Less than 30 seconds of work turned up this nifty little article discussing the supposed "miracle" of incorruptability.

http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/1995/2.pdf#search=%22Incorruptibility%22

It seems that one of the most famous incorruptables, Saint Bernadette, was infact entombed in a double casket surrounded with sawdust and charcoal. Upon the second exhumation of the body, it was covered in wax and placed in an air-tight glass case. Yeah, defies all logic.

The article goes on to look at other supposed incorrupt bodies of both Cathlics and non-Catholics (Buddhists and Hindus also have incorrupt "saints", seen here: http://www.answers.com/topic/incorruptibility-2 ). It's not a "miracle" exclusive to the Catholic church. You can read it for yourself.

Brilliant! Where most would use the "traditional" approach to debate and present evidence of their claim, you simply make an unsupported statement and expect others to take you at your word. You are an inspiration to the entire community, good sir/madam. I do hope you won't mind if I use your unique approach to rational debate in future threads!

So we're clear:

Most atheists ARE open to the idea that A god exists, should ample evidence be presented. Unfortunately for you, that's not really what you're proposing. You are illogically plugging in the christian god here, incorrectly operating under the falsehood that there is any evidence at all supporting the idea that the christian god is any more likely to exist than Amen-Ra, or Balder. Therefore, logically, you're talking out of your ass.

You really need to stop posting links to recycled drivel that have been refuted over and over again.

 I found this short video clip on youtube of incorrupt saints.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7uPLx8PM8c

Heh everyone,

Thank's to all the guy's of RRS, especially the main runner's of the battlefleet, you do some great work.

Am i missing something here. He has provided no source material of any kind and we are trying to refute him. Is this thing happening that day a proven fact or something. I hadn't even heard of it till the other day. It's like it came out of thin air or something. It seem's to have minimal source material so i think the claim's are a bit hollow.

I will do this with your help.

Ok, it sound's like a cool miracle, 70,000 people is amazing.

But

What you just write mean's nothing to me unless you provide source material.

Seeing as you assert "The miracle of the Sun was witnessed by 70 thousand people". Please provide signed source Testimonies of people that claim they where there that day, so the number is not just hearsay. If it is contained in another source(newspaper) please provide source.

Also provide signed Testimonies of the people stating they saw the "Miracle of the Sun" that day. Otherwise how can you assert anykind of number of people that saw or witnessed this miracle.

Please provide evidence of anykind, including newspaper's that you used to create this number.

Please provide source's. I also heard that atheist, freemason's and commo's saw this. Please provide source's or how else do you know this.

Please provide source's so we can start talking about the thing's you claim and unfortunitly i think this will be a point that will be so easily debated wrong by sceptic's that i don't think it is worth us even looking into this. It is so hard for you to prove that a god or virgin mary has any healing power's or that they even exist. First we have to look at what happened that day.

Sapien seem's pritty happy where he is. Why not just talk about the thing's you claim above.

I need source's for the claim's above and below, Evidence not Hearsay please:

"But the children had made mention of it prior to their own deaths."
 
And any other claim, like the non-believer's newspaper article, I need a source for that. Otherwise how do i know you didn't just make it up.

Also is there a website where all evidence is catalogued, it should have been done by now. You know like science has a catalogue of evidence for the great story of evolution, you should also have a catalogue of usable evidence for all your supposed miracle's. There should be tonne's of evidence if this is true. If there is none then i can only conclude that the story is lost to history.

Until we can test the incorruptable's scientifically we have no reason to believe it is a miracle or sign of god working in the world. Please tell me why i should jump to the conclusion that "GOD DID IT" when it could just as easily be a hoax.

Welcome, OneGodFurther.  When you get a chance, we'd love it if you'd hop over to General Conversation, Introductions and Humor and introduce yourself.

 Also, don't lose any sleep waiting for a reply from AL500 as that poster is no longer on this site.

With the word "miracle" we usually refer to a violation of the natural laws. The point is that miracles are, by definition, exceptional events, which cannot be reproduced in laboratory. Miracles can then be studied only on the basis of the available records. Of course, the judgement about these records is subjective, and all those who do not want to believe in miracles, will always claim that such records are false or wrong. Many miracles have been scientifically studied, and some information is available also on line.

Personally, I think that the well recorded miracle is the miracle of the sun of Fatima, occurred in October 1917. Some years ago, I read an article on a well known italian newspaper about the miracle of sun at Fatima. I knew nothing about Fatima, except that some children had had a vision of Our Lady. I was really surprised to read that a crowd of 70000 people had seen the sun dancing in the sky for some minutes. As far as the number of witness is concerned, it was the greatest miracle after the passage across the Red Sea! I must say that the thing surprised me so much to leave me rather skeptic.
So I decided to seek more information, and what I have found has convinced me about the supernatural nature of the events of Fatima. First of all, the miracle of the sun at Fatima is quoted also in many different secular encyclopedias, such as the Britannica encyclopedia, where at the item Fatima I have found:

village and sanctuary, Vila Nova de Ourém municipality, Santarém district, central Portugal; it is located on the tableland of Cova da Iria, 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Leiria. Fátima was named for a 12th-century Moorish princess and since 1917 has been one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. On May 13, 1917, and in each subsequent month until October of that year, three young peasant children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reportedly saw a lady who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. On October 13, a crowd (generally estimated at about 70,000) gathered at Fátima witnessed a "miraculous solar phenomenon" immediately after the lady had appeared to the children.

Since 1910, the portuguese government had started a very hard battle against the Catholic Church: many religious orders were expelled and their property confiscated, new legislation banned the teaching of religion in schools and universities and annulled many religious holidays. Persecution of Catholics in the early years of the republic attracted international attention and brought the new political system into conflict with foreign diplomats, humanitarian organizations, and journalists. The (atheist) director Avelino de Almeida of the government (and very antireligious) newspaper "O Seculo" was present at Fatima on October 17, the day when the three children had foretold that God would have given a miraculous sign. The intention was to write an article to discredit the religious "superstitions" of catholicism. The article, published with the title "Terrifying Event! How The Sun Danced In The Sky Of Fatima" can be found on the site

www.ewtn.com/fatima/apparitions/October.htm

In his article, the journalist describes a crowd of biblical dimensions, spread in the fields of Fatima. At a certain point, this immense crowd begins to cry "Miracle! Miracle!" looking at the sun. The journalists describes then an amazed crowd, who cry and pray.

I have tried to analyse these data to see whether it was possible to find a plausible explanation, excluding a divine intervention, but I have found none. No scientifically acceptable explanations exist for such a phenomenon. I do not think it is reasonable to hypothesize a conspiracy of 70000 people, simulating a collective vision. On the other hand, it would not have been possible to hypnotize such a crowd, spread on an area of some square kilometers. Besides it is scientifically impossible, even with the present technology (you can imagine with the technology available in 1917!), to realize an optical illusion like that. Some atheists try to explain this miracle as a banal optical effect; when we look at the sun for a while, we see coloured pulsating spots, or when the clouds move in the sky, they can create the illusion that the sun is moving. Obviously, we all know this, we all have looked at the sun and we all know the effects, we all have seen the clouds moving in the sky. Those who were at Fatima certainly knew this as well. So, unless we hypothesize that at Fatima there were only 70000 idiots, such explanation is not plausible at all. Some then speak about hysterism or suggestion. However, if catholics were all subject to hysteric crisis or they were so easily suggestionable, one couldn't explain why in 2000 years of catholicism there are no other cases of crowds witnessing to having seen such extraordinary phenomena. Actually, there was only the word of three children, and if this was sufficient to suggestionize so much catholics, then whoever claims to have some visions of Our Lady, could easily make a crowd of 70000 catholics to see the sun dancing in the sky. Some then ipothesize that some rare physical phenomenon must have happened at Fatima that day; certainly it should have been a very rare phenomenon! I do not think such ipothesis have any value, but even if it should have been a rare physical phenomenon, the fact that it occurred exactly in the place and in the time predicted by the three children is for me the most evident proof of the supernatural nature of such event. In my opinion, the miracle of Fatima is the best recorded miracle in all history.

Mass Hallucination has happened.

Meh.

I doubt he tried all that hard in his analysis.

I think the extent of it went like this, "It was the Virgin Mary but it could have been God or maybe even Jesus".

I find the whole "miracle" not only insufficient to constitute any evidence of a higher power, but also a very poor attempt on behalf of a presupposed higher power to attract attention to itself. If there is a god he could surely perform a well documented miracle right here, right now in 2008. Even if he/she/it was only limited to say, one miracle per century (as to not cheapen the miracles) even in 1917 something a lot more substantial should've happened than a "dancing sun" seen by a group of peasant pilgrims. I mean, give me a break. How about healing an amputated leg in front of an audience? Or stopping ice from melting in the summer heat? Or suspending gravity in a constrained area for a while? Now if documented and recorded to happen without human interference, that would get MY attention.

If the best a god can do is create some questionable illusionary planetary experience and dry some Portugese mud, than sorry - I remain unimpressed.

Let me now ask our dear catholic friends (what are they doing here anyway - winning converts??) this: If you are willing to consider an unexplained phenomenon FOR THE GOOD to be proof of god's existance, then the opposide should be true as well. A healthy person dropping dead on the street for no apparent reason should be proof to you that god does not exist. Holocaust should be proof that god does not exist. I know it's not (to me at least) but it should certainly make a theist question his/her god(s).  So, what do you say? Where was your "Holy Lady"(also a Jewess, coincidently) where Jews were being starved and burned in ovens by the thousands? Was she busy trying to "shake the sun" in front of a bunch of farmers in another village?

Forgive my bluntness (or not!) but you've got a lot of guts bargin in here with your theist crap considering how much blood the catholic church has on their hands, how many scandals it was involved in and how many lives it ruined. As Catholics you should hang your heads in shame and just shut up.