DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You squander our patience.
Nothing is a better indication that this is a deliberate waste of our time than that dishonest video.
Fool me once, shame on you...
Handing Out Evidence for God
- Thread starter SetiAlpha6
- Start date
Nothing is a better indication that this is a deliberate waste of our time than that dishonest video.
This is the guy who runs the Shroud of Turin website. On the "books" page he pushes several books you can purchase. People believing in the Shroud help him sell books for people. And what else does he get out of it? From his own biography:
"He has appeared in programs and documentaries on every major broadcast and cable television network, including the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, the National Geographic Channel, CNN, PBS, the BBC, Fox News, Channel 1 Russia, the Coast to Coast AM radio show, Catholic Answers radio and Vatican Radio. His photographs have appeared in hundreds of books and publications including Life Magazine, National Geographic, Time Magazine and Newsweek and in countless television documentaries. He has written many Shroud articles and papers that have been published in periodicals or presented at conferences around the world, the most recent in the March 2010 issue of Catholic Digest."
A religious motive AND a profit motive. Life Magazine, for example, paid fairly well.
It cannot prove that God is real, it only provides evidence that God is real. Whether or not a given person accepts the evidence is their choice.
Have you ever actually studied all of the evidence that the Shroud provides, or are you just rejecting it because you do not want it to be true?
The entertainment value is wearing pretty thin.
https://www.thoughtco.com/pictures-mermaid-body-found-on-beach-3299661
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...most-notorious-hoaxes/?utm_term=.ac539277b4b9
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...lescopes-to-look-at-the-landers/#.XIx3y7h7l6M
and then there's this
https://wsau.com/blogs/ben-armstrong-blog/20344/the-myth-of-dinosaurs-the-reality-of-dragons/
https://www.thoughtco.com/pictures-mermaid-body-found-on-beach-3299661
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...most-notorious-hoaxes/?utm_term=.ac539277b4b9
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...lescopes-to-look-at-the-landers/#.XIx3y7h7l6M
and then there's this
https://wsau.com/blogs/ben-armstrong-blog/20344/the-myth-of-dinosaurs-the-reality-of-dragons/
Ok, shame on me then.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
How so? Does God wear clothes? Perhaps Jesus did, but then he is not God.
Else he would not have to accuse "father" of "forsaking" him, right?
If Jesus was God, he could have stopped this at any time, no? Instead he asked for help.
If Jesus could perform miracles, why not stop the proceedings with some great miraculous sign. He could have converted all who witnessed the event and walked away and perhaps even forgive Judas on the way out. That would have been worthy of an Oscar.
Instead, Jesus died like a criminal and the criminal Barabbas was set free in by choice.
Quite a morality message......
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Thanks for the list. I took a quick sample.
Raymond Rogers - "The essential conclusion of the article is that the radiocarbon datings were accurate, but because the samples were from cloth that was not part of the original Shroud, they are irrelevant regarding the age of the image area."
Donald Lynn - "Quantitative Color Analysis What color is the body image on the Shroud? What color are the bloodstains? What color is the aged Digital Analysis 24 cloth? What colors are the scorch marks? These questions cannot be answered quantitatively by visual examination of the photographs. The terms "sepia" or "rust" or "old ivory" are not quantitative specifications of color. The perception of color is very subjective; it is more a matter of brain interpretation than response of the eye. In fact, the perceived color of a scene can be changed merely by changing the level of illumination or the color of the background against which the scene is observed."
John Heller - couldn't find the source material. From the closest thing I could find - "The blood on the Shroud has been proven to be real human blood by Adler and Heller from STURP and this conclusion was independently confirmed by Baima Bollone in Italy almost at the same time (beginning of the 80s)." . . . "Adler and Heller (hereafter referred to as A&H, fell well short of proving anything, at least conclusively. They produced a pastiche of findings that simply showed there may have been some real blood present, in varying states of chemical degradation, without excluding the presence of a permanently-red pigment that was NOT blood. Real blood is not permanently red, or even purplish red, or red-brown."
So 0 for 3 on real proof.
I am sure he is a great guy. But he's also a believer.
You promoted these guys as unbiased experts. Looks like they have more bias than you'd like to admit.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
And that right after your attempted character assasination of serious impartial mainstream scientists? tsk, tsk.
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More tests that could be done with the Shroud, but it is very hard for scientists to get permission to do tests. This is especially the case for tests that are destructive, for obvious reasons.
The evidence in favour of the Shroud's authenticity as a first-century artifact is controversial and flimsy. The evidence that it is a medieval fake seems to stronger, as far as I can tell, although I take on board the complaint that radiocarbon testing might have been done with a section of the Shroud that was repaired in medieval times. That particular issue could, in principle, be put to bed by allowing testing of a different section of the Shroud.
Claims that the image on the Shroud is an impossible 3D image that could only be formed by powerful light, or similar process (the implication being that the image was formed when God resurrected Jesus, I think) strike me as dubious, since the same effect could be achieved by a competent artist painting on the cloth.
The recent claims that the Shroud must be fake, based on assumptions about the way blood (if it is blood) ran down the cloth, also strike me as questionable and based on a lot of assumptions.
I don't know if it has been clearly established that there is blood on the Shroud, but even if there is there is no way to know whose blood it is.
Given the highly developed industry of faking religious relics that existed in the early centuries of the second millennium, I would not be at all surprised if the Shroud is confirmed at some time in future as a medieval fake. It would join all the supposed pieces of the True Cross, the soldier's spear, the fingers and other body parts of the Saints, and so on, that were used to make money and to gain prestige and attract pilgrims to various churches.
To hold up the Shroud as evidence of the existence of Jesus, let alone God, based on what is known, seems to me to be an unjustifiable stretch, given the totality of the available evidence.
The evidence in favour of the Shroud's authenticity as a first-century artifact is controversial and flimsy. The evidence that it is a medieval fake seems to stronger, as far as I can tell, although I take on board the complaint that radiocarbon testing might have been done with a section of the Shroud that was repaired in medieval times. That particular issue could, in principle, be put to bed by allowing testing of a different section of the Shroud.
Claims that the image on the Shroud is an impossible 3D image that could only be formed by powerful light, or similar process (the implication being that the image was formed when God resurrected Jesus, I think) strike me as dubious, since the same effect could be achieved by a competent artist painting on the cloth.
The recent claims that the Shroud must be fake, based on assumptions about the way blood (if it is blood) ran down the cloth, also strike me as questionable and based on a lot of assumptions.
I don't know if it has been clearly established that there is blood on the Shroud, but even if there is there is no way to know whose blood it is.
Given the highly developed industry of faking religious relics that existed in the early centuries of the second millennium, I would not be at all surprised if the Shroud is confirmed at some time in future as a medieval fake. It would join all the supposed pieces of the True Cross, the soldier's spear, the fingers and other body parts of the Saints, and so on, that were used to make money and to gain prestige and attract pilgrims to various churches.
To hold up the Shroud as evidence of the existence of Jesus, let alone God, based on what is known, seems to me to be an unjustifiable stretch, given the totality of the available evidence.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Seems to me that if new and reliable evidence was being found, we would have heard about it a long time ago.
Think of the strides in genetics science has made since the first testing of that shroud. If we can establish the age of fossils from millions of years ago, it would seem relatively simple to establish the age of an artifact a couple of thousand years old.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I find it interesting that theists speak of ID and use the flagella a evidence of "divine" construction.
Do theists have any idea of the complicated physics involved in the compound patterns in biology? Divine construction?
The human pattern consists of trillions of individual cells with encoded specific functions and the ability to communicate via electro/ chemical languages . This is being studied by the new science of "quorum sensing". This is what allows bacteria to communicate and form an important part of the human organism.
And theism teaches that with a wave of his hand God created a fully formed human organism made from bacteria which appeared billions of years before? All in six days?
Contra-evidence musing: I submit that human beings are far too complicated for an instantly "creative act" by any causal means. There is no God powerful enough to accomplish such a feat. Not even in Scripture does such a God exist.
God could never have constructed a human being. We are much too complicated and have too many atoms to be able to be formed instantly by any causal agent. It just doesn't work that way.
ONLY chemical evolution over time-spans of billions of years in a chemical rich environment could create the complexity of the parts which make up the human body and brain.
Moreover, the complexity of the human organism does not only rule out the existence of a spiritual creative force, but also affirms the gradual long-term pattern forming into ever greater complexity, until modern man evolved relatively recently, some 14 billion years after the beginning of chemical bonding and pattern forming.
Do theists have any idea of the complicated physics involved in the compound patterns in biology? Divine construction?
The human pattern consists of trillions of individual cells with encoded specific functions and the ability to communicate via electro/ chemical languages . This is being studied by the new science of "quorum sensing". This is what allows bacteria to communicate and form an important part of the human organism.
And theism teaches that with a wave of his hand God created a fully formed human organism made from bacteria which appeared billions of years before? All in six days?
Contra-evidence musing: I submit that human beings are far too complicated for an instantly "creative act" by any causal means. There is no God powerful enough to accomplish such a feat. Not even in Scripture does such a God exist.
God could never have constructed a human being. We are much too complicated and have too many atoms to be able to be formed instantly by any causal agent. It just doesn't work that way.
ONLY chemical evolution over time-spans of billions of years in a chemical rich environment could create the complexity of the parts which make up the human body and brain.
Moreover, the complexity of the human organism does not only rule out the existence of a spiritual creative force, but also affirms the gradual long-term pattern forming into ever greater complexity, until modern man evolved relatively recently, some 14 billion years after the beginning of chemical bonding and pattern forming.
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Back to the original tread topic for a moment.
Side Note...
Evidence that there were Jews who worshiped Jesus following His death and resurrection.
This one is more, just for fun.
So God cannot do this?
But blind Chemistry plus Entropy can?
Are you absolutely sure about this?
How does Entropy pull this off over a single day, or just 1 year, let alone over billions of years?
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Joel Richardson’s own (Biased but Correct View).
Rocks! Caves! Stone walls! Some more rocks!
Dead guys, from 2000BC to 2000AD wrapped in cloth! And entombed in caves!
Evidence of Jews in Judea?
Astounding!
Evidence that there were religious sects in Judea?
Shocking!
Well, if that doesn't prove there's a god - just the one, mind you! - nothing will.
Dead guys, from 2000BC to 2000AD wrapped in cloth! And entombed in caves!
Evidence of Jews in Judea?
Astounding!
Evidence that there were religious sects in Judea?
Shocking!
Well, if that doesn't prove there's a god - just the one, mind you! - nothing will.
So you're buying Ron Wyatt's Nuweiba Beach route?