We Goans and particularly our politicians are guilty of paying lip service to our illustrious sons. We eulogize them after they are dead, but hardly honor them when they are alive.
I have read about Jesus’ picture drips blood from His eyes in Utorda and also about the image of Jesus on a banana tree in a house at Colva. This has started a wave of excitement in, otherwise, calm Goa. Educated and uneducated are stuck to it and throng to witness this phenomenon.
Long, long ago, perhaps, not so long ago, there were rumors that Lord Ganesh drank milk placed before Him. Some people said that it was a miracle. Scientists explained that the milk was absorbed due to surface tension, capillary action and siphoning.
Again in recent past, another rumour claimed that the salty water of the Mahim creek in Mumbai turned sweet. People believed it to be a miracle, but it turned out that it was due to that year’s heavy rains.
False beliefs play a very dominant role in some sections of the society, especially among the village folk. Superstitions and fears are passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. And no amount of conviction and justification can help to uproot them.
When people are not in a position to explain the cause and effect of a happening they jump to the conclusion that it is a miracle. For example teleporting:
“When a bell on the table suddenly comes in your hand without you doing anything, you call it a miracle. You don’t know what caused the bell to make its way into your hand. But this is not a miracle. It is only teleporting. The bell, which is matter, is converted into energy, transported in space and then converted back into matter. When you don’t understand this science, you think it is a miracle.”
There are many illusions that modern magicians perform which the average person cannot explain; but they do have natural explanations. They are not miracles. Some magicians give wheelchairs for people who can actually walk; then, at their presentation, they pronouncing the person on the wheelchair as healed.
Some instances of faith healings are pure fakery, like for example telling about people’s private life after receiving such data through messengers. But some “miracle cures” claimed by people who honestly believe that God has healed them are psychosomatic illness — the problem which is mental or emotional.
Several miracles are recorded in the Bible, which show that Christianity is a superior religion to any other as in no other religions, no one has walked on water like Christ; no one has revived the dead man, after four days, as Jesus has done; no one has turned water into wine as He did at the wedding in Cana; no one has cured a leaper instantly with a touch of His hand.
Investigation should find out whether the tears of blood from Jesus’ picture in Utorda, are human blood or not and the genuineness of the image of Jesus on a banana tree at Colva. Let us wait for the convincing explanation given by scientist and theologians.
