Don't believe the hype

I saw an interesting comment on twitter today about people speaking In tongues. To one believer, it was all he needed to confirm what he already wanted to be true: God is real. For a skeptic like me, I want to know who witnessed this event, what biases they held, the history of the tongue-speaker, etc. I will not settle for something as flimsy as a report of speaking in tongues as proof of a supernatural being. In fact, I would not settle for my own witnessing of such an event to be proof of a deity without more information. Simple observation of a phenomenon does not provide evidence or explanation as to its origins. 

This conversation led me to do some learning on the topic of 'religious miracles', an idea I have long scorned based on my own science education. But what about my own biases, surely they affected my judgement somehow? I decided that I needed to achieve a deeper knowledge on this subject as I, admittedly, knew of only the most commonly discussed events. 

The first example I came across was exceptional. Father Francis Xavier, a missionary who spent many years in India, China, and Japan, whose purpose was to convert the heathens he and his cohorts encountered into believers and members of the Catholic Church. Well after his death in 1552, reports began surfacing of the miracles that had occurred during his missionary work: He had the gift of tongues (language), he was able to burn holy water instead of oil, a crucifix lost to the sea was returned to him by a crab, he was able to change salt water into fresh water while at sea, and he had raised no less than 14 people from the dead. Pope Urban VIII was very impressed by this, while simultaneously being appalled by the scientific discoveries of Galileo.

Of course, the truth is somewhat different. Through historical documentation of his own writings during these times, he reports on a great many things including his difficulties learning the Japanese language, and the daily work of conversion. Not once does he, or his other companions, mention anything remotely miraculous. In fact, Joseph Acosta specifically states in his letters that no miraculous powers were used during their missionary work. 

So what is the genesis of the miracles of Saint Francis Xavier? It seems likely that oral histories, though recent, had been contorted as they were passed on, like a bad game of telephone. The tendency toward exaggeration is a part of the human condition - an observational bias. As a result, history can become what we want it to be, bending to the needs of our own biases, whether we recognize it or not. 

These events are a direct result of the old school version of media hype. And I don't buy it.