Silent Observer: If this happened to me, I'd be tempted to break the statue open and look for a hollow inside.

Final answer? Seems to me you have an obligation to say more. And what if the statue in your grandmother’s bedroom weeping tears of blood in your presence was not hollow inside or had no gadgets installed? What then? Run away and try to forget what transpired?

Ironic choice of words, given your answer to the fossil record, study of evolutionary biology, genetics, etc.

Assuming a statue had no obvious hollow for insertion of liquid (could have it x-rayed, I suppose), we could investigate the liquid itself to see what it was made of, and why it might be there. Many of these liquids end up being something other than blood or other things mixed with blood (like animal fat or oil) so that it doesn't dry out. Failing that, we can investigate the blood itself and look for likely donors. As some of the hoax reports have shown, the likely culprits often are the first 'witnesses.' We can also clean it off and put the statue under observation to see if it happens again. Judging from Joe Nickell's reports, the statues he's been given have thus far failed to weep or bleed for him.

It may end there, and no, I don't forget the things that happened to me. I process them as best I can. My own personal experiences, for example, would take me in a completely different direction -- not atheism, not xianity -- were I to take them at face value. If personal experience really is most valuable, what do you think I should do?

If it insults you to call scores of weeping/bleeding statuary fake, then you've set yourself up for it. There are some hoaxes out there. Here, I have some examples. Does it insult you to see these examples, JV-12? Then so be it. The truth insults you. That's fitting.

It insults me not in the least. I know there are hoaxes out there, but it seems rather apparent to me that most are not. At least, plenty enough that have been observed by thousands and those under investigations have no natural explanation. That does nothing for you? Witnesses mean nothing to you, why? Because you demand from God that it be done in front of your eyes only. Because you do not want to believe sensible and, really, undeniable manifestations of proof of the divine. The very proof the obstinate demand before they will believe.

Once again, I will have to ask you to show your math. As you do with boring regularity, you make up this argument that mathematics and/or probability is on your side without explaining it. Of course it's apparent to you that 'most' are not hoaxes. How else could you justify this belief to yourself?

To debunk your latest strawman: I distrust witnesses when they may be biased. I distrust investigations that are controlled and/or limited by biased people. Most of all I do not want a god to perform just for me. That makes it easy to dismiss. That is the essence of the problem; your god performs for the few, in secret, sneaking about as if the light of day would dispel him like fog before the dawn.

I've laid out the properties of what I think a compelling miracle would be: that it be shared by all; be recordable to facilitate investigation; be repeatable, rather than these one-off isolated events in history that we can't investigate effectively; and have a clear message, unlike your average weeping statue.

I hold to the example of doubting Thomas. According to the story, he got to meet Jesus, work with the man, watch him die, and met up again with him later, even got to stick his hands in the wounds. Now that's obstinate.

What do I get? Some weeping statue. Or some century-old solar event that ought to have been witnessed by everyone on that side of the globe, but wasn't.