Atheist-Funded Researcher: Shroud of Turin Is a Fraud (follow the money trail)

ncr ^ | October 6, 2009 | Tom McFeely

[Salman]

Follow the real money trail.

The Roman Catholic Church makes how much money by promoting this outrageous fraud and others like it? So they slander decent atheists.

[RobbyS]

These guys are paid debunkers: they calumniate what is true with as much zeal as they debunk the fraudulent .

[Salman]

Only a superstitious ninny would even consider the possibility that the shroud is real in the first place.

The Roman Catholic Church stops short of actually endorsing it. Why?

How much does the Church collect by exploiting a superstition they won't even officially endorse?

Follow the real money, and stop slandering "debunkers" just because they get paid for their work.

[RobbyS]

Let’s start by begging the question, shall we? It is mere “superstition,” or bigotry to assume that your personal experience is the sole determinant of what is true. That is your faith, and you hold to it as tenaciously as the most ardent religious person. As to the shroud: it IS real. We just can’t be sure when or how it came to be, or what it truly signifies.

[Coleus]

 

[Salman]

When you make absurd assertions, the burden of proof isn't on other people. It's on you.

It's not for unbelievers to disprove the shroud, it's for believers to prove it. And it's not even an article of faith of your religion, so you don't have that excuse either.

You prove it. Not just that it "could" be true either.

All you have is the usual blowing of smoke.

[RobbyS]

I’m not making any claims at all here. I just note the existence of the Shroud, which has mysterious origin and is unique among religious relics in inviting atheists to disprove it. Don’t forget, also, it was pretty much ignored until about 1900 when someone discovered that the image was a negative. Until the invention of photography, no one was even aware such things existed, and to find it on a piece of cloth. God’s little joke on his unbelieving critters? Atheists seldom have a sense of humor, and a sneer is not really humorous.

[grey_whiskers]

You are engaging in circular reasoning.

It's absurd because there is no evidence.

And what we have isn't evidence, because the whole thing is absurd.

Nice try.

What we have is an image corresponding to a photographic negative (unknown in medieval times) of a dead, crucified body. It contains traces of various pollens from Jerusalem and environs, human blood, where the serum has separated (as seen in post-mortem bleeding), linen cloth treated in a way that is consistent with the way linen was treated at the time of Jesus (but not after the 12th century), traces of travertine aragonite (found near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem) on the Shroud; and the body image on the Shroud does not correlate with the presence of the iron oxide (component of the red ochre ostensibly used to form the image); further, no discernible traces of manganese, nickel, or cobalt were found on the shroud, despite the fact that the red ochre (from medieval or older sources) would contain these elements in concentrations of greater than 1%. Furthermore, visible, IR, and UV-Visible reflectance spectroscopy on the Shroud show a general band with no specific peaks; controls of hematite (Fe₂O₃ on linen, show strong absorption from 350-550 nm and an abrupt increase in reflectance between 550-560 nm, which was NOT seen on the Shroud. By contrast, traces of old acid methemoglobin (breakdown product of hemeglobin) were found on the Shroud in the bloodstained areas.

All of these are *inconsistent* with a medieval hoax, and indicative of the Shroud as a genuine image of a crucified man, formed by mechanisms unknown.

Before accusing people of blowing smoke, and demanding "proof" it is geniune, you might want to back up a bit.

The only reason atheists up and down is that you have jumped to the conclusion that the image is either a fake or "supernatural". This is exacerbated by the fact that the Church has identified the image with Jesus -- given the fame of Christ, that's no surprise: and it is probably the only thing which has kept the cloth preserved since its discovery. But I bet if the image were purportedly of Septimus the Centurion, instead of Jesus the Nazarene, you wouldn't be nearly so eager to discredit it.

Why not work on studying the thing to find they physical mechanism by which the image was formed, taking care to be able to replicate the physical, chemical, and spectrographic characteristics of the object actually in hand...? This isn't "In Search Of..." where one has legends of a myth, but no evidence available, so that any "plausible" explanation wins by default. This is one of those rare cases where something mysterious is right there where it *can* be physically examined, by all the methods and apparatus of modern science. Why not take the opportunity to do so, and see what the physical results themselves *say*?

Finally, online translators render the text on your homepage as the following:

"I would like to die rather than live under free Islam"

It sounds from your comments that you have atheist leanings. How about going over to Afghanistan in person to perform missionary work, spreading the good news that there is no Allah, so the Taliban can give up their erstwhile fusion of Church and State?

Cheers!