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The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

michaelshermer.substack.com

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Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#151

Post by kcplate »

tsimionescu wrote: post #124
kcplate wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it’s not a court of law and the burden of solving the mystery lands on the shoulders of the unbelievers. It’s a sacred relic of a specific belief system—sacred to those Catholics who already believe it is real and are further encouraged in the validity of their faith by its existence. I am sure that probably none are Christian just because of the shroud , so even if it was proven to be a 14th century creation, t…

Not really. The "shroud" is just one of a million other relics, some true pieces of saints' bodies, some others medieval forgeries like it . Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object. The first person to call it a forgery was, after all, a 14th century Catholic bishop, to which the Pope at least partly acquiesced (forbidding the church that housed it from ca…

> Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object.

Sure, you would want that, but what does the science actually say at this point? Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. That calls the earlier dating tests of the shroud cloth into question that might have proved scientifically that it was a forgery. Apparently science also hasn’t adequately explained how the image was created either. So all science really seems to say is “we don’t have any clear answers yet”. So has science actually proven that it’s fake? It starts with that assumption of course because miracles cannot exist, but evidence of an obvious forgery is thin. That is why you will get a disconnect between believers and the non-believers. The believer doesn’t start with the premise that a miracle cannot exist so in lieu of other obvious forgery evidence, their faith in the existence of miracles creates the possibility.

I am interested in the controversy around the mystery more than the object itself. I personally believe it’s a forgery—not because I don’t necessarily believe in miraculous things (I am a Christian) but because I am familiar enough with the shenanigans of the church throughout the centuries to know that creating a relic is a means to an end towards increasing the power of the church. I find the emotional reaction to it of some non-believers more interesting than those folks who believe it’s real. That fiery motivation behind the desire to disprove the validity is fascinating. Why do they have that desire to prove a forgery of something that even the Catholic Church doesn’t take an opinion about?

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#152

Post by tsimionescu »

kcplate wrote: post #151
tsimionescu wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The "shroud" is just one of a million other relics, some true pieces of saints' bodies, some others medieval forgeries like it . Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object. The first person to call it a forgery was, after all, a 14th century Catholic bishop, to which the Pope at least partly acquiesced (forbidding the church that housed it from ca…

> Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object. Sure, you would want that, but what does the science actually say at this point? Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. That calls the earlier dating tests of the shroud cloth into question that might have proved scientifically that it was a forgery. Apparently sci…

> Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century.

Those recent news stories are based on a bogus study in a no-name journal written by people who invented the method they are applying to the "shroud". It is equivalent to citing a blogpost. The real science was done in the 80s, using a well-established method that is still the gold standard for dating organic material today, C14 dating, and showed what the historical record also shows: the cloth is coming from sometime in the 14th century.

So the evidence for a forgery is: extremely well-established science says it was made around the 14th century. The earliest sources we have on it, also from the 14th century, are a Bishop calling it an obvious fake, to which a Pope acquiesces. It only starts being considered a real relic almost two centuries later, after an up-and-coming noble family makes it their claim to fame and a political object.

So not only is the evidence of it being a fake pretty obvious, there is also no evidence whatsoever that would suggest it's not a fake. So it is quite annoying when people keep insisting otherwise.

And no, the fact that we're not sure what precise technique was used to create the image 650 years ago is not evidence of anything. I've already written multiple comments in this thread on this particular point, I won't repeat them again.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#153

Post by aestetix »

agarren wrote: post #150
aestetix wrote: post #66

I would be curious what Michael Shermer and others think of some of the more recent scientific investigations, as detailled by Fr. Andrew Dalton on Pints with Aquinas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAbuG-oVq1Q

I doubt he’d think much of it. I’m about 2/3rds through it. It’s all more of the same and not terribly convincing. Fr. Andrew Dalton is a Sindonologist(?), somebody who studies the shroud, but not necessarily from a scientific perspective. Sindonology isn’t exactly embraced by Shermer in his article, or, apparently, by the scientific community in general. I hadn’t encountered the term before, but at a glance it seems…

Setting aside religious discussion, what I found interesting is that the shroud has a lot of things that we simply cannot explain. For example, we have been unable to replicate the image as it exists (I think he said 200 nm thick), using highly advanced UV technology. If we can't figure it out now, how on earth would someone have created it centuries ago? I found other details, such as the absense of the photo-negative impression where blood stains were, fascinating.

I also thought the debunking of the 1988 "findings" made a lot of sense.

I'm not saying that it is "authentic" in that it is the impression of Christ from the Resurrection. What I am saying is that using our best scientific methods, we still have no explanation for how it came to exist.

I suppose I should ask, what kind of evidence are you looking for that would make something convincing to you?

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#154

Post by gregjor »

tsimionescu wrote: post #125
recursive wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nature of faith rejects the validity of such burdens of proof.

In Catholic beliefs, understanding, intelligence, logic, and reason are significant virtues. The believer is not supposed to be unquestioning of the world and treat everything as a miracle, lest they lose their faith. Instead, they are expected exactly to seek to understand the world, and marvel at God's creation in all their understanding. Especially related to miracles, the Catholic Church has a dedicated office fo…

I had the good fortune to have a Catholic upbringing and attend Jesuit school, and then to end up not believing in religion.

The Church officially takes no position on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I suppose the authorities have no reason to make an official declaration either way. The Church has suffered embarrassment before trying to prove doctrine with science, or disprove science. Galileo comes to mind.

The "dedicated office for investigating miracles," now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and before that the more familiar Inquisition, investigates claims of miracles. It accepts relatively few, between 2% and 10% depending on the time period and the type of alleged miracle. I don't know if that implies that "charlatans are not tolerated in the Church," though. The Church has tolerated quite a few charlatans over its long history, and quite a few frauds and people who bought or extorted their way to bishop, cardinal, and pope.

While you got it right that Catholic doctrine does not encourage or require unquestioning belief in everything, it does require faithful Catholics to believe what the Church tells them is true. Historically asking too many questions would land a curious person in trouble. These days the Church does not have the worldly power it once did to enforce its rules.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#155

Post by FrustratedMonky »

User23 wrote: post #146
card_zero wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, you're only saying that it's in a manner of speaking anti-rational to deny the existence of a god who is, presumably, supremely rational. It's an amusing observation, but it doesn't follow that it's reasonable to think the being exists just because the being is supposed to be reasonable. And this argument certainly sounds similar to the "God of the gaps" argument. Instead of "there are things science can't…

The limitations of science say nothing about atheism or theism. However, the metaphysics of science firmly rest on the notion that things do happen for reasons and that those reasons are potentially knowable. The rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists, why stars and planets exist, why life exists, and why occasionally intelligent life such as ourselves exists. That there are atheists…

"rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists"

That might be some sub-set of some narrow band of 'rationalist'. But it is not a common viewpoint of atheist. So guess your point, that atheist aren't rational, using a narrow definition of 'rational'

I'd say the more common view atheist is that there are no 'reasons'. It is all physical processes, with no 'reason' behind it at all. It's all just cause and effect, the billiard ball universe. Quarks/Electrons/atoms/molecules. All just interacting with no 'reason'.

I think the nature of this argument wasn't with this view of universe, it was with which people you were attributing that did believe this way.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#156

Post by kcplate »

tsimionescu wrote: post #152
kcplate wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both believers and non-believers should agree on the scientific evidence about this particular object. Sure, you would want that, but what does the science actually say at this point? Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. That calls the earlier dating tests of the shroud cloth into question that might have proved scientifically that it was a forgery. Apparently sci…

> Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. Those recent news stories are based on a bogus study in a no-name journal written by people who invented the method they are applying to the "shroud". It is equivalent to citing a blogpost. The real science was done in the 80s, using a well-established method that is still the gold standard for dating organic material today, C1…

> The earliest sources we have on it, also from the 14th century, are a Bishop calling it an obvious fake, to which a Pope acquiesces.

That’s circumstantial evidence, not scientific. Like I said, I think it’s a forgery, but I don’t need it to be real. The flip side of that coin is I don’t need it to be fake either…so why do non-believers care so much to argue that it is?

What drives that need? What is so important or dangerous about the object that it must be revealed as a fake to the minuscule amount of Christians out there that believe that it’s not?

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#157

Post by teolandon »

smeej wrote: post #108
teolandon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why the miraculous hypothesis gets to get away with not explaining why and how the miracle was done. Why should we reject it being a fraud just because we don't know how it was done, while accepting a miracle which we also don't know how was done?

I think it's pretty common (maybe even required?) not to know how a miracle was done. The whole point seems to be that it was not done by known means.

That doesn't make it any more reasonable to accept as an explanation.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#158

Post by gqcwwjtg »

d_theorist wrote: post #41
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the 14th century were no dumber than people living today, and painters like Duccio di Buoninsegna had a great understanding of shadows, and were capable of drawing amazing portraits. They were absolutely capable of painting a negative of a portrait.

Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose? And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.

A photo negative in a single color is not a tough concept to stumble upon if you ever carve something to be thin enough to let light through.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#159

Post by User23 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #155
User23 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limitations of science say nothing about atheism or theism. However, the metaphysics of science firmly rest on the notion that things do happen for reasons and that those reasons are potentially knowable. The rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists, why stars and planets exist, why life exists, and why occasionally intelligent life such as ourselves exists. That there are atheists…

"rationalist view says that there are reasons for why the universe exists" That might be some sub-set of some narrow band of 'rationalist'. But it is not a common viewpoint of atheist. So guess your point, that atheist aren't rational, using a narrow definition of 'rational' I'd say the more common view atheist is that there are no 'reasons'. It is all physical processes, with no 'reason' behind it at all. It's all j…

Why is there cause and effect? Oh, right, for no reason at all.

That doesn’t sound like a rational position to me.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#160

Post by dpig_ »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #142
injb wrote: post #114

The most amazing theory I ever read was from The Second Messiah, which is totally fanciful and speculative, but even as a work of the imagination its strikingly impressive. What they said was that it's not fake, but its not exactly real either, in the sense that its not Jesus. What we're seeing is the image of a man who was tortured the way Jesus was said to have been tortured, including the crucifixion. But the man…

Sounds like an interesting read, even if it’s largely speculation. The hands vs wrists question is a perennial puzzler, compounded by the fact that nobody actually knows exactly how crucifixion was carried out in that part of the Roman Empire at the time. However I got an interesting perspective on it when getting to know my wife who, as an Austrian from the countryside has a particular regional way of speaking Germa…

That's interesting! I'm currently learning Hindi, and finding that the word for foot/leg is often interchangeable, too. (In Hindi, 'toes' is also usually expressed as 'fingers of the foot,' which I sometimes misapprehend as 'fingers of the leg')
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