by My favourite part is this:
Well, that is a lovely story, and it goes along with all sorts of other trappings -- the usual miracle stories associated with icons and holy relics, and various "amazing facts." My favorite of the latter is that the stars on her cloak resemble the constellations that were in the sky in December of 1531, only reversed -- "as if the constellations were being observed from a vantage point a great distance from the Earth." Presumably, the implication is that this is what the constellations look like to the Virgin Mary from her home in heaven. The unattributed writer of that statement evidently is under the misapprehension that the stars in a constellation exist in a flat plane, and so if you were far away ("on the other side of the constellation"), you'd see them backwards, as if you were looking at an image painted on a flat sheet of glass first from one side, and then the other. Unfortunately, the stars in the sky are not equidistant from the sun, but sit in a three-dimensional space -- so there is no place in space where you'd see the same constellations as you do on the Earth, only inverted. You'd think the Virgin Mary would know that, somehow.
It always amazes me, though it's not shocking, how scientifically and skepticlally illiterate, not to mention unimaginative, religious apologists are.
What are we supposed to be seeing here?