It is not a matter of spirituality for me, unfortunately it is for most of the people here, so they put it in front of common sense. The people DO drink this water, and if you don't believe me ask any person from this country. Public records? HAHAHA, you crack me up Vlad, things work very differently here. There's a very interesting explanation for this, and I'm gonna write it down for your amusement I suppose. In Costa Rica, most of the population is catholic, the country even has named catholisism it's oficial religion, and as such, the goverment pays the salaries of priests and endorses all activities by the church(and this is a lot of money we're talking about), now why would the goverment do this, simple, because as I said earlier most of the population is catholic and you can imagine how destructive it would be for a politician to pronounce him/herself against the church, so whatever the church says goes, and that's that, so no one can shut this fountain down, no one will risk it anyway. The reason the water is "holy" is that the fountain is inside the church, and the way the story goes, the fountain magicaly appeared there when they erected the church, or at least thats the story the church went by, so they did proclaim it as holy, at first they did not encourage people to drink it, but people did anyway and when some of them started to claim the water had done miracles for them the church backed them up so people would witness the "miracle"(drinking that water and living, that's a miracle), and even though it is well known fact today that this is not true and the fountain was put there with pipes and the whole nine yards, still people choose to ignore that because it is a far more pleasant thought that it was put there by god(again with the blinding and closing of the mind). And I can also assure you that this water is as contaminated as it can get. While the church this days doesn't openly encourage people to drink it, they do not and have never pronounced themselves against it; and to me, that is just as bad because people will continue to drink it, also when I say church I mean the people in high places, the priests that give mass at the churches do encourage this behavior(in case you wonder how I know this since I don't go to church, I know a lot of people who do so it's not to hard getting info about what a priest says, I also have second cousin whos a priest, fun fact, he's atheus).
I know in the US people can get suid over a lot of things(not to say anything), but here my friend, that doesn't happen, if you go to a judge with this kind of stuff you'll probably have him/her laughing in your face, that if you even get to see a judge, 'cause again, that's not the way things work around here, you don't get to sue people over matters like these, specially not the church, besides, they have a very cool way of getting out of stuff, like the time a priest molested some children not too long ago, they just said: it's not our fault, he's the one who did it, throw HIM into jail(and so they did).
And before I forget, NEWSFLASH VLAD! Not everything the church does is right, and I don't even have to go as far as saying the church, but the individuals who represent it, and I believe history has proven that.
This has actually nothing to do with people's beliefs, as I said before, my whole family is religious, and I respect that, I'm actually a very open minded person(as I'm sure most people who are ticklephiles are), people can believe whatever they choose to; it's the fact that they are endangering others because of it that bothers me(seriously, you think exposing children to hepatitis is a good thing).
I have to disagree with the statement that there's no logic in atheism, one of my two best friends is atheus, and he didn't come to it over night(as your have said yourself people don't do that ). He actually used to be a devoted christian and atended church, he also was the kind of christian who put enthusiasm into it and he danced and shouted and all that, he then became atheus because he found out that he got the same level of euphoria and excitement when he went to a rave, so it is basically the same thing as testimonial evidence, and I have experienced this myself, just not at a rave party(don't like them). So the same evidence can be used for theism and atheism.
P.S. I will try to get at least the study on the waters, but I can't warranty anything as things sometimes just seem to dissapear as magicaly as the that fountain appeared. And since all you have right now is my word on it, then I guess it's up to you if you choose to believe me or not. In case it's worth anything, I swear on my mother's grave that all I have told you is true....
