Thursday, March 27, 2008

Newsflash: Shroud of Turn is a FAKE

But of course, the fact that it has long been established as a fake (and as a simple work of art) doesn't stop stupid stories like this from popping up every so often. Which just goes to prove that evidence and facts are irrelevant if you are a "true believer."

What is even sadder is that the story really could have made that readily apparent - there is plenty of information out there to definitively show that it is a fake. But then, that wouldn't get the reilgious nutcases all excited by the article, which was probably the point - advertising revenue.

Both carbon dating and providence indicate the shroud originated somewhere around the 13th century. Any "controversy" about that is manufactured by those who want to obfuscate the facts and keep their religious artifact idea alive. Isn't it funny how every scientific analysis agrees, and it is only those who are Christians who seem to disagree with those analyses.

Just file this as one of those things that annoys me.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Then this will REALLY make your ass twitch:

Creationist Museum

I shuddered the first time I read this article last year... I still shudder...

DBB said...

Yeah, I heard about that and I've been twitching ever since. It is amazing to see people not only ignorant, but to see that ignorance enshrined and institutionalized.

Sweating Through fog said...

As I wrote here, I personally think the Shroud is really the burial cloth of Jesus. Once you make the leap of faith that a man rose physically from the dead, it isn't a much longer leap to believe there is a physical artifact that we can see and touch. That is my belief, not the Church's - they have never made any claim about authenticity. I do not dispute the validity of the tests.

I do object to your characterization of believers as "nut-cases"

DBB said...

SWF - I do consider it nutty to ignore the evidence on the Shroud of Turin - there are two ways to date something - scientific ways such as by carbon dating and also by provinence - when is there first a record of it existing. That's partly how forgeries in the art world are determined - if there's suddenly a previously unknown painting by an artist from, say, the 12th century, part of the way it is proven true or false is if you can trace it all the way back to the 12th century - who had it and how they got it. If you can only trace it back to, say, the 17th century, that is strong evidence that it was actually created (as a forgery) in the 17th century. If you also carbon date the painting to the 17th century, those two facts combine to make it rather ironclad that its a 17th century fake. That's what we have with the Shroud of Turin - there is no record of it existing prior to the 14th century and it was also carbon dated to the 14th century. That pretty much ends any chance it is anything but a 14th century creation.

And while I'm an atheist - even if you do believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and had a burial cloth, that doesn't mean that the Shroud of Turin is that cloth. The evidence definitively shows it is not, whether Jesus rose from the dead or not.

But you are right, there's nothing to be gained by characterizing believers as nut-cases.