Pope John Paul II is being canonized this weekend because of 667,302 prayers for divine intervention, he miraculously answered two, years after he was already dead.
What sort of evidence is required to certify that an earthly phenomenon was caused by a dead person?
William of Occam would have pointed out that there are simpler explanations for a sick person getting well, e.g.,
- The disease responded to treatment.
- The disease went into remission.
- The patient was misdiagnosed and did not really have the disease in the first place.
I assure you that if 667,302 people with diagnosed medical ailments prayed to my dog, in at least two of those cases (and more likely, thousands), something unusual would happen.
Years ago, a lower GI series revealed that I had a golf ball-sized (4 cm) tumor in my colon. The doctor did a colonoscopy a few days later and the tumor was gone.
It’s a miracle! Unless something was wrong with the production or reading of the x-ray and the tumor was never there at all.
I didn’t say any prayers so no one will be getting a sainthood out of it. Or maybe I myself am a saint!
Update: This.