Aardvarchaeology

In a phone conversation a family member mentioned this as if it was on the daily news. All I could say was that I hadn't seen anything about it. I don't get cable and I didn't want to get into discussing how someone can trust that a relic is real despite scientific evidence to the contrary, then turn around and trust the "science" on cable television to reconstruct something from the fake.

Posted by: ABradford | April 3, 2010 8:51 AM

Sadly, the History Channel has succumbed to woo. There's a ton of "Biblical Prophecy" and "2012 Apocalypse" and various other similar stuff on there. It used to be a decent channel, but it has gone far into the woo. I'd be surprised if there's any decent stuff on there other than, perhaps, the WWII stuff (although, even there there's a lot of "Nazi occult" type stuff)

Posted by: Christina | April 3, 2010 9:02 AM

Thanks for the great article. I'm going to forward it to several people on my mailing list and sincerely appreciate your efforts in exposing this myth.

Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Kenneth Paulson | April 3, 2010 9:09 AM

Dr. Martin Rundkvist
You state, "the shroud is a 14th century "fake relic", as has been well documented by historical sources and radiocarbon analysis".

Before writing such an article you should have first watched the program. No such claim was made. The hours that were involved in the process, and the genius of extracting the image on the shroud was extremely interesting.

It goes without saying that the face is more realistic than those portrayed by artist in any case.

You proclaim to be an atheist, so I assume you believe in the proclamations by Darwin, and his theory of evolution made in the 19th century?. One man who beilieved in his own hypothesis, and found many a follower.

Radiocarbon dating may have some validity, but would you stake your life on it?. Supposedly it can be used to date as far back as 5000 years, and there will always be those who will be subjective to its findings, swallowing it to be fact.

I admit 5000 years doesn't seem as far back as millions or billions of years many scientist refer to when describing a time frame for the "creation", of the universe. The brains of science has not yet revealed to any of us where it first began based on "fact", or give any explicit detail on where the first energy source for it all came from?......are we to assume that there was always something there?. Can you also argue what created the atom?. Carbon dating is also a science in an of itself.

Our schools have adopted what they chose to teach for history, especially American history, Early world history, science, and biology have been spun with mis-truths.

Nat Geo, The History Channel, and the Discovery Channel, The Military Channel, along with Animal Planet are second to none for giving us a window of opportunity to view things from a different educational perspective. To find truths on any given subject we first need to know what we're researching, and even then if history teaches us anything, without factual documentation, "without being there as an eye witness", chances are we will never know?.

The sources that proclaim something to be factual even deserve some scrutiny regarding their resources. Other than this much of what is left, information that cannot be found is left to specualtion.

We're learning today that the skeletal remains the Russians have kept under lock an key since WW2 were suppose to be those of Hitler, may be in fact a woman. Years ago they said the facts were in.

Posted by: Jerry | April 3, 2010 10:11 AM

Fully agreed. And the shows on Discovery World is not far behind in the order of crappyness either.

Posted by: Wouter | April 3, 2010 10:44 AM

The worst programs on the History Channel tend to be on religious subjects, which is sad since so much good work has been done in theology. These programs and their claims become useful when people with brains want to bash people with faith.

Posted by: Gopherus Agassizii | April 3, 2010 11:14 AM

If you would have watched the show your article would have been a good argument to your opinion. Unfortunatley your opinion has no sound basis for your belief other than you choose not to believe in the shroud. If you would have watched the show you would have seen that it leaves it up to the person watching as to what you want to believe. The point is well proven that someone was wraped in the shroud. Was it Jesus or someone else is left to be proven. The carbon dating you mention was done twenty some years ago when that type of testing was in it's infancy. It is possible that the conclusion from that is not correct. Again. You didn't watch the show.I have seen many shows over the years. Some to prove and some to disprove the shroud. I saw one many years ago with the theory the shroud was a piece of art. Modern technology shows that the shroud is not a painting as some believe. Simply put. We do not today or did we then when it was created have the technology to reproduce the shroud. So my question to you sir. Are you an expert on this subject or just an atheist trying to disprove the greatest story ever told. Watch the show. Then re write your editorial based on what was said. Not by what you think.

Posted by: R Wachlin | April 3, 2010 11:22 AM

History channel has been going downhill for so long. As a fellow archeologist I can say that the Ancient Aliens special makes my blood boil.
The Shroud of Turin will always be revered in some way not matter what scientists say. It's unfortunate and obnoxious but some people just don't and won't listen.

Posted by: David B. | April 3, 2010 11:50 AM

The entire basis of Christianity is based on the so called 'Resurrection' of Jesus. But even as a child I remember sitting in Sunday School and in Church listening to the story of this 'miracle' and 'proof' of the 'Risen Christ'. My problem with it then and now is that there is no proof. Furthermore, the big rocks that were placed over the cave where his body was laid to rest were supposed to be so big that no one could move them. Even at that young age I thought to myself, 'If men and horses or whatever was used to put those big rocks to seal off the cave, men and horses could move them, someone take his body and moved it to an undisclosed re-burial. The reason to take his body was not clear to me then but, I didn't know anything about what being a martyr was about. The 'Faithful' will choose to believe anything just as a child believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Posted by: Dan McClain | April 3, 2010 12:18 PM

As a Christian, I often wonder why so many of my faith continue to espouse the need for proof. Just as there is no proof you love your child, there can be no proof that the Lord exists. It's either faith or no faith. It doesn't mean that either person is a bad person or a good person and there really shouldn't be too much arguing about it. If I have faith, I have it - period - and it's irrefutable despite what anyone says. Just as quantum physics or dark matter or dark energy inspires, there's something that is causing this to happen (In me or in Space, Jesus or dark matter) and because I 'know' it, I believe it and will continue to search for it even more.

The shroud being real or fake is of no consequence to those of us with faith - it's a neat story but that's it, really.
but to say it's fake based on carbon dating a small little piece of burned cloth when MRI and laser scans have all but refuted that old carbon dating method, I think is a little unfair to science. Forget the religious aspect, I would think that most 'scientists' or atheists would YEARN for more testing to prove more and more one way or the other what the Shroud is.

Scientists think it's fake even though it can't be duplicated in 3D but even those scientists with today's standards, pretty much dismiss that old RC dating on a piece that was near the fire burns of that time.

I think the shroud is a neat story and think it would be awesome if it was the cloth of Jesus. But NOBODY will ever KNOW that it's fake or real. That can NOT be known. As a Christian, I'm okay with that and my faith. If someone wants to call my faith 'Santa Claus' or 'Easter Bunny-ish' I guess I'm okay with that. People who criticize others simply because they disagree are actually JUST LIKE the shroud itself....insignificant to my way of life and the grand scheme of the things.

I did enjoy your writing and can certainly see where you're coming from regarding the Shroud. Hope all's well.

Mike in Houston

There are always possibilities - Spock.

Posted by: Mike McMannes | April 3, 2010 12:38 PM

But NOBODY will ever KNOW that it's fake or real.

But we do know it's fake. The shroud itself is not old enough for it to be the burial cloth of a man who died in the first century. Science can't prove something, it can support a hypothesis, and it can disprove an idea. The hypothesis that the Shoud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus has been disproved. You should watch this stuff with a far more critical mind.

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | April 3, 2010 1:16 PM

So much wrong, so little time...

Supposedly it can be used to date as far back as 5000 years

No. Radiocarbon dating is useful precisely because the half-life is ~5700 years -- it can date back as far as ten half-lives, or about 57,000 years, before its detectability becomes too low to measure with accuracy.

----

Radiocarbon dating works; we know at what rate the carbon-16 isotope decays

Carbon-14, not carbon-16. Well, we know the rate that carbon-16 decays at as well, but its natural occurrence is rare enough and its half-life is short enough (~0.75 s) that it is not useful for actually dating anything.

Say! How about this...

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 1:35 PM

The shroud is most likely a fake. But let's suppose, for speculation, that there's some possibility that it's not.

Here's the rub for the those who think the shroud is real: the burden of proof in on you. You are the ones who must prove, beyond any resonable doubt, that the shroud is what you say it is.

But you don't do this. Instead you keep waving it in front of the scientific community, playing the game of 'taunt the bull' using the shroud.

That's baloney. You are the ones that have to supply the proof. I find it funny that while you love to bash science, you turn to science to support your claims (the science turns out to be sloppy, probably the result of people who hate science trying to do it, but nevertheless..) What's up with that?

You guys are going to try to prove the shroud is what you say it is, and I am going to sit back with me pizza and beer while you try to do that. When you come back with some good testable material, I will also watch other scientists hack away at your methodology.

Ironically, you are, at that point, participating in the scientific method you hate so dearly. But that is how it's supposed to work. Giving you the benefit of the doubt for the moment, by calling your methods science, we can then say that you have a hyptothesis about the shroud, and here's the testing you've done, and here's what you think the evidence incicates. Then other scientists try to shoot it down. Either it gets shot down, or it survives the counterattack, usually with the result that further testing still needs to be done.

That's how you would go about showing the world the shroud is what you say it is.

So...we're still waiting for the believers to come forth with their methodology and give the scientific community something real to test. So far there's been one test. It established that the shroud was less than 1000 years old. You say that the test was bad. The burden shifts onto you to make a more foolproof test and run it, then bring the results out FTW.

So go do that.

Simply engaging people in shouting matches is not the correct methodology.

Go do the work and bring back something solid for the scientific community to properly test. If that is very difficult to do, then right away it indicates a question about the validity of the claims.

Or you can stand around and shout. But that doesn't accomplish your objective. In fact, doing that convinces more of us that the claim is false.

Posted by: yogi-one | April 3, 2010 1:44 PM

Hey, at least it's more durable than Jesus' face on a tortilla! What about that face that appeared on the side of a rusty refrigerator? Will it be revered in the next millenium?

Posted by: skeptic | April 3, 2010 1:58 PM

I am only exposed to basic cable, and on my system we don't get the science channel. When we first got it, the Discovery channel, the History channel, the Learning channel were all pretty cool. But, now all three do different things that are simply about sensationalism. The Learning channel has the short people, as well as some pretty graphic medical stories...nothing wrong with medical stories but they just seem kind of...pointless. If surgeon wannabes are watching..cool, but I doubt it. The discovery channel now has ghost hunting, as well as arctic fishing, someone has arctic trucking...how does that relate to science and nature...it's a bit of a stretch. And I mean good grief the history channel? UFO's, prophecies, all manners of weirdness to pull in the yahoos....

Posted by: Mike Olson | April 3, 2010 2:01 PM

I've never watched the History Channel myself, but that's not the point. You are engaging exactly in the same behavior you are accusing them of showing.
There is no point in writing a very short piece based on vague handwaving and hearsay, pretending to make up for the lack of knowledge and objectivity by just filling in the gaps with overconfidence, and contempt for the credulous viewers.
In fact, the C14 Shroud test has lost ANY credibility, to all those who care to examine all the data at hand, because there is compelling evidence that the cloth fragment dated was for the most part (way more than 50%) a mend, that is, a piece of tissue added to restore a worn out exterior border of the cloth. So the C14 is indeed an important experimental technique, but providing that you test _the actual object_!
Shroud experts were somewhat unwilling to accept the C14 proposed dates not because the are somehow skewed by their being believers; in fact, many aren't. But the point is, there are many scientific facts that no one can easily explain about the Shroud of Turin, so that it's unprofessional to jump to a conclusion just because the C14 was portrayed as the ultimate experiment, while all the other pieces of the puzzle don't match. You can't just pick and choose only the experiment confirming your prejudices, while ignoring the critique to that experiment, plus all the other experiments and historical studies.
There are too many details in the Shroud for a medieval forgerer to be reasonably the culprit.
We are led to believe that obviously those forgeries were common at the time, so that people were easily duped; yet this anonymous forgerer took the time and effort to include invisible or unknown things, like the serum marks, the different types of blood, a bylirubin rich human blood, every anatomical detail being correct, no signs of painting, and so on, to obtain an image that to the untrained eye is far less impressive (and completely different) than any other relic or icon, and raises a lot of questions, thus suspicion. No forgerer tries to convince easily duped people by adding distracting, weird, invisible or unexplicable details, many of which he had no reasonable way of knowing himself.
And! How about the image formation mechanism? If that's so obviously a medieval fake, how come no one is, even TODAY, able to come up with a new "shroud" containing an image with the same characteristics as the alleged fake?
Sure, many tried, and they even claimed success. But the proposed copies share very little in common with the original. Again: how come Medieval technology is more advanced than ours in producing a fake image?

Posted by: Alessandro | April 3, 2010 2:23 PM

In as much as I have not met you, I feel you dont really exist based on the evidence.

1. I have seen a pic that I am told to believe on faith that is you. Like you I dont believe. It could be any moron.

2. The words may have your name after them but in light of number one, cant be yours as you ir cant be proven you exist.

My opinon is, any hack or one thousand monkies could write the tripe you proport. BTW, in your article you claim is yours, its SIX YEARS OLD!!!! You may, as any idiot or good non-existant researcher would do, review the current evidence or God forbid, actually do YOUR OWN HANDS ON RESEARCH instead of criticing others. STOP watching T.V. and get your lazy backside out in the field. Remember what your father told!!!!

Healthy and correct skepticism is bases on fact.

Dont Be Such A Lazy Bum.

Posted by: LSD | April 3, 2010 4:12 PM

The History Channel is co-owned by Disney, GE and Hearst Corporations. All three have a vested interest in peddling certain moral ideals to their enthusiastic audience. It is 'soft-fact' entertainment for the masses, not constrained to objective depiction and appraisal of historical events by academics.

Christ was a deified prophet. The zeal of the Church in gathering and retaining practitioners and converts to Christianity extended to producing 'relict evidence' that is venerated as holy evidence of the 'true religion'. This 'proof' helped bridged the credibility gap between ancient texts and spiritual teachings and the lives of modern peoples, necessary to inculcate blank acceptance of these principles and practices as readily applicable to everyday lives thousands of years later.

These relics are penultimate advertising that has withstood the test of time, even if there are modern contradictory hypotheses with tests to suggest otherwise.

Do you really think that these reports of the shroud being fake will be believed by the True Believers?

In religion, there is a need to suspend rational questioning of the veracity of stories and source of artifacts presented as object truths despite evidence to the contrary, because these belief systems carry widespread societal benefits as core values and ethics that endure far longer than any civilian governance and laws.

Religious and spiritual practice also requires suspension in the foreseeable future of drudge and toil, sustained hardship from poverty, and periodic upheaval of drought and famine, war, and waves of disease that has historically burdened the lives of our ancestors. Religious belief brings daily dose of hope to offset despair and chronic stress. In the pomp and artful magnificence of worship places and sacred music, regular attendance at church, mosque and synagogue was an important binder that ensured widespread adherence to safe behavioral norms, and it brought dividends in blessed balm to eye and ear in an otherwise drab existence.

It will not matter how often you wave the banner of Fact, decrying holy objects as being fake. The people who venerate them will not stop their high regard for these relics that serve as an important tactile connection with antiquity.

Posted by: Passerby | April 3, 2010 4:34 PM

Beg Pardon, editing error in the post above. Should read:

Religious and spiritual practice also required belief that the foreseeable future of drudge and toil, sustained hardship from poverty, and periodic upheaval of drought and famine, war, and waves of disease that historically burdened the lives of our ancestors had an ulterior purpose. Difficult times strengthened resolve for hopeful continuance through the worst days, and reinforced hopeful belief that a better future lay ahead under the eye and hand of god.

I add to my post above:

It is easy to be a nonbeliever in the relatively easy and soft life of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In truth, a lack of testing may be impetus for the booming popularity of atheism in the Modern Age.

It's the hard times that prove the character mettle of believers.

Posted by: Passerby | April 3, 2010 4:48 PM

In fact, the C14 Shroud test has lost ANY credibility, to all those who care to examine all the data at hand, because there is compelling evidence that the cloth fragment dated was for the most part (way more than 50%) a mend, that is, a piece of tissue added to restore a worn out exterior border of the cloth.

Citation needed.

So the C14 is indeed an important experimental technique, but providing that you test _the actual object_!

I agree. Let's grab some samples from where Jesus "appears" on the cloth.

Again: how come Medieval technology is more advanced than ours in producing a fake image?

It isn't.

  http://sites.google.com/site/luigigarlaschelli/shroudreproduction

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 5:20 PM

The piece of the cloth that was carbon dated was taken from a corner of the shroud. It could have been woven in repair at a later date than the rest of the shroud.

"Could have"?

Have any of these claimers of repair work shown any evidence of this repair?

Come on. If this "repair" is real, it shouldn't be that hard to spot.

There is a painting created in 1190 (way before the earliest dates plausible by the results of the carbon 14 test) that shows the same exact burn markings that would have been visible at that time. It also shows a pattern sharply reminiscent of the woven pattern unique to the cloth.

Citation needed.

If it was recreated with a man that recreated blood stains and tried to imprint himself on the cloth it still can't be explained how a negative of the picture would be formed (shadows are seen lightly, and light areas are seen darkly) and how the image could be copied onto the cloth without any painting.

Wait, what?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 5:35 PM

@Jerry -

>>You state, "the shroud is a 14th century "fake relic", as has been
>> well documented by historical sources and radiocarbon analysis".

Absolutely correct. According to the best available scientific evidence, as opposed to blind belief, the so-called shroud is a fake. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please publish it in a peer reviewed science journal and let us know when you've done this. Your subsequent renown will be beyond the dreams of avarice.

>>Before writing such an article you should have first watched the program.

Why would anyone want to watch a show which depicts a fake person being recreated from a fake shroud? If you have any objective evidence that there ever was a Jesus Christ, miracle working son of a god, please publish it in a peer reviewed science journal and let us know when you've done this. Your subsequent renown will be beyond the dreams of avarice. Otherwise it's at best a mistake and at worst an outright lie, isn't it?

>> You proclaim to be an atheist, so I assume you believe in the
>> proclamations by Darwin, and his theory of evolution made in
>> the 19th century?. One man who beilieved in his own hypothesis
>>, and found many a follower.

It's not a matter of belief. It's a matter of what the evidence points to. So let's review the evidence.
Darwin: Mountains of evidence, quite literally in some cases, all borne out by scientific testing and experimentation and built into a solid scientific theory which has withstood every assault upon it for over 150 years.

Creation/ID: NOTHING.

You lose.

>>Radiocarbon dating may have some validity

It's entirely valid. Go read this - a Christian perspective on radiometric dating:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page

>>The brains of science has not yet revealed to any of us where it first began

Wrong! There's a body of science showing what happened.

And creationists/ID advocates have offered what science exactly on this topic?

NONE.

You lose.

>>based on "fact", or give any explicit detail on where the first energy source for it all came from?

If there was quite literally nothing at "the beginning", then what, exactly was there to prevent quite literally anything from happening? Answer: quite literally nothing.

You lose.

>> are we to assume that there was always something there?.

There's really no need to end a sentence with a question mark and a period. Did you learn to do that from home schooling?

But to address your ignorance - the fact is that we don't know. Unlike creationists, we don't leap to the conclusion that ignorance = god. We look for data. In short, we do nothing different form what your fictional Thomas did when told of the resurrection. Are you saying he was misled?

I know that seeking objective or scientific evidence is utterly alien to blind believers, but its what got you that computer which you evidently use solely to bitch about scientists.

>Can you also argue what created the atom?

Sub atomic particles acting within the known laws of physics. Next question?

>> Carbon dating is also a science in an of itself.

Absolutely right, whereas creation is...? Anyone? Yes - it's FICTION!

>>"without being there as an eye witness", chances are we will never know?

Ri-ight - so we should free every single criminal who was convicted without an eye witness because no one was there, therefore we can't possibly figure out what happened? Goof luck with that philosophy.

>> The sources that proclaim something to be factual even deserve
>> some scrutiny regarding their resources

And you never apply this criterion to your own blind beliefs because...?

>> Other than this much of what is left, information that cannot be
>> found is left to specualtion.

So thrill me with your erudition and scholarship. What evidence do you have for there ever being a god? For this god ever creating anything? For this god raping a young girl to produce a son who could then be killed to save us from an evil your own god created in the first place - and this makes sense how exactly?

Do get back to us when you've assembled the same weight of scientific evidence which cosmology, abiogenesis, and evolution have going for them.

Posted by: IanW | April 3, 2010 5:53 PM

The assertions that the portion tested had been contaminated by fire and this threw off the accuracy of the dating process was first floated by some flunky at the vatican, and has never had any scientific backings to it. it is, so to speak, nothing but smoke without the mirrors.

the folks who are claiming there is still controversy about this, that there is a chance it is authentic, are free to do so, but they are ignorantly ignoring all of the scientific evidence, simply because it doesn't suit them.

Posted by: dean | April 3, 2010 8:16 PM

This guy is completely biased regarding this information. All he believes in is his atheistic ideals. To put it bluntly he's a first class ass hole.

Posted by: Bob Macko | April 3, 2010 9:40 PM

Did you not see that the part of the shroud they tested was a repaired corner? People like you make me angry. You're arrogant and you take things out of context.

Posted by: Christeen | April 3, 2010 9:54 PM

There IS evidence that suggests it is a mended cloth. The fibers were found to be different in that of composition and also because they were died with pigmentation in order to make it look like the rest of the cloth in an attempt to restore it.

Citation needed.

You think your so smart by putting "citation needed" in any parts of post that are not to your pleasing?

No, it means that I would like to see something backing up your claims besides your bare assertion.

Tell me about the frogs in the amazons and then see how you feel when I say, "citation needed". ????

You mean, you are actually interested in the anurans of South America, and would like to read the scientific literature on them? I could find scholarly citations for you, if you really wanted.

Let's see now...

======

Austin, J. D., Lougheed, S. C., Tanner, K., Chek, A. A., Bogart, J. P. & Boag, P. T. 2002. A molecular perspective on the evolutionary affinities of an enigmatic neotropical frog, Allophryne ruthveni. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 134, 335-346.

Cisneros-Heredia, D. F. & Mcdiarmid, R. W. 2006. A new species of the genus Centrolene (Amphibia: Anura: Centrolenidae) from Ecuador with comments on the taxonomy and biogeography of glassfrogs. Zootaxa 1244, 1-32.

Ford, L. S. & Cannatella, D. C. 1993. The major clades of frogs. Herpetological Monographs 7, 94-117.

Frost, D. R., Grant, T., Faivovich, J., Bain, R. H., Haas, A., Haddad, C. F. B., De Sá, R. O., Channing, A., Wilkinson, M., Donnellan, S. C., Raxworthy, C. J., Campbell, J. A., Blotto, B. L., Moler, P., Drewes, R. C., Nussbaum, R. A., Lynch, J. D., Green, D. M. & Wheeler, W. C. 2006. The amphibian tree of life. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 297, 1-370.

Pramuk, J. B. 2006. Phylogeny of South American Bufo (Anura: Bufonidae) inferred from combined evidence. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 146, 407-452.

Wiens, J. J., Fetzner, J. W., Parkinson, C. L. & Reeder, T. W. 2005. Hylid frog phylogeny and sampling strategies for speciose clades. Systematic Biology 54, 719-748.

(and so on and so forth)

====

Got it? Those are some citations from the peer-reviewed scientific literature on frogs and toads of South America.

Do you have anything similar for your claims?

The 1190 painting of the cloth is real, it's in the hungarian national library and it has the exact same properties of the picture

That's more data than before, but I'd like to see what this painting looks like, and how it was dated to 1190. Hence:

Citation needed.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 10:04 PM

Any validity to the "claim" that the eyes of the face were covered by coins minted at about 30AD? Also, that the cloth carries vestiges of plants grown only in the Jerusalem area - growing no less - in March or April? What's the story on that?

Posted by: Karen Roman | April 3, 2010 10:18 PM

I believe that the shroud is authentic

Or in other words, you don't have an open mind about it.

but because it is about something good,

Something depicting someone who purportedly died painfully is "good"?

We need more good television, since all we see is evil anymore.

I am not sure what you mean by "good" and "evil".

You can have your beliefs and I have mine.

How very generous of you.

But do not think that you know more than others.

Why not? You obviously do.

May God have mercy on you and anyone else that thinks we evolved from some kind of energy.

Why would God have mercy or not have mercy on someone because of what they think?

Time will tell!

What will it tell?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 10:20 PM

I'm a PhD evolutionary biologist AND a devout Christian. I have no doubt the shroud is authentic. First, you can toss out the C-14 dating. It's now known the sample used came from a mend site, not the actual burial cloth. Second, tell me please how some dude in medeival Europe was able to fake the shroud so well that in the year 2010 we still can't PROVE how it was made. Further, how does one in medieval times create an image that is a NEGATIVE image rather than a positive? Just how do you fake that? Most impressively, the image is in 3D relief! We STILL don't have the technology to create a 3D relief image on a cloth via hand painting, blood, sweat, or burn marks -- the only potential way the image could have been faked at that time in history.

Posted by: Frank | April 3, 2010 10:34 PM

Ray Rogers on Thermochimica Acta (peer reviewed): a scientific study disproving the credibility of the C14 Shroud sample.

I don't think you can be trusted when you can't even get the title of the article correct.

As for Garlaschelli's Italian recent fake shroud, come on. A 4 years old can see the difference between the original and the reproduction by just watching a thumbnail of the whole image

Of course they are different; one is centuries older than the other, and of a different human being.

For instance, this Pantocrator from the XI century: [...] is one of the images showing the reproduction of a sort of geometric figure between the eyebrows, that is actually an artifact of the image on the Shroud, not part of the image but of the weave of the cloth.

Where is the evidence that these are the same, and that the shroud's version is part of the weave?

People, you can't ignore facts like this.

What facts?

Stop looking down on others just because you don't want to study and/or accept unpleasant ideas!

Heh. Have you looked in a mirror lately?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 10:38 PM

Facts! Strange thing now a days; ask any politician.
Just because your are paying for two siblings doesn't mean they are yours. Nothing personal here; just the facts.

Posted by: Ted Preston | April 3, 2010 10:46 PM

Expert or not, I find the body structure to be the point that should be addressed.

The average Jewish male at that time was 5'2".
If J.C. is measured at even 6'0", they'd call him Goliath!

The main thing is the face...the structure of the head.
It is not the face of a Jewish man circa 30 C.E.
That long fine nose is European.

If the church insisted that this was the face and body of J.C., then they would be confirming that J.C. was European, or perhaps: Roman/Hebrew.

Even that would not explain the height as the Roman male was not much taller than the average Jew.

King Edward II of England was called "Longshanks" circa 1033 C.E. because he was a giant in comparison to the average Englishman.
Recently, his bones were measured with the Queen's permission.
King Edward II was exactly 6'2", which is, indeed, a giant of a man for 1033 c.e.

Imagine a 6'0' Jew walking around Galilee in 33 c.e.!

He might be written about at Yeshua the Giant!!

Posted by: Balanor | April 3, 2010 10:57 PM

if nothing else the shroud is doing now the same thing it did in 14th century, bring in money.this time to the history channel.

Posted by: scidog | April 3, 2010 11:18 PM

I used to think the carbon dating results proved the shroud was a fake until I saw the Hungarian Pray Manuscript evidence.

You do realize that even if this manuscript does depict the shroud as claimed, it does not prove that the shroud is not a fake?

If that's not a fake and I haven't seen anything to suggest it is I don't see how anyone can still believe the carbon dating isn't seriously flawed.

And that even if the carbon dating is flawed, the shroud is not necessarily genuine?

The mark on the forehead is basically a smudge or a blob. The "poker holes" are going the wrong way on the Hungarian codex.

But even if genuine, it puts the shroud at at most about a century or two earlier. OK, so?

How about we carbon-date the thing again? Get a team of the shroud believers to choose which spot to take the cloth from, and how to treat it to remove all possible contaminants.

It still wouldn't prove it authentic if the cloth is dated to the first century, but let's see if that even happens.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 11:31 PM

Since it bears repeating, from the Daily Mail:

"To believers, it is the burial cloth of Jesus and miraculously marked with his image but sceptics insist it is a fake. Their argument was fuelled in 1988 when scientific tests found the 12ft-long sheet could not be more than 1,000 years old. One of the scientists who studied it at the time, Raymond Rogers, said shortly before his death that he had come to believe it could be genuine. A video before he died in 2005 showed he conducted his own tests which showed the relic to be much older, dating from 1,300 to 3,000 years ago.

Dr Rogers said: 'I don't believe in miracles that defy the laws of nature. After the 1988 investigation I'd given up on the shroud.

'But now I am coming to the conclusion that it has a very good chance of being the piece of cloth that was used to bury the historic Jesus.'

He was on the 1978 team that carried out the first in-depth scientific study of the shroud, which examined its underside for the first time in 400 years. After the 1988 carbon dating, Dr Rogers was adamant that the robe was nothing more than a medieval hoax. But speaking shortly before his death from cancer in 2005, he described how he compared the scrap tested in 1988 with other bits of the cloth. He found the 1988 sample was a patch of material woven in to repair the shroud after it was damaged by fire.

Chemical tests showed that the postage stamp-sized sample contained cotton and had been dyed to match the main shroud, which is made of linen. The shroud has been damaged in several fires since it was first discovered in France in 1357 and it is thought to have been repaired by nuns."

Of course I don't buy the whole raised-from-the-dead thing but there is a chance that this was the burial shroud of a first-century man executed by the Roman Empire. I don't see the harm in admitting to that.

Posted by: Zee | April 3, 2010 11:38 PM

Something else to add to your note about typical Isrealites at the time. It has LONG LONG been known to Christians that the usual depiction of Jesus by artists was inaccurate. 1) he is stated to be a carpenter. He was NOT thin.. or frail. 2) he is depicted at one point to turning over money changing tables in the temple.. these were made of a heavy stone.. marble if i remember it right. this has been studied for a long while. Jesus was not thin or had any type of petite or frail form.. also it is WELL cited in scripture that he was not comely.. meaning very attractive.. he was a simple man. That in of itself gives me more validity in the shroud that it did not turn out to be an attractive man like we are use to seeing. It makes it much more believable to me as it honors all accounts of him that is written in Biblical texts. Just saying to keep this in mind when you see that. Its VERY interesting i think.. wether you believe him to be the son of god or not historically its interesting.

Posted by: justacuriouswatcher | April 3, 2010 11:46 PM

haha, you atheist and agnostics are so funny....fighting your whole life for something you dont believe in...really quite entertaining....: R Wachlin you hit on the nail buddy!

Posted by: JT | April 3, 2010 11:50 PM

And for the record, NEVER EVER cite to me a scientific method that can date a pencil at 1,000,000 years old.

What are you babbling about?

but the evidence that it is valid is far greater

Citation needed.

than even the "contraversial" i repeat.. CONTRAVERSIAL method of carbon dating.

It's not a scientific controversy. It's a political one, where anti-science liars claim that there is contraversy.

I have never trusted that system. Too many times it has proven inaccurate and i cant believe you can state it so factually still.

Heh. Religion has proven far more inaccurate. That's why it cannot be trusted.

Too many flaws to base your trust in a forgery on a such a single test that is not that reliable at all.

And there is no test at all for religion.

Check it out for yourself and dont trust in things that prove to be unreliable themselves.

Right. I don't trust religion, because it has no reliability whatsoever.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 3, 2010 11:53 PM

OwlMirror,

Just like an atheist to quote PART of my sentence and use it for your gain....

For someone who doesn't believe in the existence of something, you spend an awful lot of time trying to prove it to yourself and others....It's just kinda sad really...carry on tho...not many on here are taking you serious anyway

Posted by: Chris | April 4, 2010 12:00 AM

And for the record, NEVER EVER cite to me a scientific method that can date a pencil at 1,000,000 years old.
What are you babbling about?

well i'll cite you this site. though it is a religious one and will be biased i'm sure in most eyes, it does state some simple facts about carbon 14 dating.

http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php

Posted by: Justacuriouswatcher | April 4, 2010 12:10 AM

I skipped through most of these comments because what is wrong in believing it is the true face of Jesus Christ? Don't people, Christian or not need something to believe in? Some hope? For me, it brought tears to my eyes to see just how brutalized His body was. The men who ran these tests were very passionate in their work and you could see it in their faces. Most of the "scientific" proof of past, has been "debunked" saying it was a fake. For me, I believe it was something our Savior left behind to give us Christians hope and something to hold onto to ensure us He has indeed risen, is real and is coming back for us. Now you can all call me what you want, and say what you want about me, but that will not shake the faith that I have. In my spirit, I believe this is truly the face of my Savior. A Savior who was thrashed within an inch of His life and then crucified. Most people don't want to believe this is real because that would be admitting that there was a man out there who was tortured and crucified 2000 years ago, and if they believe that, then they have to do a double take that the Bible is true to the letter and it's scary for most people who are out there who are either straddling the fence or do not believe at all. Well, let me say this, think and say what you will but mark this day when I tell you, that a day will come when you will see that face once again, either sending you to hell or allowing you to live with Him for an eternity. For me, I want the later. Thanks.

Posted by: Nora | April 4, 2010 12:14 AM

---In fact, one of the arguments I've seen against it being from 1st-cent Judea is that there were no full-body shrouds in use in that era

Hmm.. ok
http://shroud2000.com/ArticlesPapers/Article-JewishBurial.html

Jewish Burial Practices

One of the more interesting avenues of research is the area of burial practices. Could the Shroud have been a genuine Jewish burial shroud? How can we find out? John 19:40 says, “Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.” What were those burial customs?

One of the points of confusion with the Shroud is that it was a custom to wash the body before burial. Yet the Shroud seems to depict a man whose wounds were never cleaned. However there appears to be an exception to this custom for those who have died a violent death. Here is an excerpt from The Jewish Way of Death and Mourning by Maurice Lamm (1969):

“The blood that flows at the time of death may not be washed away. When there is other blood on the body that flowed during lifetime (while alive), from wounds or as a result of an operation, the washing and taharah (purification) are performed in the usual manner.”

“Where the deceased died instantaneously through violence or accident, and his body and garments are completely spattered with blood, no washing or taharah is performed. The body is placed in the casket without the clothes being removed. Only a sheet is wrapped around it, over the clothes. The blood is part of the body and may not be separated from it in death.”

“Where blood flows continually after death, the source of the flow is covered and not washed. The clothes which contain the blood that flowed after death are placed in the casket at the feet.”

Notice how only a single sheet is used. Also, the man on the Shroud is naked because they cast lots for his garments. The reason for this unusual custom was due to the belief that “life is in the blood”. Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.”

Another reason why the blood must be buried with the body is because it was considered unclean. To touch a corpse was to touch something unclean and therefore become unclean yourself. One would then have to go through a ritual process of becoming clean again.

Blood that flowed after the person died is considered “life blood”. This is the blood that makes atonement. It is the trading of that which gives life for that which brings death (sin). It wasn’t just the blood, but the life in the blood that was the acceptable sacrifice.

Blood that flowed after death was often mixed with blood that flowed before death, this was called “mingled blood”. If there was more than a loss of a “quarter log” of mingled blood, it was considered unclean and must be buried with the body. A log is the content of 6 eggs. A quarter log is 1 ½ eggs. The volume of blood lost from the side-wound must have easily exceeded this measure and is why the man on the shroud is unwashed.

The Article "New Pollen Evidence from Israel" discussed the presence of pollen and flower images from plants that grow only in Jerusalem and indicate the Shroud’s existence in the Holy Land and probable use in a burial ceremony. The presence of limestone particles unique to the tombs and foothills around Jerusalem is also telling.

Everything continues to be consistent with the biblical account of the crucifixion and known Jewish burial practices.

Does that answer your question about that and that there IS evidence that it could very well be the shroud.. or a shroud used in an Isrealite burial?.. going to take a wild guess and say no lol

Posted by: justacuriouswatcher | April 4, 2010 12:22 AM

The image does not "appear 3D-ish". It has three dimensional data encoded within. The term 3D "relief" means the image has spatial data encoded within. You can paint an image that appears "3D-ish" but you cannot encrypt the accompanying spatial data without modern day technology. When the image is made into a series of pixels, each pixel creates a corresponding value assigned in perfect proportion to the distance from the cloth the image was when the corresponding body part was imprinted. So, we say that three dimensional data is encrypted within the image. If we tried to fake that, I suppose we would meet with some limited success at best -- IF we knew we were tryng to encrypt 3D data -- but it would, for the most part, be quite messy. Obviously the "faker" knew nothing about encrypting 3D data. The shroud is in perfect 3D relief and that fact is the most compelling of all the shroud's properties.

And you're putting a lot of faith into a fraudulant bogus webpage, I might add.

Posted by: Frank | April 4, 2010 12:25 AM

well i'll cite you this site. though it is a religious one and will be biased i'm sure in most eyes,

It's not just biased. It's actually false.

it does state some simple facts about carbon 14 dating.

Except that they are not facts.

=======

First, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, one must assume the rate of decay of carbon-14 has remained constant over the years. However, evidence indicates that the opposite is true.

Except that there is no such evidence.

Experiments have been performed using the radioactive isotopes of uranium-238 and iron-57, and have shown that rates can and do vary.

Citation, or it didn't happen.

In fact, changing the environments surrounding the samples can alter decay rates.

This is absolutely false.

But the radioactive atoms used in dating techniques have been subjected to heat, cold, pressure, vacuum, acceleration, and strong chemical reactions to the extent that would be experienced by rocks or magma in the mantle, crust, or surface of the Earth or other planets without any significant change in their decay rate.

The second faulty assumption is that the rate of carbon-14 formation has remained constant over the years.

This is indeed a problem, but it can be adjusted for.

So what?

The great flood which Noah and family survived would have uprooted and/or buried entire forests.

There was no "great flood".

During the flood, subterranean water chambers that were under great pressure would have been breached.

There was no great flood and no "subterranean water chambers".

This would have resulted in an enormous amount of carbon-12 being released into the oceans and atmosphere.

Because....? Water is H₂O. There is no carbon in it, even if the previous claim were not entirely false.

Repeated testing of the sample may show nine tests that indicate an age of 5000 to 10,000 years old, and one test that shows an age of 65,000 years old. The nine results showing ages that do not conform to the pre-supposed theory are excluded. This is bad science, and it is practiced all the time to fit with the evolutionary model.

This is a complete lie.

=======

Your citation is full of garbage from beginning to end.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 12:34 AM

I don't see where I ever claimed to be Christian

You attacked me twice for being an atheist; I inferred that you meant to imply that you are not an atheist, and hence a theist.

Are you in fact a Muslim or Jew? Named "Chris"?

Or by not claiming to be Christian, do you meant that you don't believe in anything at all?

Please, clarify.

Or don't.

I missed where I claimed ANY side or said anything for you to say "You are wrong. You are wrong in your methods, and wrong in your conclusions."

Again, you attacked me for asking questions. I inferred that you meant that you already knew what the answers were.

Are you acknowledging now that you do not? Then on what basis did you attack?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 12:45 AM

John 19:40 says, "Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen.

Which means that the shroud contradicts the bible. A single large cloth is not "strips of linen".

“The blood that flows at the time of death may not be washed away. When there is other blood on the body that flowed during lifetime (while alive), from wounds or as a result of an operation, the washing and taharah (purification) are performed in the usual manner.”

This is confusing, and looks contradictory. The first parts says "not washed"; the second part says that blood is washed.

Also note that this is not from a book describing first century practice, as far as I can tell.

Notice how only a single sheet is used.

Right, again contradicting John 19:40 above.

The Article "New Pollen Evidence from Israel" discussed the presence of pollen and flower images from plants that grow only in Jerusalem

That "only in Jerusalem" part appears to not be true.

Everything continues to be consistent with the biblical account of the crucifixion and known Jewish burial practices.

Except for the contradictions.

Does that answer your question about that and that there IS evidence that it could very well be the shroud.. or a shroud used in an Isrealite burial?

"Israelite", not "Isrealite". And whoever it was would have been called a Judean, not an Israelite.

going to take a wild guess and say no

What, I can't ask questions and point out inconsistencies?

=========

The image does not "appear 3D-ish". It has three dimensional data encoded within.

As in, it represents a 3-D body?

Obviously the "faker" knew nothing about encrypting 3D data.

The faker did not need to know anything about encrypting 3D data if he actually used a 3-D body.

You know, a live human being. Or a dead human corpse.

The shroud is in perfect 3D relief and that fact is the most compelling of all the shroud's properties.

Compelling, how?

=========

and they found out that the only way to reproduce an image from a body onto a cloth like that is with a modern day scanning machine.

The only way they told you about, you mean.

so if you're gonna sit here and write about how some relic maker in the medieval times miraculously had a scanner and used it to make relics then you sir are an idiot.

Excellent. Good thing I am writing nothing of the sort.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 1:13 AM

So now there are four types of people in the world....Atheists, Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

You mean, there are at least four types. I am not as illogical as you are.

And don't forget people who don't believe in anything, which does appear to be what you're going with.

I never stated what I am,

Neither did I, hypocrite.

but since you like to jump to conclusions at every turn in life based on a few ideas,

Kind of like you did, hypocrite.

I'll allow it..

How generous. I asked you to clarify, and you simply evade the point.

That's where your logic gets too much for your own good...I don't have to have any reason to attack you

So you attacked me for no reason at all. How nice of you.

I attack you b/c you have to have the last word at proving yourself or you'll get upset

Since it's obvious you have nothing substantive to add, this will be my last response to you.

the fact that you're Atheist

More hypocritical jumping to conclusions.

just adds humor to the situation....

And you find being a troll amusing, of course.

I don't believe in UFOs, but I don't spend hours online arguing with people who are passionate about their encounters...I have more important ways to spend my time...

And yet, here you are, wasting time being a troll.

yes, that includes laughing at your attempt to prove how educated you are

Continued hypocrisy.

OK, over to you.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 1:34 AM

I would rather live my life as if there is a God,
And die to find out there isn't, than live my life
as if there isn't, and die to find out there is and throw into hell.
Maybe it is a Jesus ,maybe not...it is a matter of faith.If one listens to the show they would of herad that the tested peices was that had been mended after a fire in the 1300's.
So what would the test results be anything but the 1300's.They are not allowed to cut into the main clothe.
Yes ,I am Christain..I claim no religion...for they are of man.But I do claim Jesus.
I do not beleive in evolution,if we came from a Monkey there would no longer be any more Monkey's.I do believe in adaptations .We do adapt to our habitat.As our habitat change's so do we,God made us this way ,to survive as the world as it changed.
Darwin,in his later life started to doubt his own theory,because of his study of the finch.

Posted by: trish | April 4, 2010 1:41 AM

I have not inferred that God does not exist. Instead I propose that mankind's many different beliefs regarding God are organized into religions that have no basis in fact, but are based on superstition and chicanery. Therfore, the existence of the shroud or any other relic is of no consequence. It does not prove the existence or non-existence of God nor of anything else. It just boggles my mind what incredible ideas fools are willing to accept as facts, only because of what someone says or of some euphoric feeling they may experience. Want an euphoric experience? Spend some time with low blood sugar or low oxygen levels.

Posted by: John | April 4, 2010 1:51 AM

It is sad to read that a man that doesn't even have the time to watch the show can stir so many people up in arms over something that could or could not be real. He is silly to profess in things he knows nothing of; example, the content of a show. Just as he can say rubbish to the History channel so can the same be said about this article. He sites an article he wrote 6 years ago. Yet if we use his style of logic once upon a time the earth was thought to be flat so it therefore must still be flat. Right?! There are many fascinating facts about the shroud and many concerning ones. Then again tho isnt that the whole premise behind religion? Not to believe in one thing just because you are told but because you chose to? There you will find the real answer. Not with man.

Posted by: Tim | April 4, 2010 1:59 AM

Then again tho isnt that the whole premise behind religion? Not to believe in one thing just because you are told but because you chose to?

How would you know to believe something without having been told about it, and told that you were supposed to believe it?

There you will find the real answer. Not with man.

What does that even mean?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 2:15 AM

Posted by John:

It just boggles my mind what incredible ideas fools are willing to accept as facts, only because of what someone says ...

Are we supposed to hear your incredible ideas and accept them as facts, just because of what you say? From whom did you hear them?

Posted by: Anonymous | April 4, 2010 2:32 AM

Believing in something without information is ignorance. Believing the same thing although logic denies plausibility is stupidity. Stupidity is its own reward.

Assume you are Christian. What do really believe about the fate of Muslims? Be honest. If you are Muslim there will be no doubt about your opinion as to the fate of Christians. I believe both to be delusional, along with anyone who adheres their belief system to ANY organized religion. This is NOT tha same as being an atheist, it is, rather the result of being a logicalist. Try it, i'm certain you will like it. Your actual creator would be proud of you, should he/She care.

Posted by: John | April 4, 2010 2:48 AM

www.freeinquiry.com:

In his paper, Ray Rogers relies on papers that were neither peer-reviewed nor published in legitimate scientific journals for his belief that the radiocarbon date was taken from a patch ingeniously rewoven into the Shroud linen so that its presence could not be detected. The authors of these papers, M. S. Benford and J. G. Marino, claim that a patch of 16th century material with a weave identical to the Shroud's was undetectably spliced into the 1st century Shroud to give it a 13th century date. But this is nonsense. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence that, according to these authors, their claimed rewoven patch--when combined with "original" Shroud cloth in the proportions subjectively determined by unnamed "textile experts" looking at photographs!--just happens to give an early 14th century date, the same as the date actually measured by radiocarbon dating! Amazing. But in fact the mixture of 16th and 1st century cloth would give a date much younger than the 14th century (about 7th century). The date obtained by the separate university radiocarbon labs exactly matches the date obtained by independent historical analysis, i.e. the early 14th century date when the Shroud first appeared and is believed by Shroud skeptics to be created by a late medieval artist, thus mutually supporting both dates. Benford and Marino submitted their ridiculous speculations in a paper to the scientific journal Radiocarbon, but it was justifiably rejected after peer review. Now, Rogers uses the same mistaken and incompetent speculations to support his conclusions in a paper that was published in a different scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta. I conclude that peer review failed this time for this journal.

As pointed out by Antonio Lombatti (personal communication), editor of Approfondimento Sindone, the skeptical international journal of scholarship and science devoted to the Shroud of Turin, only after one month of careful study on where to cut the linen samples for dating were the samples removed from the Shroud. This process was observed personally by Mons. Dardozzi (Vatican Academy of Science), Prof. Testore (Turin University professor of textile technology), Prof. Vial (Director of the Lyon Ancient Textiles Museum), Profs. Hall and Hedges (heads of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory) and Prof. Tite (head of the British Museum research laboratory). There is no way these scientists and scholars could have made such an error and failed to see that the cloth samples they removed was really from a patch, "invisibly" rewoven or not.

Detailed photographs of the area from which the sample was removed clearly reveal that there was no patch there. (How could Benford and Marino's unnamed "textile experts" observe the correct proportions of 1st century and 16th century threads from the "patch" using photographs, while the legitimate experts named above--using both

The claim that a repaired patch of the shroud was used for C14 dating is a lie started by religious kooks and spread by the same.

Even the Catholic church doesn't believe the Shroud is anything but a fake.

This is what happens when people believe in something that has absolutely no evidence for its existence. They lie a lot.

Posted by: raven | April 4, 2010 3:09 AM

John wrote, "Believing in something without information is ignorance. Believing the same thing although logic denies plausibility is stupidity. Stupidity is its own reward... I BELIEVE both to be delusional, along with anyone who adheres their belief system to ANY organized religion."

Ah, so are we supposed to adhere our belief system to what YOU believe? What makes your beliefs any more valid than what I believe? What proof do you have that your belief is the correct belief? Because logic dictates it?

In case you have forgotten, in the 15th century, logic dictated that the earth was flat. Even earlier scientists postulated that the earth was at the center of the universe. Sooner or later, individuals came along who didn't believe these "facts" and believed otherwise, even though the logic of the times denied the plausibility of their beliefs. Were they stupid? No, they just believed something different. If no one ever deviated from that absolute early "logic" because they didn't want to be thought of as stupid (which they would have been by your definition), we would still be believing that the flat earth is at the center of the universe.

Scientists still do not know everything. Even things that they thought absolute facts even a few years ago have been disproved or improved. So how can we say with any certainty that someone else's beliefs are incorrect. We can't.

I would not dare to tell anyone that their belief system is stupid or delusional, even if they do not believe what I do. What I believe is just as valid as what you believe.

Posted by: Anonymous | April 4, 2010 3:20 AM

believe or not I was never told what to believe or not to believe...I was not raise in the church .didn't go to church..thought maybe we came from aliens...I didn't seek out God ...God looked for me. I believe what is in my heart not the world..man has turn religion into fighting among our self..this was and is Not God's plan .There is One God and his son...man' fighting on how they interpreted the Bible is why there are fighting between people on which God Is God.Evolution is just a theory.nothing more..I have many theory's right now..but that do not mean they are fact too many holes just like Dawin.
Charles Darwin was Never Completely Happy with His Theory of Evolution
Charles Darwin advanced a theory. In 1859 he published his book 'On the Origin of Species' in which he SUGGESTED the idea that one species could arise from another, and that the driving force behind this was 'natural
selection' so the individual most fitted to survive would.
Charles Darwin was a scientist. He was fully expecting his theory to be tested against scientific evidence by other scientists. Further than that he continued thinking about the theory. He was never completely happy with it. To Darwin, the theory on evolution by natural selection did not explain everything to his satisfaction. In the article 'The Eye' Darwin's explanation of the evolution of the eye is mentioned.
Darwin's doubts were of many kinds. One of his doubts concerned the mechanism of inheritance. If, as was usually accepted in those days, the offspring will be a blend of the parents, so, for example, a person with one tall parent and one short one will be of medium height, how could taller people evolve?
In fact, within Darwin's own lifetime part of the answer was found. Gregor Mendel ( A monk) did some experiments with peas. He found, for example, that if he crossed a tall pea plant with a short one, the offspring was not part way between the two heights. In his first cross all the pea plants of the next generation were tall. Mendel found by further experiments that the 'short' characteristic had not been destroyed by being mixed with the 'tall' one, but was still there in the plant so it could still express itself in later generations.
Mendel's experiments on peas started in 1856, three years before the first edition of 'On the Origin of Species' and were published in 1866. (Charles Darwin died in 1882.)Charles Darwin had his own theory of inheritance, the theory of 'Pangenesis'. It was very ingenious and would explain some things. However, it did not fit well with Charles Darwin's own theory of evolution by natural selection, but the main problem with the theory of pangenesis is that it was wrong.
Dawin own doubts kept him from writing for 12 years.

Posted by: trish | April 4, 2010 3:56 AM

trish:

Charles Darwin's own theory of evolution by natural selection, but the main problem with the theory of pangenesis is that it was wrong.
Dawin own doubts kept him from writing for 12 years.

No, not really. What kept Darwin from publishing was mostly fear of xians going berserk.

Darwin was educated as a xian Anglican minister. He was a wealthy Victorian gentleman of the better classes, an educated man of leisure and learning. Very establishment, very conventional.

He was also very, very smart. He knew if he published his theory that the Xians would go bonkers, berserk. He probably didn't fear for his life but today he sure would. It's been 150 years and some of them are still going berserk. At least one science supporter was knifed to death by a creationist, several have been beaten up, and we all get death threats on a routine basis.

What kicked him into gear and overrode his fear was Wallace coming up with the same theory independently.

Copernicus did the same thing. He was a Catholic church official of some sort. He knew claiming the earth orbited the sun would cause him problems. He waited until he was almost dead before publishing his work on Heliocentrism. No fool he. Galileo didn't wait until he was on his death bed and it nearly cost him his life. Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for claiming the same thing as both those scientists.

Xians have always had a predictable reaction to anything that threatens their mythology. Kill them. In these secular days it is no longer possible although they do manage to assassinate an MD every now and then. They hate these days.

Darwin today is honored on the UK 10 lb note and his theory is one of the strongest we have, accepted by more than 99% of all relevant scientists.

Posted by: raven | April 4, 2010 4:39 AM

Lisa:

I actually feel sorry for atheists; most of them spend so much time protesting against something they do not believe in. If God doesn't exist, why put so much effort into trying to convince everyone else?

Actually Lisa, we don't give a rat's ass what you believe. UFOs, bigfoot, fairies in the garden, ghosts, jesus, unicorns, whatever. It is a free country.

We do care a lot when xians try to force their beliefs on other people, assassinate MDs, sponsor xian terrorists, form militias such as the Hutaree to kill cops, sneak their mythology into our kid's science classes, and try to destroy the US and set up a theocracy.

Keeping an eye out for xian hate, lies, violence, and killers is simply common sense and necessary for personal and national survival.

Xians main method for convincing people of their beliefs historically is well known. They simply killed people who didn't buy it. The crusades, massacres of heretics such as the Cathars and Huegenots, witch hunts, sectarian Reformation wars, the Taiping rebellion, the New World genocides furthered xianity by killing tens of millions of people at least. Up until a few hundred years ago, being a heretic, apostate, or atheist was a capital crime.

One would think if god was all powerful, he wouldn't need homicidal maniacs for followers. Without the power of the sword, gun, noose, and stacks of firewood, xianity isn't doing so great. In the USA, between 1 and 2 million people leave the religion every year and it is on trend to fall below 50% of the population in a few decades.

We will feel sorry for xians someday. When we are
no longer are afraid they will destroy us and our country. Poor deluded morons who hate and lie and call that a religion.

Posted by: raven | April 4, 2010 4:58 AM

@ tannin wrote:

It's hilarious how you say that you have not watched the show but "faithfully" denounce it.

Why do you find that funny??? Most with a modicum of intelligence can recognize the subterfuge of idiots with a glance... Curious?

Posted by: Sman | April 4, 2010 7:00 AM

....and I am quite certain you will correct me for the punctuation error in my previous post, but that's okay, I forgive you for your feeling of self-rightousness and your intellectual vanity.

Posted by: keith | April 4, 2010 9:17 AM

At Raven:
I am apologizing for all the "Christians" out there who have used God to do those horrible things you mentioned.
Please do not assume that because something kills or hates or lies or cheats in God's name, he or she is a Christian. Religion has messed up what the basis of Christianity is about. It is about a Man. Simple. Jesus. And if you have any education about the type of person Jesus was, you would know He would never allow any of those horrible things to be associated with His preachings. He spoke of love and service. He called us, as humans to love and serve each other, not to hate or lie or kill. Unfortunately, we are only human, and there are many here who misuse God to get what they want or to justify their own evils. As a Christian, I believe that the one thing God gave us was free will. You can chose to believe or not to believe. We can do whatever we want here on earth.
I like to hear the many sides of an argument. I like to hear the believer's side, the agnostic side, and the atheist side. But when it comes down to it, no matter how much I want to give in to my logical scientific side, I can't. And I can't explain why. And yes, that inability irritates me. But I can't. This is one thing I just know, that can't be proven or shown, but I guess that is what makes it more real to me. I know it sounds awful, for someone from an extremely godless liberal background; and I have tried sooo hard to NOT believe in God, to really jump on the logic wagon. And that's when I know that science can only go so far. I do not consider myself religious nor do I attend church. This is not about religion. This is something much more personal than that. Its about Jesus. I will never condemn anyone for what they believe or don't believe, but I know what I do and have experienced.

Posted by: kat | April 4, 2010 9:49 AM

The carbon dating has been disproved

Don't bother to read (say, comment 106) do you? You assert that it has been disproved because you prefer that. Rather like that woman who asserted she was David Letterman's wife and broke into his house repeatedly.

Posted by: NJ | April 4, 2010 10:10 AM

Extreme hubris and arrogance is to assume that one religion(no matter which one) holds that it is the absolute arbiter of truth and speaks for the rest of the 13.7 billion year old universe which humans have only infintesimal experience with a tiny part of it. This is the failure,myopia and self-absorbed narcissism of fundamantalist religion, because it almost always fails to look at the larger context of life and the universe we live in.

Many of us are still baised with the human-centric idea that we are the center of everything when a universe of almost incomprehensible proportions surrounds us. Everything we assume is truth has been derived from the isolated perspective of one species on one tiny planet among billions of others in billions of others galaxies.

In other words we don't have enough nearly enough data to make the presumption that we know the "truth" whether it be religion or science simply because we can never personally experience ever corner of the universe to make such absolute assertions.

But at least science in it's best form keeps searching and revising as more data comes forth while many religions are repressive,static and obstinately refuse to accept that knowledge and life is always changing, evolving just as the universe is based on constant change.

And the believers who would rather hedge their bets based on fear of future punishment are in my opinion worshipping something that does not appear worthy of admiration or devotion. Why would you rather live a life based on fear? Pretty pathetic and cowardly reason to worship a deity.

By the way monkeys and apes are still here because they and we evolved from a common anceator and the term "theory" in science is a testable confirmed hypothosis that has a enormous body of evidence to back it up.

Posted by: Jules | April 4, 2010 10:16 AM

well I will pray for all here that do not beleive In God nor his Son,and to Owl ,/.';[[],/.';][!@#$%^&*()DaRwin

Posted by: trish | April 4, 2010 11:00 AM

Jules, you raise a very thoughtful question. In thinking about it I would say that I do use critical thinking and judgement, careful observation, and learning for as far as that can take me. If I use that method when deciding whether or not to trust a pilot I don't know to fly me somewhere, that method will only take me so far. Eventually I have to have "faith" in the piolt. We all place our faith in things every day when we don't completly understand or have pre-tested for us. I too tried very hard to be agnostic, but I felt that too was a faith position that could not be proved or disproved. All I want to know is the truth. I think we all want to know the truth. We owe that to ourselves. We don't all believe in the same thing but somewhere there is only one truth.

Posted by: Rusty | April 4, 2010 11:30 AM

What a tempest in a teapot. Just a few comments:

1) The shroud could be an absolute, complete fake, and that is completely irrelevant to anyone's particular religious beliefs. If it's fake, so what? Nothing in Christianity _requires_ the shroud to be genuine. I always fail to understand why Christians will stake their "faith" on something that very well could turn out to be a fake.

2) There is abundant evidence the shroud is indeed a forgery:
a) The shroud itself is unknown to history before the middle ages. That the shroud would have existed for over a thousand years and would not have been discussed by any Christian prior to this time is almost incomprehensible

b) The C-14 dating puts it exactly in the time period (1260-1390) when it first appears in historical records: 1350's. It does _not_ put it in the time period when it was burned in a fire: 1532. This should put to rest the idea that the testing was done on part of the repair.

c) The dating puts the shroud precisely in a time period that was rampant with "pious frauds" such as splinters from the "true cross", the spear that pierced Jesus, etc.

d) Despite rampant claims to the contrary, most of the features of the shroud have indeed been replicated by modern scholars using techniques available to middle age artisans. This does not mean that any particular technique is definitively the way the shroud was made, but it does mean that unusual features, such as the 3D perspective, do not require any supernatural explanation since most of the unusual features can and have been replicated.

Taken together, these facts add up to a strong conclusion of forgery. There is also one last fact that should clinch the matter: the figure does not have anatomically correct proportions. The arms are much longer than those of an average human.

Here's a test: lay down on the floor flat on your back, feet straight down with your arms at your sides like you are dead. Now, slowly and without raising your shoulders off the ground, try to cross your hands over your groin as the figure has it in the shroud. The vast majority of people cannot do this as our arms are simply not long enough to complete this pose.

There is an obvious reason why the forger who was so careful in other regards made this error: he did not want to have to paint Jesus' genitalia.

This should be the clincher to the other strong evidence of a forgery, albeit a careful and interesting one.

Posted by: skeptical | April 4, 2010 12:43 PM

Rusty,

Thanks of your clarification. The airline pilot is a good example of using faith so to speak in the pilots competence that he or she will safely get you to your destination since you are obviously not in control of such situations.

The reason I am an agnostic(former believer of various religions including evangelical) is based in part on my previous post above about the context of the universe where humans find themselves in. There is simply no objective way I know of or absolute way we can confirm from this vantage point what is the absolute truth. I guess you would say I believe in provisonal "truths" which are approximations as far as we can go.

I am not talking about agreed upon values,morals or laws that protect us all as a society, there is a need for some values we can agree on to sustain civilization. In that regard the part of religion that encourages us to be better humans,to serve one another are noble and necessary pursuits. The part of religion which I have trouble with after many years of also searching for truth is when it proclaims itself as the only holder of the keys so to speak.

I do not think humans have that authority to make that claim given that we only know so little about what other altenatives may exist since we are limited in time and place to a very small part of the totality of existence.

That does not mean we can not find individual meaning and purpose and to establish some form of pragmatic value system. I think real humility begins with the awesome recognition that we are a part of a much bigger continum of life and processes which we are only beginning to understand. I think that un-critical, un-questioning belief in a particular religion can repress our ability to keep asking questions especially if they are hard and uncomfortable.

I think science has the best tools for helping us to understand the material universe because it seeks objective evidence. It does not or actually has no way to verify the myriad subjective beliefs of religion and philosophy.

We are free of course to believe as we wish, the trouble is when one culture or religion insists that they are the right way and all must confirm to that one usually subjective ideal.

Science has flaws of course because it is a human undertaking, but at it's best it deals with objective, reproducable or mathemantical facts and presents them as such, not as beliefs based merely on faith.

For instance just because we have not been around to see macro-evolution take place before our eyes(which it would not anyway becuse it takes vast amounts of time), there is a enormous collection of evidence pointing to that(again provisional)conclusion. These are facts based on enormous amount of collected evidence. There is more to be found, but each time more evidence has confirmed natural selection and our connection to this process of continual adaptation and change. Anything else like ID or creationism is based on a pre-concluded bias that a supernatural cause must be involved. Science has no way(at this time) to verify that assertion because it cannot be tested.

If data comes forth that could used to verify a supernatural force then probably even hard line atheists like Richard Dawkins would be willing to review the evidence. To this date nothing has been found to prove supernatural forces are in operation.

Posted by: Jules | April 4, 2010 1:21 PM

wow, you are really showing your huge ignorance of the scientific studies that have been done on the shroud. your analysis on this is infantile and ignorant. why don't you read up on the subject, then write your agenda-driven opinion. at least come up with some legitimate arguments against its authenuticity.

Posted by: Mike | April 4, 2010 2:11 PM

this blog has turned into Is there a God,not is shroud is real or not.It being real or not has nothing to with Is there a God Or not .I am a Christian,Being a Christian doesn't mean I have not read Darwin..In Fact I like science...I believe in the Big Bag theory,but Gods Hand..just like I believe the universe is expanding every second..and one day will explode ..the universe will start and end with a big bang.
my question is why do those who do not believe has to belittle those that believe...we both have our beliefs.....and a belief is a religion

Posted by: trish | April 4, 2010 3:24 PM

I have read a substantial amount of your comments and have noticed a constant theme; you keep telling others that citation is needed for some of the things they post

Yes, for some of the things. Not everything.

I've asked for citations for claims that are clearly being made in reference to something which is sufficiently vague and unclear that I have no idea what the exact argument is, who made the original argument, or what they based their argument on.

Of course, sometimes that came out in later comments, which more or less satisfied me as a "citation". For example, the claim that the carbon-dated cloth was from a mended area is from Rogers' 2005 paper in Thermochimica Acta. The claim that there is something from ~1190 which (purportedly) shows the shroud (or something like it) is based on an argument by Daniel Scavone about the Hungarian Pray Manuscript or Pray Codex.

Once I had that information, I was able to read up on the topic myself, and I stopped writing "citation needed".

yet I see no citation when you reply.

I have cited Wiens 2002 against the creationist lies about radiocarbon dating. Do you want more information about something I've said? Please be explicit, if so.

I do notice, however, that you have the tendency to rip apart others, even when they do include citations.

Providing citations is no guarantee that the source of the citation is actually correct.

Note that the "citation" in support of a pencil being dated to 1,000,000 years old does not actually mention any such claim, in addition to being full of creationist lies.

You ask for something, yet when it is provided you disregard it or pass it off as nonsense.

Sometimes that's because it can be disregarded as nonsense.

Radiocarbon dating really is a branch of science that is consistent with everything we know about chemistry and physics. Everything that creationists write about there being "problems" with radioisotope dating is false or misleading based on everything we know about chemistry and physics. Everything that creationists write about there having been a global flood is false based on everything we know about geology.

Do you want citations for that, or are you good with accepting the consensus of modern science?

And to call others hypocrites when your own hypocrisy is so evident is. well, very hypocritical.

You misunderstood what I was asking for in requesting citations.

Do you have any other problems with what I have written?

....and I am quite certain you will correct me for the punctuation error in my previous post, but that's okay, I forgive you for your feeling of self-rightousness and your intellectual vanity.

I'm usually only that pedantic to people who are self-righteous in being consistently wrong. But what the hell, I forgive your punctuation error and your self-righteous judgment of me.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 4:22 PM

| "......and your self-righteous judgment of me."

Citation please.

Posted by: keith | April 4, 2010 6:43 PM

@#142: Nonsense. Unless the sample you're looking at is tens of thousands of years old, you'd need a hell of a lot of contamination to make the date appear more recent. To be more precise, your contamination theory requires that 67% of the sample be modern material - by modern I mean from sources around the time that the analysis was done. If you're talking about historical repairs, which are very obvious to anyone who looks even at a photograph of the shroud, you need pretty much 100% of the repair material to give such a young age; you are very silly to suggest that the people who performed the sampling and analysis are that stupid. You are only showing your grand ignorance of the carbon dating method. Go learn about it and become a genuine expert before you tell people your silly ideas.

Posted by: MadScientist | April 4, 2010 7:10 PM

What amazes me about this "argument", if you can call it that, is the fervent need for non-believers to convince everyone that God does not exist. What does it really matter to an athiest if the majority of the planet's population believes in God? Why is it that you non-believers feel the need to belittle and mock those of faith just because you do not have any? Does a person of faith threaten you in some way? I fail to understand why some athiests spend so much time and energy trying to dismantle every tenet of religion and deem it false. The argument inevitably shifts to name calling where people of faith are disregarded as ignorant and unable to comprehend the "real science" thus need religion to explain the unexplainable. The bottom line for me is what those of faith have accomplished regarding the poor, weak, and suffering. What other group of people in the world's history has ever done more good and positive works than those of faith. When is the last time you read the headline, "Group of Athiests Organize Relief for Haiti" or "Athiests Unite in Founding of Homeless Shelter"? The intellectual dishonesty of those loudest in oposition can be deafening, but happily I do have faith in God and no one person or group can change that. My faith strengthens me and I need no relic or proof to supplement it. The "proof" may be intangible to you but I see it's expression nonetheless in the greatest good deed to the smallest act of kindness. Sneer and look down as you please, it matters not to me; the simple fact remains that people of faith have done more to better humanity than any other group, despite whether organized or not. There is good and bad in every organized group - it has been this way since the beginning. It is easy to find the bad and cite it to the world, but the challenge I believe is to cite the good that religion and faith have meant to the world and the great things accomplished because faith and morality demanded it. It is a choice of those of faith to give in charity, to offer their time to help others, to quietly pray for peace; what will you choose to do and how will that improve the life or lives of others?
Lastly to "owlmirror", you might want to read over some of your posts and ask yourself if humility is a character trait that you might be lacking. Despite your "almost militant" attacks against the people of faith who have posted, I pray you find some grace and peace with yourself. It just seems sad to me that your attitude is so oppositional. Science is a gift that God has given humanity and even your gifts, whether you acknowledge Him or not, are a blessing. I hope you use them for good.

Posted by: JW | April 4, 2010 7:23 PM

The show isn't claiming that the Shroud is the real face of Jesus. That's why the title has a '?' at the end. It does provide the same information that you are providing in terms of the lack of authenticity. It also points out how the evidence may ot be true, and more on both sides of the issue. The show is more about, from the shroud only, determining an accurate picture of the man it is of.

However, it must be admitted, no matter what your religion is, that the creation of the shroud is mysterious, as the same researchers who determined it was some 700 years old also said it was not created by any sort of 'media', and the blood on it is human blood, not some kind of paint.

Posted by: ~ | April 4, 2010 7:31 PM

I am a believer and I love the show. It was beautiful.
Their accomplishment was done with dedication and passion.

Blessings to all of you that want to argue...

Posted by: Artist-Pat | April 4, 2010 7:39 PM

The show isn't claiming that the Shroud is the real face of Jesus. That's why the title has a '?' at the end. It does provide the same information that you are providing in terms of the lack of authenticity. It also points out how the evidence may ot be true, and more on both sides of the issue. The show is more about, from the shroud only, determining an accurate picture of the man it is of.

By watching the documentary, one would be aware of all of this. While it is slightly bias, it makes the point clear that what they are saying is not necessarily fact, and they do provide evidence on both sides of the situation that leave the viewer to an opinion.

Just watch the documentary before you state your opinion like fact, and make sure you don't address and contradict the factual parts stated int the documentary. Several of your points, as well as others here, were addressed in the documentary.

@147 : The documentary covers this. Validification for the shroud's authenticity is supposedly given in that the head wrap is dated to the 7th century, and the blood stains on it match the blood stains on the shroud.

Posted by: ~ | April 4, 2010 7:53 PM

Despite the science proving anything one way or another people are simply discounting the biggest thing of all, and that's FAITH... We Christians choose to believe... we choose to have faith. Some of us have had experiences that cannot be explained and therefore for us, faith comes naturally. Others simply choose faith because the thought of an afterlife in darkness is not an appealing one. My brother is an atheist and chooses to believe in nothing... good for him. That's his choice. Mine is to believe!!
Happy Afterlife everyone! Wherever you choose to spend it :)

Posted by: Julie | April 4, 2010 8:51 PM

From the Daily Mirror, 03/04/2010, at the end of a piece under the headline 'The 3Deity', is a quote from Gian Maria Zaccone, Turin Shroud Museums scientific director;
"Scientists can't explain how the image was formed, and we should leave it at that. It's not important whether or not it's a fake-the important thing is it encourages faith."
WHAT?
What sort of 'scientist says "..can't explain how the image was formed, and we should leave it at that."

Posted by: Bryan Fisher | April 4, 2010 9:27 PM

What sort of 'scientist says "..can't explain how the image was formed, and we should leave it at that."

Obviously, a religious one who thinks that "faith" is more important than actually finding out the truth.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 9:58 PM

I relized that the truth is not a thing, it is a person.

Rusty, if you feel like it, could you expand on how you came to this "realization", and what makes you think that it is true?

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 4, 2010 10:43 PM

Jules, It has been a long day and I have enjoyed our conversation even though I believe that we have quite heroically and respectfully agreed to disagree.

Everyone looks through their own individual lens that has been formed by their own experience. I would agree with you that it helps no one when an individual or group trys to force their reality on everyone else. It is usually diminished by the confrontations it causes. In all cases, freedom to believe or not to believe is of utmost importance.

I too have a great love of the universe in all its complexity and scope. I think I have a grasp on its shear immensity, although I am sure not to the extent that you may understand it. My oldest son wanted to become an astronomer and physisist. He was a student at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. He spoke of science just as you have just done and wanted to know about all of the things that we have discussed. His dream was to one day teach physics and astronomy as a Norbertine priest, but I don't belive that he thought that it was the only answer. I think he just felt that he wanted to include all that he understood to be part of reality as he knew it. You may say that "the apple may not have fallen far from the tree" and you may be right because I may have helped "grind" his lens a bit. Anyway, unfortunately his dream was cut short by an unfortunate car / pedestrian accident 11 years ago. Science and God I think will be forever intertwined. He thought that and I suppose you and I would agree on that.

If you have been around for a half century as you stated, then you and I are contemporaries. I suspect that we actually may agree more than we disagree on, in fact some of my best friends are agnostics :-)

As far as the Shroud of Turin is concerned, I can't imagine how it was formed, who manufactured it if indeed it was manufactured, don't rely on it to prove anything, will follow further study of it with the same interest I follow new discoveries in cosmology, but I also revere it because it demonstrates with extreme sobriety every single detail which I am currently aware of the purported passion of the man called Jesus of Nazareth.

G K Chesterton is probably not one of your favorite historical figures but he once said "I have heard that in some debating clubs there is a rule that the members may discuss anything except religion and politics. I cannot imagine what they do discuss; but it is quite evident that they have ruled out the only two subjects which are either important or amusing". Jules, thank you for your patient and respectful conversation, especially in light of what has surrounded us.

I also want to thank Dr. Rundkvist since I kind of fell into this by chance but have enjoyed the opportunity immensly.

Posted by: Rusty | April 4, 2010 11:08 PM

The fact that you have not watched the documentary invalidates your opinion of it. What weight would your opinion hold of a restaurant that you had not eaten at or a book you had not read. None at all.

Posted by: Anonymous | April 5, 2010 12:14 AM

WIth all due respect, if you watched this amazing program, maybe it would surprise you. Scientists with closed minds are kidding themselves. They aren't true to their own professed objectivity, and by limiting your outlook, you become everything you profess to despise in others, especially the History Channel. Watch it sometime. Seriously.You may learn something. If you saw the program on the Shroud of Turin, you would be hard pressed to despise it. It may touch your soul in ways unexpectedly.

Posted by: michele bonder | April 5, 2010 1:23 AM

To all who claim the carbon dating evidence is without merit because the sample was from a patch that was repaired in the 1400's: why then was this particular patch given to be carbon dated in the first place. The claim that the sample was a repaired piece came about after the tests were performed to falsify the results, I mean why would they give a part that was known to be a repaired as the testable sample? And of course, why wasn't another test prepared since the 1988 one was so bungled? Until another sample is provided and tested, the previous results stand no matter how many after the fact hypothesis there may be as to why it may be wrong. To prove it is wrong you have to test again, you can't just say the test is wrong, you have to provide contrary evidence derived from a new test, not conjecture.

Posted by: Turuk | April 5, 2010 2:53 AM

they were actually able to pull a blood sample from it, and if all of the people saying it was a work of art or a painting, did that mean they used blood, to paint it with,

Yes. Would this surprise you? There were more than a handful of foreskins floating around Italy at the time, not to mention finger bones and shin bones and hair and vials of blood.

but why do atheists have to bash everyone else who believe in God

Reread the thread. The attacks are being launched from the faithful, not the doubters.

"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God” – Letters of Charles Darwin

Cool, but irrelevant. Darwin's faith has no impact on the validity of the theory of evolution. Evolution is only mentioned in this thread because it is another aspect of reality that believers find unsavory.

Posted by: Abstruse | April 5, 2010 5:32 AM

I sometimes try to imagine what the world would have been like without religion. With every resource used for the advancement of civilization instead of religious wars, persecutions, and rites, we might have already solved many problems facing humans today such as cancer, energy, climate change, and overpopulation. It's really sad that so much has been wasted on myth, lore, and fear. The opportunity costs cannot be overstated.

Posted by: Agrippa | April 5, 2010 10:28 AM

Lisa I,
Well, I used to be xian, but no more.
So you used to be an atheist, but now you are xian but you wish not to share with us the magical transformation. Let us examine that for a moment in the manner of Thomas Paine: Suppose we assume for the sake of argument that God himself appeared to you and called on you to believe. This would have been a “revelation” to you of God. Were you to go and tell others of your experience, the news would most definitely not be a revelation to them, as others would only have your word that it had occurred. As far as others would be concerned, you may have either had a dream, been smoking some herb (As Coptic xians were wont to do), or may be lying. Either way, unless they also had their own personal revelation there would appear to be a great unfairness to have occurred. Why would God reveal himself to you and not everyone else? Is that something a fair and just God would do? I think not. And should you consider it rationally, you would also. But then, we are given the “God works in mysterious ways” that we have heard all our lives while being cajoled into denying our “God given” common sense.

The bottom line: Go as I have done over my 70 plus years and STUDY as many of the “great” religions as you can (My studies included Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Deism. Additionally, within Christianity I have spent time looking into Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Baptists, Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventists, and even Jehovah’s Witnesses to name a few. I also attended services at all of these . ) and you will ultimately come to the same conclusion as I finally came to: NONE OF THEM MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL! ALL ARE SMOKE AND MIRRORS!
I entreat all to go and read carefully, Thomas Paine Age Of Reason I and II. Both are on the internet and easily found.
Looked upon in the light of day, with an open mind, cleared from all the incense, holy water, vestments, architectural wonders of churches and mosques, none of it makes any sense at all. What, PRAY TELL, is wrong with humans that they are so blinded by pretense that they cannot see?

Incidentally, the shroud is a fake. It’s up to xians to prove it is not. Faith is like hope. Both are totally worthless emotions based on wish, which will never have any effect on outcome.

Posted by: John | April 5, 2010 11:04 AM

I know what happened. God inculcated Jesus with more carbon-14 than a normal person on purpose, so He would radiate some of that into the cloth, because God knew that someone would do this test in the 20th and 21st centuries. He did it to FOOL us and to TEST OUR FAITH! Just like He fudged the numbers on the DINOSAURS and GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS!

Posted by: schnail | April 5, 2010 12:08 PM

Jules, I have no patience for those types of individuals either. They use the banner of religion to promote their political agenda. We need to avoid those hinderances so we can all work together to be good stewards of our planet and creation. There is a lot of work to do. Peace.

Posted by: Jules | April 5, 2010 1:19 PM

Did anyone actually watch it - I did and thought it was great.

I have seen many of these shows on shroud - and as science continues to advance, new evidence has been presented.

If we went with the initial "carbon dating theory" then we would still be living in a "the world is flat" logic.

This is just not the case, just like people being released from prison, 20 years after they have been convicted of a crime and then found innocent because science evolved, that is the same situation as with the shroud.

Personally, I don't know if it is Jesus, however, it is very interesting - and I love what they have been able to do with technology, science, and art to find the face that was embedded into the shroud - whether or not its fake, it is still fascinating.

Posted by: Michele | April 5, 2010 2:10 PM

John, I feel so sorry for you if you think that faith and hope are worthless emotions. What a sad, sad life - awaiting oblivion without the peace and joy that comes from knowing God. Even if there were no God, that is not a life I would want to lead.

As for not sharing my experience, I will not have something that is so intensely personal to me subjected to the scrutiny of faithless, hopeless individuals intent on tearing down all that is holy.

I am not a religious person, and like you, I have studied various religions and beliefs. I haven't been to church since 2002. I care nothing about incense, holy water, vestments, architectural wonders of churches and mosques. They are man made and have nothing to do with my relationship with my Creator, though I respect those who need them to worship. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.

Also, God will reveal Himself to any who truly seek Him. I called out to Him, even though I didn't believe He existed, in a moment of intense emotional pain, and He found me and changed my life forever (and changed it in a very positive way.)

You studied religions, you evidentially were searching for something, but you didn't find it in man-made ceremonies and religions. It's because that's not who God is. I challenge you to seek God without the man-made religions of this world. Ask Him sincerely to reveal His nature to you. If He's not real, then you have nothing to lose, do you. And if He is real, then you, at 70 plus years of age, have everything to gain.

You said, "Looked upon in the light of day, with an open mind, cleared from all the incense, holy water, vestments, architectural wonders of churches and mosques, none of it makes any sense at all. What, PRAY TELL, is wrong with humans that they are so blinded by pretense that they cannot see?"

I happen to agree with you, but from the other side. Look at the light of day and put aside your own pretense, and your belief that you know all. Be open to the things you do not know. Forget the religions of this world. They are confusing and as you said, many make no sense at all. God is not about religion. He is about changing lives, He is about faith and hope, which are not useless emotions; He is about love. Don't let bitterness and cynicism steal away what you could have.

My prayers are with you.

Posted by: Lisa I. | April 5, 2010 3:02 PM

@ Martin R -- thanks, again. I suspected that was Chris. It would have been fine if you had edited the "Posted by:" field to reflect that, but either way.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 5, 2010 6:40 PM

Nomen Nescio wrote:(oh, and by the way --- equating "faithless" with "hopeless" the way you imply is a little bit insulting. it's also blatantly false. let's not get me started on the meaning of "holy"; i know a way to define the word, but i suspect you would not like it.)

If you read John's reply to me, he said that hope was a useless emotion. So logically, if he feels that way about hope, he has no hope, hence the "hopeless" remark. It wasn't meant as an insult, just an observation.

Posted by: Lisa I. | April 5, 2010 7:39 PM

Martin Rundkvist you just got your Swedish bitch as OWNED by Jerry!!!!!!!!

What kind of a fucking idiot talks about a show and DOESN'T WATCH IT FIRST? You've been HUMILIATED on your own site. LMAO

Posted by: Fedor | April 5, 2010 8:00 PM

No, that is a verse in the Bible. (Acts 7:48)

So this isn't part of what you know directly from God, or about God? It's only second- or third- hand, or even more distant.

Posted by: Owlmirror | April 5, 2010 8:20 PM

What kind of a fucking idiot talks about a show and DOESN'T WATCH IT FIRST? You've been HUMILIATED on your own site. LMAO

What kind of moron doesn't realize that a History Channel documentary isn't a scientific journal. If there was any legitimate evidence that the shroud was real, it would have appeared in a journal first, and not a faith-based-masturbatory-pseudo-documentary.

And to reductio your argument, You've been HUMILATED by your own post. LMAO

Posted by: Seifer | April 5, 2010 8:37 PM

Lisa,

The bulk of my religious studies took place while I was in my twenties and I have had a very happy and rewarding life, and should my race be run tomorrow, I will have no regrets. Meanwhile, like Rush, “I’m having more fun than a human should be allowed”. I have no clue as to the controlling factor of the universe, and I suspect that only self delusional people believe they have a clue. My complaint in the current discussion is with organized religion, which as Paine described are more interested in power, profit and control than anything else. Then there’s the constant barrage of television evangelists and others entreating everyone to give to God and then give you their address. And to my way of thinking, only Agnostics and Atheists are capable of altruism, since the apparent altruism of the religious can always be traced either to guilt or earning stars for their crown.
Again, I reiterate that faith and hope are useless emotions. Rather than hoping for something to happen or having faith that it will happen due to prayer, the more realistic approach is to get off your butt and go work for the desired result.
Here’s a simple example: My garden needs water so I
“Hope” it will rain, accomplishes nothing. Getting out my garden hose and watering the garden does. So it is with every human endeavor. You must “water” the “garden” with personal effort in order to effect a change. By now you may have determined that one “ism” I believe in is pragmatism. It is this measure that I try to apply to all I am faced with.
Oh, and By the way, I used to use that tired old, “better off to believe and be wrong, than to reject and be wrong” in religious discussions in my youth. You can save your prayers where I am concerned; if you really believe in prayer, use them to cause world peace, I don’t need them.

Allow me to describe the way I view organized religion with an example of one: Scientology. Created out of a science fiction author’s imagination and now with many thousands of “converts”, immense churches and training facilities, it has many well known celebrities counted among its believers. The ordinary Protestant or Catholic would consider Scientology to be a pseudo-religion. But when compared to the beginnings of most “real” religions, there is really not much to distinguish one from the other. Now, any individual may form their own philosophy or religious beliefs, but those beliefs belong to that individual alone. Proselytizing others to accept one’s own religious tenets is proposing that someone else should accept your own personal beliefs as their own, which generally would require compromise of some sort for the someone else. As this progresses, any value to the first individual’s beliefs is adulterated. Again, a revelation to you is no revelation to me.
And, a couple of footnotes:
“Missing link” found? http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/posted/archive/2010/04/05/scientists-claim-to-find-missing-link-between-apes-and-humans.aspx
And: Ritual sacrifice of children on rise in Uganda http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVKJwZGbjcGft_IsyTJWdY6UGlCQD9ESCS900

Please allow the disjointed composition of the post, as it is late and I am pretty old….LOL!

Posted by: John | April 6, 2010 1:33 AM