I agree wholeheartedly with your discomfort at the crass commercialism associated with sites like Lourdes, BillD. I think we aren't far apart philosophically.

However, I must add this--I find the sceptic's view very tiresome. Sceptics never create anything, they just tear the off beat and unusual--people, ideas, creative imagining of non-conventional possibilities--down. I find that sort of attitude debilitating in the extreme, due to what I perceive as it's nihilism and hopelessness. Hence my reaction. Also, I think there is as much hocus pocus and crass commercialism to be found in medical science as there is in Lourdes.