Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin

Source: Reuters

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.

A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5943HL20091005

and join reality.

That still doesn't mean the original itself is a fake.

(Not that I hold great belief in the Shroud itself being what they say it is, but we need to remember that not everything is a fraud.)

that th fibers tested were from a medieval repair on the orignal shroud. Saw a Discovry Channel show and here's some links - supposedly confirmed by Los Alamos scientists.

http://shroudstory.com/
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/carbon14.htm
http://www.factsplusfacts.com/

Not so according to some who are in the know.
Carbon dating is only as good as the sample.

The breakdown of Carbon-13 is very stable and predictable. Human error is always possible. But the science is not as such.

There are still a lot of factors that can change the results.

:+

"Finally, although radiocarbon dating is the most common and widely used chronometric technique in archaeology today, it is not infallible. In general, single dates should not be trusted. Whenever possible multiple samples should be collected and dated from associated strata. The trend of the samples will provide a ball park estimateof the actual date of deposition. The trade-off between radiocarbon dating and other techniques, like dendrochronology, is that we exchange precision for a wider geographical and temporal range. That is the true benefit of radiocarbon dating, that it can be employed anywhere in the world, and does have a 50,000 year range. Using radiocarbon dating, archaeologists during the past 30 years have been able to obtain a much needed global perspective on the timing of major prehistoric events such as the development of agriculture in various parts of the world."

http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/anth3/courseware/Chronology/08_Radiocarbon_Dating.html

A range for which the test can be used. For items up to 50,000 years old carbon dating is used. After that they need to use something with a longer halflife. Uranium for instance has a half life of about 2500 years. That is, if you have one gram it will degrade into 1/2 gram (and 1/4, 1/8th, etc.) every 2500 years.


The 50000 year range is the period of time in which the test is usable because after 50000 years the levels of the carbon ion they test has degraded too far. For the shroud, theoretically 2000 years old, that is well within the 50000 year range in which they can use carbon dating to date its age.

The "ballpark estimate": "In 2008, a typical uncertainty better than ±40 radiocarbon years can be expected for samples younger than 10,000 years." -Wikipedia, Radiocarbon Dating.

It is accurate to ±40 years. Very accurate in the terms of up to a 500000 year range of usefulness. (That's an accuracy of 8 hundredths of one percent.)

This is what happens when I sleep type.

:rofl:

Yeah, and in this case the sample (the Shroud of Turin) is a fake.

and for decades after think they know what they're talking about because, after all, they read one story and things NEVER change. Lol, the C14 test was from a reweaving. This has been proven by analysis of the test strips. You can parade your ignorance elsewhere now.

Many antireligionists employ the same emotions in defense of their beliefs as the religious.

Meanwhile, religion by definition involves realms that are irrational.

A thing may be irrational but not necessarily foolish. Some other irrational (but not foolish) realms are love, music, poetry, and dreaming. On a personal note, I might add that seeing ghosts is irrational, too, although they have appeared to me on several occasions. Reason has not been helpful in deciphering the meaning of those experiences.

I am not, by the way, religious.

...reason is not all there is, as anyone who has read Swift's "Voyage to Laputa" with half a brain open can attest.

...is of course entirely coincidental.

The fibers were carefully washed to remove any soot.

The fibers of the Shroud themselves were tested, and they're not 2,000 years old.

As if that shouldn't be obvious.

another test was performed on another portion of the Shroud?

(Not challenging. Just trying to understand.)

but the idea that a virgin gave birth to a man who rose from the dead and melted his image into a sheet, well hey, that's perfectly plausible.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Even worse, people have concocted so many bloody rules in his name, that humanity has suffered from :

the dark ages
spanish inquisition
14 crusades
religious bigotry for 20 centuries
the religious reich here in Amerikkka

tell me one good thing that christianity has done for humanity. Just one.

Thanks for letting 3/4 of Europe die, you backward ignorant fucks.

:rofl:

With a negative image at a time way before photography was invented....could the fakers have had a vision of the future?

I don't think they foresaw photography...

Because he would have to apply the paint in the opposite manner that one would usually have to to get the negative effect.
The other way would be to put the paint on the model and press the cloth to it....that too seems to raise questions of why, because they would still be creating a negative.

After all, the whole idea is that the image got somehow transferred from his face to the cloth and that is how you suggest they did it. At least, that's what I would do if I wanted to simulate that idea...

But it still begs the question of why they did that in the 14th century....the idea of a negative image was unknown to them.
Can you think of any other artistic image from that time that was done in the negative?

I just think they wanted to show the face as if it had been transferred from Christ's face to the cloth and the only way you can really do that and have it look "for real" is to put the paint on the model's face and press the cloth down on top...at least that's the way I think they were thinking...

When the dark places are light and the light places are dark it is the exact opposite of any image that they have ever seen. so if they created it they knew right away that it was different than anything else that went before.
But the truth is that none of us really know. And science or religion cannot give us an objective evaluation because of the idealogical war between them....It is a shame that science has been dragged into this war.

He was touting the theory that it was "real" cuz somebody at that time had published a paper that claimed it could've been a miracle...I don't recall the claim exactly...I thought it was strange that Will would be so emphatic about it. I really don't care...

a miracle in my life time.
I can remember when I was about 14 me and my friend that lived next door had an argument about whether man would ever go to the moon....he maintained that it was imposable and I said that it was and would be done in 20 years....we bet 20 bucks on it.
Well that was right after Sputnik and I was all fired up with imagination and he was not so I was right but it came even sooner than I had predicted it was actually done in 10 years.

All I am saying is that I can imagine how the shroud could be real because of things we do not yet understand, and we blow off these things as ether miracles or a hoax....the truth just might be that they are neither.

You want your abbey to be famous? Put on display the skull
of John the Baptist. Provenence? We ain't got no steenkin
provenence! We don' need no steenkin' provenence!

Tesha

Edited to change post # from 13 to 44.

who are trying to defend this religious fraud. The "negative image"
canard is just their latest straw at which to grasp.

Tesha

style of painting is very European. Compare the style to other 14th of 15th works.

A burial shroud is a garment the body wears. The body is then swaddled. It's bad form to have arms and legs hanging all over the place.

"Money" and "power" come immediately to mind.

But not why they would do so in the unheard of negative image....seems like to me that they would want it to look normal not something completely wrong for the time.

they thought was required to show the face of Christ on the Shroud. It just so happened that it looked exactly like a negative image. They had no idea of what a negative image even was...!

painted the shroud confessed to doing it.

to do a gut check to see if you really do believe, or just going along because it is expected of you.

As well as so many more that has been going on for thousands of years....politics has been in Christianity sense the beginning and has only gotten more intense.

a spiritual document. Do we know if some of what they say is code? Look at the days of slavery in the US. The music and language was peppered with code. Harriet Tubman was known as "Moses."

Read the translation of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"
Scroll down
http://www.manhattanbeachmusic.com/html/swing_low.html

Go Down Moses
http://www.answers.com/topic/go-down-moses-poem-1

When Israel was in Egypt's Land,
Let my people go,
Opressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.
Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said,
Let my people go,
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
No more shall they in bondage toil,
Let my people go,
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
The Lord told Moses what to do,
Let my people go,
To lead the Hebrew children through,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
O come along Moses, you'll not get lost,
Let my people go,
Stretch out your rod and come across,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
As Israel stood by the waterside,
Let my people go,
At God's command it did divide,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
When they reached the other shore,
Let my people go,
They sang a song of triumph o'er,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
Pharaoh said he'd go across,
Let my people go,
But Pharaoh and his host were lost,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
Jordan shall stand up like a wall,
Let my people go,
And the walls of Jericho shall fall,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let my people go,
And you'll possess fair Canaan's land,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
O let us all from bondage flee,
Let my people go,
And let us all in Christ be free,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.
We need not always weep and mourn,
Let my people go,
And wear these slavery chains forlorn,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.


When I lived in Eritrea they were still under Ethiopian rule. Their popular music used code words and phrases. One love song was about a woman (Eritrea) that was being treated bad by her lover (Ethiopia). She says that she is leaving him and going back to Asmara. Asmara is the capital of Eritrea. After a two decade struggle, Eritrea went back to Asmara, they gained independence.

I am aware of the code in the civil rights struggle in this country, and I suppose that other places used it too.

But are you aware the the old testament, the Torah, is said to be coded and many Jews scholars have maintained it for centurys....with the advent of the computer they have a program called the Bible Codes that is really interesting.
But I don't know of any code in the NT, it is mostly the 4 witnesses which is more of a legal account of the life of Jesus and a collection of letters by Paul and others about the administration of the church....but I am open to hearing it.

the crucifixion. We still have people declared dead only to have them wake up. He could have been taken to Syria to hide from the Romans. Remember they claim he appeared on Damascus road before ascending into heaven. I believe that is where his mother died.

Ever wonder why some cultures insist on families visiting the graves of the deceased on the third day? I believe it is custom among Muslims to visit the graves of the deceased.

Syria could have been "heaven" for those in exile from Israel.

First no one survived a Roman Crucifixion.
The Roman guards that carried it out were very through because if they failed they would suffer the same fate as the executed man....that was their policy.
And to speed up the process they often broke the legs of the victum...death was most of the time from congestive heart failure...and that explains why the guard pierced his side with a spear, and why blood and water came out....The guards were sure he was dead.

But theories like these are around because of only one thing, some people cannot believe someone can come back to life, or that there is no life after death.
But that was the whole point of the demonstration, to prove to his followers that there was life after death. And had he failed in that Christianity and his teachings would have ended in the first century and we would not have known him at all. That much is clear from the disarray they were in after his death and only after he appeared to them in the flesh did they believe completely, and some like Tomas had to actually touch him to believe it.

And many people today feel much the same....life after death is imposable and so is a body coming back to life after death. And that is understandable sense we are totally immersed in the physical world and cannot understand anything else.
But tell that same story to Eastern mystics and they will understand it because they see the world much differently than we do....To them the physical world is what they call the Grand Illusion, and reality is much more than just the physical world and matter.

And there is another story about Jesus that is never told. And that is the story of his life from age 13 to 33. And it is claimed by eastern mystics that he traveled to India and Tibet to study with the masters there....they called him Saint Issis and they have records of his stay with them in Tibet.

But don't think I am trying to convince you of anything, no one can do that, I am only giving you an alternate scenario for you to ponder or reject, as your path dictates you to do.

short circuited the process? We have to assume that what is written about the execution was correct. Was the account accurate, or was it myth to serve the purposes of an insurgent group?

If the guards fell asleep and allowed his body to be removed, or in case of survival, crawl away, what would happen to the Centurions? Wouldn't they be making up excuses to save their lives? Hey, I wasn't asleep, some angel struck me down! Wouldn't the partisans use their defense to play into their cover story about him ascending into heaven?

The Washington and the cherry tree is a myth accepted as fact, why not a story about a political leader in the struggle between the Jews and Romans?

The guards would have been crucified with no trial or a chance to give an excuse....that is how they maintained discipline.
Myths rarely produce a large number of dedicated followers.
But this story was not a struggle between the Romans and the Jews...and in fact Jesus did not get involved with it when he told the Pharisees that they should render to Caesar the things that are Ceasars....they were trying to trap him and get the Romans to arrest him.
The Jewish revolt that destroyed the Temple came much later.

knew the penalty for sleeping on duty was death. It was a political struggle not just between reformist and orthodox, but between natives and occupiers. The Pharisees were the Quislings.

The Romans had no part in it, other than being the authority that the Jews turned to for enforcement.
Never does Jesus say anything about the Roman occupyers....his main beef was with the Pharisees and the Sadducee's, and he called them every name in the book. And it was they that arrested him.

god. All gods were good in their book. Maybe they were hedging their bets.That didn't set well with those who saw their god the only god, not one of many.

Collaborators are not held in high esteem. I'd be calling them names too.

There religion had become institutionalized just as the Jewish and the present day Christians.
The real conflict as it pertained to Jesus was between him and the Pharisees. the Romans could have cared less as long as there was no revolt, and Jesus was no threat to them....that was shown when Pilot washed his hands of the mater and said "I find no fault in this man"

Absolutely wonderful nature photos...well worth the click.
If you took them congratulations.

Here's one:


Get out your 3D glasses

Christianity went through a huge phase of keeping RELICS of dead saints, bits of the cross and all manner of materialisms.

---------------
"In Christianity, relics are the material remains of a deceased saint or martyr and objects closely associated with those remains. Relics can be entire skeletons, but more usually they consist of a part such as a bone, hair or tooth. Pieces of clothing worn by the deceased saint or even an object that has come in contact with a relic is also considered a relic.

Relics have played an important role in Christian ritual since the earliest centuries of the church and were a major part of popular religion in the Middle Ages."
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/things/relics.htm
--------------

You'd think adherents to that religion would know that tbh.

Few things were given the value of a relic. They were thought to have great power. The big church you just built to show off your wealth and power could not be complete without a relic. The more impressive the relic, the bigger your dick, er fortune was.

Julie

But you can rationalize anything and blow it all off on some fact of human weakness.
And so the truth gets lost in all of this ideological struggles.

out how to duplicate something allegedly done circa 1300. It would be very interesting to know those folk from 1300, wouldn't it?

Of course, there are those that deny carbon dating as they do the fact the Earth is older than 10,000 years.

carbon dating was done on a part of the shroud that had been re-woven. That was discovered after the fact.

When he tested the "blood" he found Vermillion: red paint. He was fired from the team.

And religion is real. I think you are confused.

To those of us who do not, religious practices are a panoply of outward expressions of various neuroses.

The neuroses, however, are real. :evilgrin:

"Religious practices are a panoply of outward expressions of various neuroses...."

Much like politics, philosophy, economics, the arts, literature, and an entire host of wholly imaginary, man-made constructs which exist no where but our imaginations and hearts, yet still have a definitive and absolute impact on each of our individual lives.

The person I responded to called it a hoax. There are a thousand houses of worship within miles of me that are physical structures who's members practice religion.

I think they meant that God is a hoax.

Designed to frighten and control the masses, nothing more. No one NEEDS religion to beleive in or talk to god.

too many things that people could not understand, so "religion" filled the spaces in. All it took was one charlatan to make a profit off of the fear, and bingo, you have christianity in a nut and shell. today, that has translated into Rev. Dollar, Rev. Crist, Rev. Robertson, and other creepy, greedy, scheming bastards. They represent the best that christianity has to offer.

Thievery greed bias death hatred destruction

Science is a much better way to "fill in the blanks" instead of making up an imaginary guy to blame it all on. Its a hoax that served a purpose at one point but as soon as humans started using science (Galileo?) religion opposed it as it took away the control.

NT!

The shroud of Turin has NOTHING to do with Jesus' teachings. It is a tiny bit of curiosae for people drawn to such things to ponder.

It is completely (dare I say it?) immaterial.

by walking around it.

I love the "religion sucks" general screed. It's so...so...profound. Yeah, that's it. Profound.

But I guess you seem determoned to have me argue with you about something I think is ALL a sham, a fake, joke.....

You were having a different conversation.

Sorry.

I guess my point is that the shroud of turin has nothing to do with religion, per se. You had suggested that it provided evidence that religion is a hoax.

So by your "reasoning" (such as it is), Buddhism, Sufism, ALL are disproved by a little piece of cloth that is inconsequential.

Bold strokes, me lad. Bold strokes.

to test your faith. You failed. We will miss you in heaven, but we'll be so busy eating all the ice cream and pie God will serve us that we won't be all that broke up about it.

O8)

:popcorn:

The stuff the theaters give out is so dry...

http://www.wingyipstore.co.uk/pictures/content1450/creamed+corn.jpg


:rofl:

do you grab a straw from the concession stand?

lol

:banghead:

J

the shroud to be proof of anything.

http://www.nhne.com/articles/sashroud.html

Over the centuries, dozens of shrouds--some with images and some without--have surfaced claiming to be the burial cloth of Jesus. In the case of the Shroud of Turin, it has been publicly declared a forgery by both Roman Catholic Church officials and prominent scientists. In 1389 the local bishop of Troyes denounced the Shroud claiming an artist had confessed to forging it. More recently, in 1988, after three different laboratories Carbon-14 dated the Shroud and found it to be some 1200 years younger than it should have been, the Roman Catholic Church announced to the world the results of the test. As word spread that the Shroud of Turin was, after all, a medieval forgery, a firestorm was created in the Shroud community. While scores of Shroud scientists hotly challenged the entire Carbon-14 testing procedure, as well as the test results, lay people around the world had to wrestle with what appeared to be solid scientific proof that the Shroud was a fake.

NT!

that poster has been doing the holier than thou replies all day.

facts don't matter, just blind faith to the imaginary thing in the sky is all that matters to that poster.

They need to hold near and dear various material objects to support their faith in something that doesn't exist. funny, isn't it?

NT!

I'm just saying that, don't make yourself crazy in regards to the person you replied to. They have been on the holier than thou jag throughout the whole thread.

always made clear that it takes no position on that subject.

I am not Catholic, but even I know that much.

Sheesh!

:rofl:

These things were probably sold by the dozen back in the middle ages.

"get your shroud here!! get your shroud here! completely authentic! it has the official mark of the holy roman emperor on the corner! completely sanctioned by the pope of this week! Get your shroud here! We have a special on the the original crown of thorns! 3 for a dollar!!!"

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#The_Shroud_in_the_Catholic_Church

Torinese loves them their Shroud. Tourism, ya know.

When I was there, I couldn't be bothered with the site...the Shroud wasn't on display anyhow...more interested in the coffee shops and the chocolate, mmm...

But "Luigi!" as a cussword isn't all that bad.

creating a reproduction "prove definitively" that something is a fake?

I don't defend the shroud's authenticity either, but this "logic" is utterly illogical. It seems to rely on the "skeptic's postulate": If the Amazing Randi can fake the appearance of a phenomenon without actually using the alleged phenomenon, then that proves the phenomenon doesn't exist in the universe.

By using the methods, means and materials that were available back in that era, it shows that there were scams going on in every era.

Back then, any item deemed to be a "relic" was worth more than gold, because these various "relics" were often carried into battle to protect the "holy legions" from harm or attack from infidels.

You have to take everything into context. The shroud was more than likely created during the early middle ages as a holy relic for the crusaders to carry into battle.

There are a million stories regarding pieces of the original cross that supposedly still existed that were used as "protection" by the crusaders. Segments from the ten commandment tablets were everywhere, one grail after another was tauted as the original, crowns of thorns, spear tips, the list goes on and on.

There can only be one original of anything and like most original things from that era, unless someone had the forethought to actually take care of these things, they were lost to history. That would also mean that they also had the foresight that their religion would grow into something major. Various religions, denominations, profits, etc, were all over the place in the middle east, during Christ's time.

It's been documented that there were many many fakes of various items through out history. Monks from that time, wrote in manuscripts over their indignation regarding various vender's that would sell "holy items" to the masses. The holy roman church, in many situations looked the other way. The vendors, like it or not, help promote the belief. It was only when they stepped out of line and started making real money that the church clamped down on them.

There will always be hold outs that will believe anything. They need that material item so then can use it for proof of their belief. Ironic, isn't it?

Real faith requires nothing to prove it. How very Buddhist of me. LOL

Again, how does duplicating the appearance of an object prove the object is a fake?

The Mona Lisa is very valuable, too. If I were to find a way to reproduce its appearance exactly, does that mean the one hanging in Louvre was not painted by Da Vinci when we think it was painted by Da Vinci? Or does it mean only that I succeeded in reproducing its appearance exactly?

:eyes:

In Reply 24, Brendan posted:

"I'm not defending the authenticity of the Shroud, but how dows ...
creating a reproduction "prove definitively" that something is a fake?"

The first line of your "reply" to this post of Brendan's was

"By using the methods, means and materials that were available back in that era, it shows that there were scams going on in every era."

Everyone knows scams were going on in every era. Producing something that looks like the Shroud did not, however, show that scams go on in every era. It showed only that a man living today can duplicate the appearance of the Shroud. And that still has nothing to do with Brendan's question. Nothing in your "reply" to Brendan's post, including the first line, answered Brendan's question.

are you so naive to believe that people don't make fraudulent copies of something purely for profit?

Jesus, just google any name of any major piece of artwork with something like fraudulent copy. You will get tons of hits.

All you did with that asinine addition to your post is support my argument. Thank you. :)

And it's glaringly apparent that you know nothing in regards to the people who specialize in detecting fraudulent paintings.

man, your lack of knowledge, period, about anything, especially history and or art, is exasperating to the point of comical.

If I had realized how difficult that was for you, I never would have put you on the spot.

focusing is not my issue, the issue is, you refuse to read my post.

And as such, you appear to try and reverse engineer your stance.

Since none of this really matters in the least.

Let's just agree to disagree. I just don't have the will nor the energy to continue.

The Catholic Church found the Shroud of Turin to be a fake years ago. Look it up. I hope that anti-religion is the focus of DU.....and it is not, from what I see. Let's focus on keeping our political momentum going. This doesn't help.

Our focus? We have many!

Getting DU'ers to agree on something is like herding cats...nearly impossible.

There's a lot of give and take here, on religion as on many other topics.

:hi:

But I don't want to start defending the shroud as real or not.
But I do object to absolutes where we divide this country further by religious and not. and so I agree.
Welcome.

a religious faith of any kind. Or vice versa. I don't know why people are ugly to each other based on a belief and nothing more.

Since our Roman Catholic brethren in the Legislative and Judicial branches of government were just given their marching orders at the Red Mass held Sunday in DC, perhaps I am indeed a little overly oversensitive to such topics at the moment.

I wonder if Steve King (R-IA05) will try to buy the new reproduction and hang it in the Iowa State Capital building.

Edit: And welcome to DU!

only one I have seen mention separation of church and state. The rest has been along the lines of "religion sucks," or "the shroud is a fraud," both of which are entirely different issues from the issue of separation of church and state.

I am willing to respect everyone's beliefs, be they atheistic, Buddist, Daoist, Muslim, Christian, Wiccan or whatever, as long as they respect mine and none of us tries to legislate a spiritual belief (or non-belief) into law. So, you might say, I am very much for separation of Church and State. Yet, I am also for respecting folks and their spiritual beliefs.

I think most Democrats who are religious feel that way. Yet, there is a lot of hurtful stuff hurled around on this board about spiritual faith and thoe who hold it dear.

The "Red Mass" bothers me a great deal.

I would like to think that having six Roman Catholic justices on the Supreme Court of the United States is not going to work against the good of the American populace. I really want to believe that.

(Since RCs account for about 25% of the U.S. population, there should be 2.25 RC Justices on SCotUS. And while we're working toward an ideal composition for the court, we need 2.5 or 3 more women, while we're at it . . . )

I want people to accept my agnosticism without asking a bunch of questions, and therefore I try really hard to accept other people's spiritual principles without question.

But the tendency of the RC church to be so politically active* concerns me deeply. I really think we should just start taxing all their properties. That might discourage their political activism somewhat.

*i.e. threatening to excommunicate anybody who voted for a Democratic candidate who was pro-choice

As indicated, I totally understand your concerns about separation of Church and State. The tone of some of the rhetoric here (not your tone) is disturbing, though. I know of posters who left DU bc they were tired of being trashed for having a faith. I see no need for that.

As far as the Roman Catholic Church's being so politically active, I don't think it is more active than the evangelicals, especially the mega-church evangelicals.

I understand your point about Catholics seeming to be overrepresented on the SCOTUS. That makes me a bit uncomfortable, but, truth is, any appointee of the Bushes would have had to be opposed to abortion. I am more uncomfortable that PNACers and corporatists are overrepresented on the Court, regardless of religion.

I don't think there should be 2.5 Catholics on the SCOTUS. A body of 9 people cannot reflect the population of the US. And we cannot have a religious test for the SCOTUS. But 6 is no coincidence. Although I do think it was incidental as to Sotomayor. I do think Obama wanted to appoint someone of Spanish speaking heritage, and people with that heritage tend to be Catholic, at least nominally.

I also understand your qualms about the Mass. However, I would say that what they do on the bench is a lot more distressing to me than a one a year mass. Dummya did not attend church except for photo ops, yet his "personal" religious beliefs halted stem cell research for 8 years. The halt bothered me. The fact that he did or did not attend church is irrelevant to me.

I agree 100% on taxation. I don't think tax breaks are consistent with neutrality and, IMO. government should be totally neutral as to religion.

But my "tolerance," such as it is, stops exactly where the believers start trying to legislate the lives of others according to their "beliefs" - or othewise imposing on others rights or abusing animals or children.

But discussions like this do, I admit, hold a perverse fascination for me - thus, I've read most of it. The ability of the human mind to convince itself of anything at all is worthy of study and worth remembering, I think, in the political as well as other realms. Sort of like believing in the face of all the evidence that Obama is some sort of Zen master, playing three-dimensional chess and practicing the Art of War.

I agree with you that the ability to replicate something does not, in and of itself, prove the original a fake. But the burden of proof for the SoT lies with those who claim it is the shroud of "Jesus" - whoever he was and if he even was at all.

That "proof" is probably always impossible - even were the shroud to prove indisputably that it had miraculously survived from the right time, how could anyone prove it was "Jesus" who'd been wrapped in it? I would imagine that rotting flesh might leave a stain on fabric, especially a porous natural fabric, and the bonier parts of the face, for instance, would have the darkest stain. Maybe when shrouding and natural decomposition is common, such a shroud is easy enough to obtain? I don't really care, myself, since as I say, I respect no religion. Even if against all the odds it were somehow proven that the shroud WAS Jesus', that would not prove him the "Son of God."

Actually, it was another poster who first made that point. Poster's name was Brendan (plus some numbers after the name). If the claims of the scientist are accurate, he's proved that he could duplicate the appearance of the shroud. But, that's all he proved.

I am not Catholic and I have no opinion about the shroud. I am not sure about your reference to rotting flesh. To those who beliee the Bible, Jesus was in the shroud three days at most. (That in itself is complicated because he was supposedly crucified on a Friday afternoon and had been physically resurrected no later than early Sunday morning, but that is another issue.) Anyway, in that universe, he was in the shroud only about 40 hours, so no rotting flesh would have been involved.

I know the Catholic Church takes no position on the shroud, one way or the other, saying what people believe about it is up to them. One of the Popes said it was up to science, not the Church, to decide what the shroud was. However, it has been so venerated for so long that it does kind of take on a spiritual life of its own, no matter what it is. (That's my observation, not that of the Church.)

The Church definitely does not say that the shroud proves Jesus was the son of God. To the contrary, it says that the shroud does not affect the fundamentals of the religion, one way or the other.

I once saw a film about the shroud called The Silent Witness. It purported to be a forensic study of the shroud. Whether it was truly scientific or not, I have no idea, but I found it interesting.

As far as religion, I believe that is up to each individual. I think it is silly and dumb to bash someone for believing in God or for not believing in God. If someone behaves badly, by all means, bash them for the behavior. But for what the believe? Dumb.

Here, at DU, believers don't use religion or the Bible as a club to harm other DUers (At least not that I have seen, but I tend to stay in the LBN forum.) So, the point of the ugly rhetoric about believers being idiots and worse totally escapes me. IMO, atheistic bigotry is no prettier nor more defensible than neo theo bigotry.

something that you claim.

If you are referring to the carbon dating, though, maybe you should look up what they found out later about the part of the shroud that was carbon dated. Or at least read the thread.

Three posts and you are telling people here what to focus on? LOL again.

Well, that should help the tourist industry. ;-)

Just a joke folks.

Certificate of Live Birth.

THAT PROVES THAT IT'S A FAKE!!! HE WASN'T BORN HERE!!!
HE'S FROM AFRICA!!!! I KNEW IT!!!

We don't even have the technology to effectively stop a wild fire.

http://www.archaeology.org/0705/etc/pyramid.html

Basically there is an internal ramp that was used to bring up blocks to the upper layers.

folks were attempting that with ropes and pulleys and, as one my contractors once put it, "a lot of beef." I think the outcome was success, but I don't recall seeing the end of the show, so I can't swear to it.

If I am correct about successful replication, would that mean that the pyramids are fake? :popcorn:

Not yet replicated, though: The frescos in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt and the whited walls on which the frescoes were painted.

After all these years and tourists and folks lighting matches to see them better inside the tombs, they look as they someone painted them last week.

I understand he now has grant money to research Hawaiian birth certificates!

that the original is *insert assertion here*.

in the end, it's a decision, a personal one...

Or a big water stain on a wall that looks like Mary.

Pull those off, and I might just believe you.

It's been known to be a hoax for quite a long time.

Wicca
Sage burning
Astrology...

and so forth

It's the shroud that covered Benny the Meatball as he transformed into the Flying Spaghetti Monster! I heard they proved those tomato sauce stains are 2000+ years old! :rofl:

Will anybody listen to the findings though? :shrug:

I look forward to the details of his research, but if he has - in fact - recreated the characteristics of the Shroud, why must he assume the original is a fake?

Wouldn't it be as logical to assume that if his heat process works as stated, that Jesus used that heat process to create the original? In other words, the scientist has determined a possible method, but IMHO hasn't proven forgery.

In spite of myths, legends etc. scientists have known for a 100 years what a rainbow is comprised of & can recreate it at will. Probably even from horizon to horizon, if they cared to. How does that invalidate the authenticity or beauty of the original?

Recreating something doesn't automatically mean the original is fake, but rather that science has grown in knowledge.

:think:

I thought that he had hair like lambs wool, that would be very curly. it might just be a stain on a piece of cloth. i am pretty cynical I think about the shroud.

has always been that the people of that time didn't have the sophistication to create mirror images, or not ones so real-looing, on fabric or whatever. This scientist has proven that the methods were indeed well within the grasp of people at that time and the argument about mirror images being understood has been addressed in this thread.

Now, whether or not the people could have made such a shroud at the time in no way proves that they did but the Church is well known for such "hoaxes" i.e. false relics which among other things, brought tourists and income to the church and town that displayed them. Jokes have been made about the fact that every church in Europe possesses a piece of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Once upon a time, people were apt to believe in all sorts of nonsense and that hasn't changed much today.

I believe those who claim the shroud is real have the burden of proof, because there has now been amassed a certain amount of evidence that strongly suggests it isn't. Alas, the Church teaches that proof is in the belief and so nonbelievers can never win this argument.

I've said it a thousand times, that the use and misuse of the concept of "faith" has been of great benefit to the Christian religion (and others) even as it has had the potential to deceive, injure, and destroy.

church has taken no official position as to its authenticity and says officially on that believing the cloth was the shroud of Christ (or not) is a personal choice.

You can't "win" that argument, either, because the Church isn't arguing, except maybe in the delusions of some posters on this thread.

about what is and is not real? Cool! Maybe I should go back to Catholicism.

Some posters here also say that the Church has in fact taken an official position on the authenticity of the shroud. Guess it depends, huh?

there is nothing sacred about it or super natural.

of how it was created. But again, there is nothing super natural about it.

Answer that one, smarty pants.

I don't get the whole "the shroud is fake" thing. It's a real object in a real box in Turin. Do people actually go to the Vatican, look at the ceiling and say, "I'll bet heaven doesn't really look like that."

This is a remarkable artifact that is several hundred years old at least. Do you know what it would go for on eBay? I'd love to be the seller of this "fake" thing.