the CDC will start seeing why an "economy" is very necessary. There is a scientifically informed way to start the economy, and that is by allowing the LOW RISK and IMMUNE to get back to work.

[AgnosticBoy]

CATHOLIC HERALD
March 3, 2020
Lourdes shrine closes healing pools as precaution against coronavirus
https://catholicherald.co.uk/lourdes-sh ... ronavirus/

What does this say about the church's confidence in the "miraculous" properties of the water at Lourdes?

We should also be asking why would atheists and Christians be afraid of this virus if they are low risk or even immune. What does that say about our confidence in science, especially for the atheists that claim to be led by science??

[Bust Nak]

We should also be asking why would atheists and Christians be afraid of this virus if they are low risk or even immune.

Because a) the immune response to COVID 19 is not well understood yet. b) you could spread the decease to those more at risk.

What does that say about our confidence in science, especially for the atheists that claim to be led by science??

It says we are led by science just like we claim we are?

[Mithrae]

Of course, even that paper's prospective results of a mortality rate 14 times higher than the flu still radically contradicts 1213's claim that "common influenza is about as dangerous."

I don't believe he ever said common. He may have meant that, but it's generally true that if you're not in a high-risk group, you are very unlikely to die. Same as the flu.

We're dealing with tiny, tiny numbers well under the 2% mark, so yes, fourteen times can seem a lot bigger, but both figures are still very low (as of now).

Again: Countries like France, Italy, Spain and the UK all have mortality rates above 9%. The global average seems to be somewhere above 5.8% (deaths divided by total cases, which would tend to yield at least a slight underestimate). It varies widely from country to country - presumably due to factors like general health of the population, average age of infected patients, availability/quality of medical care and perhaps even genetic susceptibility in some populations - but if we're considering the essentially "do nothing" approach which folk like 1213 and AgnosticBoy seem to be advocating we should be looking at the more worrying scenarios rather than results in the countries which have responded most effectively.

[Zzyzx]

.
[Replying to post 47 by Mithrae]

Another major factor to be considered is the extent of testing for the virus by nations in question. One that has a rigorous testing program may show very different results than a nation that is lackadaisical. Transparency / honesty in reporting can also influence apparent death rate.

[AgnosticBoy]

We should also be asking why would atheists and Christians be afraid of this virus if they are low risk or even immune.

Because a) the immune response to COVID 19 is not well understood yet. b) you could spread the decease to those more at risk.

Since your response is in two parts I'll answer accordingly:

a) Covid-19 comes from a family of viruses (the coronavirus) that has been known about for decades. This most recent strand, SARS-CoV2 (which causes covid-19), may be new but we can expect immunity towards it to work as it would with any other virus. We do have studies from other coronavirus outbreaks, like that in 2002-2003 (i.e. SARS), where it's been shown that immunity can last up to 3 years.

Dr. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says regarding immunity and covid-19:

"We don't know that for 100 percent certain because we haven't done the study," Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah last week. "But I feel really confident that if this virus acts like every other virus that we know, once you get infected, get better, clear the virus, then you will have immunity that will protect you against reinfection."

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... e-n1171976

So we are 90% certain instead of 100% certain. Despite not understanding some of the how and whys, but we do know 100% that people have recovered from covid-19. IF they no longer have the virus, then they can NOT spread it.

b) I might have to start taking note of who I'm mentioning this to. Again, my plan involves isolating the high risk population. If the high risk population has little to no close contact with the low risk population then the risk of infecting the high risk is low.

What does that say about our confidence in science, especially for the atheists that claim to be led by science??

It says we are led by science just like we claim we are?

Being afraid while being immune or being in the population that would experience MILD symptoms is NOT consistent with someone being led by science. It's more like someone being led by the media hype, perhaps.

[Purple Knight]

Churches/shrines that stay open are condemned by non-theists.

Churches/shrines that close are condemned by non-theists.

Churches/shrines that stay open are defended by theists.

Churches/shrines that close are defended by theists.

Both of these statements are very true and very sad. It shows that both groups really only seek confirmation and never truth.

Here's the truth: Water doesn't magically cure what ails you. It's not enchanted, it's not magic, and those closing the pools are right to close them.

However, they never should have been scamming people to begin with, since the absolute truth is that this is what they've been doing: Cheating people to make money. It's not okay. But neither are the scammers absolutely evil people. They wouldn't close the pools if they were, and the religious immunity blanket would probably protect them from backlash if they chose not to close. Whatever else these people are, they closed the pools out of the goodness of their hearts and should be commended.

Again: Countries like France, Italy, Spain and the UK all have mortality rates above 9%. The global average seems to be somewhere above 5.8% (deaths divided by total cases, which would tend to yield at least a slight underestimate). It varies widely from country to country - presumably due to factors like general health of the population, average age of infected patients, availability/quality of medical care and perhaps even genetic susceptibility in some populations - but if we're considering the essentially "do nothing" approach which folk like 1213 and AgnosticBoy seem to be advocating we should be looking at the more worrying scenarios rather than results in the countries which have responded most effectively.

No one is recommending nothing, and frankly I don't believe the 9%.

It is not 9%.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2020 ... tes-differ

https://www.livescience.com/death-rate- ... mates.html

First one explains the why, and the latter says it could be as low as less than a percent.

You'll remember that my first post on this was defending 1213 when he said it wasn't much worse than the flu.

That doesn't mean I think he's right. I'm reserving judgment, actually.

I just don't like it when people are called stupid for sharing their thoughts, especially when no one knows what is actually going on.

And I'm always going to step in when I see this happening, especially when one side is being, frankly, bullied.