Explaining The Inexplicable Whether It Makes Sense Or Not

This story reflects a simple but sad fact about humanity. When something happens that DEFIES explanation people will COME UP with an explanation whether it makes sense or not. This goes back to the Bible. Trying to explain the world. You look around and say "in six days God created the world." Sounds perfectly reasonable, right?

If you tell this story enough, like the story about God creating the world in six days, maybe it will start to make sense. But for the life of me, I have read this thing 20 times and I can't see anything here at all. If you are sitting near a fire you can spontaneously combust? The coroner read about it in a book? If this were possible with all the people sitting near fireplaces around the world you would think someone would have witnessed such a thing. I'm not aware of any such witnesses. This is part of the reason why we lurch from catastrophe to catastrophe. So much is founded on this kind of nonsensical explanation. Once upon a time they needed to explain the shape of the world and they said it was flat. The sun revolved around the Earth. And people are very PASSIONATE about their totally wrongheaded explanations and will not hesitate to put you in thumbscrews or an Iron Maiden to make their point.

But when you don't know, you must EXPLAIN. So "spontaneous combustion" it is! And why not. In the end, what difference does it make? Guy is dead. It's a good story. At least he went out with a bang, and for years people will be talking about "Faherty's miracle." Until the zombies come.

A man who died near a fire had "spontaneously combusted", a coroner in Ireland has ruled.

Michael Faherty, a 76-year-old pensioner in Galway, died at his house three days before Christmas last year in circumstances that had baffled investigators, the Irish Times reported.

Forensic experts said the death had not been caused by a fire in Faherty's fireplace, and that no accelerant had been found, nor was there evidence of foul play.

Faherty had been found lying on his back with his head near the fireplace, in the sitting room, but fire fighters said the blaze had not spread from the hearth.

Coroner Ciaran McLoughlin, who researched the matter heavily before giving his verdict, said he had never encountered such a case in his 25 years working in the region.

He said a book on forensic pathology noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney.

"This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation," the BBC reported him as saying.

[Huffington Post]