Definitely not by the Catholics, but there are plenty of liberal Protestant churches without pictures and idols.
Yes, it appears Jesus’s body could possibly have been in a state of rigor mortis on the third day after his death. I was mistaken about that.
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Correct. It’s because ATP becomes depleted and myosins bind actin very tightly in the presence of the ADP that remains. Rigor mortis ends because the proteins start to decay.
So to save Gil and Bill from thinking about it, the Shroudie explanation would be that ATP was nonmiraculously depleted but decay had miraculously been prevented. There’s no reason for either of those materialist hypotheses to be true. Virtually anything can be explained with untestable post hoc hypotheses!
One option is to point out that it wasn’t three days, but only from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning.
Yes, I’ve already acknowledged that as a possibility that is not silly or amusing.
That can happen, when the evidence is as strong and unambiguous as it is, and one happens to actually follow it.
True. But it’s been made up and wrong before. If you have a means to conclusively disprove the correctness of the carbon dating in this case, I’m all ears.
I find discussions where I need to wait for more than half a day before any message I post actually shows up – by which time, of course, the discussion has moved on – and which are ontop of that also arbitrarily limited to only last for up to something like a week, uninteresting. This personal sensibility limits me to a subset of Side Conversations, and of those, this is currently the only one that is active.
Yes and no. If this challenge was raised entirely out of the blue, and in response to having been cornered by a coherent point from my interlocutor, then yes. However, though I have sometimes occasionally indulged these tangents, I have consistently pulled in reminders that the single most conclusive piece of evidence pertaining to authenticity is the fact that the shroud is much too young. It was among the first points I made in this thread, and I have routinely put other points discussed in relation to it. Doing it just this one more time and with just a little bit more force than most other times, in my opinion, is not so much a shifting of the goal post, as it is going back to the mark that’s been consistently missed this entire time by authenticity advocates, and opining that this piece of evidence on its own, as long as it remains standing, is enough to outweigh just about every other unrelated argument they might raise.
I agree with you the side conversation is much easier. If you want to stay in this conversation I recommend you accept the carbon dating which I agree is the most reliable dating method maybe wrong given the other dating methods and other evidence. Just engage in the conversation to learn more about all the evidence.
No one is likely to change their current position leaning for or against authenticity. What’s interesting is gaining better understanding of the subject and all the current research. If we can all remain neutral on the outcome the discussion will become much more interesting.
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Probably not, because if that happened we would all agree that the “shroud” is a medieval forgery, and then what would be left to discuss?
I think it’s fairly clear that you are both credulous and dishonest here. As I have often said in connection with creationists in other contexts, foolishness and dishonesty rarely exist in their pure, unadulterated forms. Someone like Stephen Meyer may believe the asinine conclusions he’s reached, but he surely cannot possibly believe that the evidence he cites in support thereof actually supports those conclusions. One can be credulous as to outcomes, and use that credulous belief as an excuse for being dishonest as to evidence. And that’s just one way it can balance out.
And, really, after the torrent of garbage you have been responsible for in this thread, you really think that “bad faith” is a pair of words that ought to come out of your mouth? Just look, for example, in the post I am responding to, at how you misrepresented me as claiming that serious-minded Christians might be upset at the shroud being genuine, when what I said plainly was that they might be upset at people insisting it was genuine, because of the way this makes the faith look absurd. That can’t be good faith.
Evidence, evidence, evidence. You haven’t got ANY. You have an artifact KNOWN AT THE TIME OF ITS PRODUCTION to be a fraud, which dates to that time, over a thousand years too late to be authentic. You have a series of completely absurd objections to that dating, which fall very much in the classic creationist mold of “I don’t need evidence for my claims if I can find some way to cast doubt on the truth.” You have a load of non sequiturs – who CARES if the depiction on the “shroud” is highly anatomically accurate (which, of course, it isn’t) when the thing is over a thousand years too new to be authentic? The chasm between what you have and actual evidence is so obvious, so wide, so vast, that it beggars belief to think that you don’t see it. It is more probable that you do see it, and do not care.
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That’s an… interesting choice of tone. Accidentally so, no doubt. Moving on…
Why, though? What about anything so far presented in this thread actually makes it plausible that the carbon date might not correctly reflect the shroud’s real age?
The closest thing to an attempt at answering this is this ridiculous suggestion that the nuclear physics of dead and/or resurrecting bodies is somehow wholly inconsistent with regular nuclear physics, to the point where neutron radiation is emitted in just such a way as to affect the isotopes relevant for the carbon clock but more or less none of the other nuclei, all to make it appear like the shroud is contemporaneous with the earliest historical records of the shroud’s existence. Not only is this requiring a suspension of physical law as we know it, it would seem that in his infinite wisdom god would have had to interfere and orchestrate this “miracle” just in such a way as to make it look exactly like how we would expect it to, were the shroud not authentic.
That’s not what I would call (scientifically) plausible, and I’ll leave it to the faithful to judge on their own how theologically sound this would be, but at least it is some attempt to argue that the carbon date might be incorrect. Everything else was irrelevant tangents about what the image looks like, what it is composed of, what other materials could be scraped off the cloth, some silly probabilistic argument regarding a slightly older medieval painting, another silly probabilistic argument about blood types that could just as easily work without the involvement of any blood in this case…
I’m not principally opposed to the carbon date being incorrect. I have no doctrinal commitments here, and there’s plenty known cases where carbon dating is known to not consistently return a sample’s correct age. For all I know it could, ultimately, be wrong here. But why would we consider it inconclusive specifically given any of the evidence so far here presented? Nothing so far said here actually raises any serious doubt about it, so what reason do we have to put it aside? Just for the sake of perpetuating the argument? Are we not interested in actually settling it?
This, by the way, is another of those moments that might make some question your earnestness. Maybe you are dishonestly trying to sweep a devastating argument under the rug and move on to something you feel you can play more favourably for your case. Maybe that’s not the intention at all, and you genuinely care more about all the sport and fun this debate is, than about the topic. Personally, I’m not comfortable accusing you of either sort of insincerity just from what I’m responding to here. But it’s not a flattering look, even if one were to try and find a third option.
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That is false equivalence. AMS carbon dating is proven for the relevant date range and material, and may be considered a primary dating standard. I recommend you cease the pretense that there is any real doubt and accept that there is no way that three independent labs are going to miss by over a millenium. If other purported novel dating methods disagree, they are invalid. The only remaining interest concerns whether such methods are of any use whatsoever, what level of precision and range they may or may not have to offer, whether they can be properly recalibrated and brought to agreement, or should be dismissed completely.
Also, the prior overall historical and analytical body of evidence supports the shroud being one of many fabricated medieval relics, which aligns with the carbon dating and is incompatible with results indicating a first century origin.
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Seriously, @colewd? Remember, every sip of Beaujolais (that pairs well with rabbit, I am told) or aged Pappy Van Winkle serves as reminders of how utterly useless these “other dating methods” are.
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Neutral on the outcome means we are open to new information that may change our current position.
Hi Art
Instead of making sweeping statements that stop any chance of common ground let’s focus on the Vanillin test first which is an area of your expertise. So far you may need to re think the conclusion if no Vanillin is measured it is young.
HI Ron
You’re advocating stoping the conversation. I agree with you the carbon dating provides the most reliable clock. The does not mean there is another issue affecting the small sample tested.
Why did these other methods come up with such different results on other areas of the Shroud?
I was not pointing out that YOU were moving goalposts. Apologies for the misunderstanding.
Um, @colewd, the libations I mention refer specifically to the vanillin test, and are proof positive that my assertions about vanillin and the ages of materials are correct.
You’re going to have to tie together a few things I have mentioned and some thoughts about the beverages to get this. But trust me, in this case the journey is the better part of the discussion.
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I think that’s what @Faizal_Ali means by it, too. But, as usual, creationists do not know what “information” means.
Do you see your participation in this conversation as having utility?
Then the conversation does not need to continue.
None have been raised that would lead any informed person looking for the truth to reconsider.
Because they are far less reliable. I think it is highly likely that Shroudies tried other methods that did not provide the desired answer and are not telling us about them.
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Hi Puck
What I am advocating is to reduce the political nature of the argument and simply explore the evidence. Calling people liars and incompetent simply because they do not agree with you is not productive. Dismissing evidence out of hand is not productive.