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Miracle of the Shroud V - Blood and Limestone

Further, if the question to which you are actually seeking an answer is "would anyone here agree that I have provided some circumstantial evidence in favor of authenticity?" then the answer, as others have stated, is no.

Because even if you could show what you claim (and you cannot), it would not be consistent with all the other evidence. Given that the definition of circumstantial evidence involves such evidence being consistent with the other evidence, the answer to your question has to be no.
 
The relevance of my circumstantial evidence post to the SOT is, as promised:

1. We are not debating, and never had, if the SOT is a rock, a dog, a cat, or anything but an old cloth with an image on it.

2. The question clearly is and has been from the first: is the SOT really the burial shroud of Christ or a forgery (or other imitation)? In this case (the actual question that has been debated in this thread for years) any evidence that the SOT is a cloth, or even that it might have blood on it, does not change in any way the probabilities under debate: is it real or a forgery. In fact, there is no clear evidence that it has blood on it at all, and even if it did, that would be more consistent with a forgery than with an authentic ancient Jewish burial shroud.

3. The fact that the SOT is too young by radio-dating to be authentic is absolutely definitive and resolves the question under discussion: it is a forgery (or other imitation). It cannot be authentic. This is in addition to the large amount of additional evidence that it is not authentic (wrong weave, wrong anatomy, etc.). No amount of "weak circumstantial evidence of authenticity: can overcome this definitive evidence against it. You might be able to find someone's fingerprints at the location of a murder, but if the suspect lived in that room with the victim the fingerprints fail to establish that the suspect killed the victim. If the suspect also proves that they were dining with the chief of police at the time of the murder, then this fact totally "trumps" the fingerprints.
 
But people haven't ignored your hypotheticals.

Indeed. I even put the substance of my answer to it in the first line of my post so that Jabba would be more likely to read it. He has not been ignored. As you say, he simply wants a different answer.

What it seems Jabba wants is a declarative judgment that his proffered line of reasoning -- whether or not he could actually execute it -- constitutes "circumstantial evidence for authenticity." The debate in this thread has now mired upon the question of whether Jabba has in reserve anything that might properly be called evidence for authenticity. He says he has no "direct" evidence for authenticity, but that he has "circumstantial evidence."

His critics, wary of his previous lackluster presentations, pre-emptively dismiss a replay of that as no sort of evidence for authenticity; at best it is evidence that, if believed, would tend to erode faith in the medieval date. That is not and cannot be construed as evidence in favor of some other specific claim. Jabba wants to write that off as presumptive -- more specifically, prejduce.

Keep in mind that Jabba has stated here he doesn't particularly care whether the shroud is authentic. He doesn't care whether the religion that claims its authenticity is true. He wants to believe in miracles, and he wants to show that those who are skeptical of miracles are irrational and prejudicial. His blogs and statements elsewhere substantiate this.

But he cannot prove it is a presumptive dismissal until he actually provides an offer of proof. He has to show us his evidence in reserve and demonstrate that it is materially different than the evidence he has relied upon the past. Only under those conditions would his critics have erred by prejudice. If he simply presents his same old claims of invisible reweaves or conspiracies to plant evidence or character attacks on the researchers, then his critics will simply have been astutely correct.

This makes his resort to hypothetics even more disingenuous. In attempting to elicit the coveted "Yes, that would be circumstantial evidence," characterization by spinning a different version of reality, he's admitting that the actual reality doesn't suit his argument. That tips his hand to reveal that what he has in reserve is not something new he can proffer to make the strong argument for prejudice above, but in reality the same old nonsense he's deployed for four years unsuccessfully. He can't just present it anew without accidentally proving his critics are not the closed-minded prejudicial lot he insinuates them to be.

What likely irks Jabba is that his hypothetical has been appropriately rejected according to its hypothetical merits. Even were he able to prove the stains on the shroud were human blood, that by itself is not circumstantial evidence of authenticity. There are plenty of competing inferences to explain the blood. That situation is certainly not cured by his ipso dixit that an authentic Jesus burial shroud would be more likely to have blood on it than some other cloth. One simply cannot wish into objective likelihood the one desired inference among many. Nor even if the likelihood of one inference -- extending the hypothetical in Jabba's favor -- could be established by other means, that still does not make it the favored explanation when all the other bits of evidence are brought together to attempt convergence.

What other means are available to him then to suggest prejudice among his critics? The accusation of groupthink. Turning back to his statement, "You all seem to agree that my hypotheticals should be ignored" (emphasis added), we can consider that he's arguing his reasoning can't be so universally bad that some person among his critics doesn't see it as a valid (although hypothetical) line of reasoning, some person wouldn't say, "Why sure, if you had those things they would be circumstantial evidence of authenticity."

Jabba wants to coerce the interpretation of his performance into one of, "I made those skeptics admit that I really did have evidence of authenticity when they said all along I didn't," or else "I showed just what a herd mentality those skeptics have." In other words, some expression of success in the goal of ridiculing critics. He is unwilling to accept the alternative, that he has no valid line of reasoning and that his critics have fairly called him on it.

So here we sit. Jabba refuses to offer any proof until his critics agree it's the kind of evidence he says it is. He has resorted to holding the thread hostage until he gets his way. And any attempt to show him, in the spirit of "effective debate," how such extortion does not amount to proof of a claim is met with the incredible protest that he is too old and feeble to engage much in the debate.
 
The relevance of my circumstantial evidence post to the SOT is, as promised:

1. We are not debating, and never had, if the SOT is a rock, a dog, a cat, or anything but an old cloth with an image on it.

2. The question clearly is and has been from the first: is the SOT really the burial shroud of Christ or a forgery (or other imitation)? In this case (the actual question that has been debated in this thread for years) any evidence that the SOT is a cloth, or even that it might have blood on it, does not change in any way the probabilities under debate: is it real or a forgery. In fact, there is no clear evidence that it has blood on it at all, and even if it did, that would be more consistent with a forgery than with an authentic ancient Jewish burial shroud.

3. The fact that the SOT is too young by radio-dating to be authentic is absolutely definitive and resolves the question under discussion: it is a forgery (or other imitation). It cannot be authentic. This is in addition to the large amount of additional evidence that it is not authentic (wrong weave, wrong anatomy, etc.). No amount of "weak circumstantial evidence of authenticity: can overcome this definitive evidence against it. You might be able to find someone's fingerprints at the location of a murder, but if the suspect lived in that room with the victim the fingerprints fail to establish that the suspect killed the victim. If the suspect also proves that they were dining with the chief of police at the time of the murder, then this fact totally "trumps" the fingerprints.

Well said!
 
That wasn't a hypothetical question.

It's unclear what you're referring to. this is unquestionably a hypothetical question. It does not ask for judgment on known facts, but rather for judgment were certain conditions assumed to hold, that are not known now or then to hold. A hypothetical question is one answered on the basis of assumption, not on fact. You confirmed that the question linked supra was a hypothetical question. So you need to clarify what question you're now claiming is not hypothetical.

You correctly note that some of your critics have, instead of answering the hypothetical question, pointed out that your hypotheses are questionable. This is not inappropriate, given their knowledge of your previous attempts to convert hypotheticals and given my analysis above of your entire past few days' line of argument.

However it is not true that your question was not answered in the hypothetical. Since you couldn't be bothered to read my answer, I'll repeat it once more, expand upon it, and thereafter consign you to the throes of intentionally neglecting your critics answers.

Hypothesis (1) asked us to assume arguendo the stains on the shroud were blood, by which I take you to mean human blood.

Hypothesis (2) asked us to assume arguendo that blood would be more likely found on an authentic shroud than elsewhere.

It is unclear whether you intended these to be two separate elements of circumstantial evidence. This is relevant because it is unclear whether you've relaxed your claim that one element of circumstantial evidence alone can be probative of a specific question.

In any case they are not severable. (2) is not evidence separate from (1), but rather an argument intended to apply to (1). That is, it is an argument intended to persuade the reader that of all the possible things he can infer from (1), he should prefer the inference that the blood arrived on the shroud because it is an authentic burial shroud of Jesus.

Argument is not evidence.

Or to be more helpful, (2) is moot if there is no such thing as (1). Insofar as (2) arises from, and has life only by virtue of, hypothesis (1), they are not independent elements, nor is (2) evidence by any definition.

Hence you have presented only one element. One element doesn't make a circumstantial case for any particular proposition any more than one thread makes a burial shroud. What we learn from the online law references you cited but obviously never read is that a circumstantial case is woven from a body of evidence, a series of discrete and independent directly observable facts from the totality of which can be reasonably inferred a single, particular proposition. The strength of a circumstantial case is vested in the body of it, not in how strenuously one believes in a single inference.

"Circumstantial evidence for authenticity" does not arise from one piece of evidence proffered to the exclusion of all others. "Circumstantial evidence for authenticity" would be the judgment, having taken all pertinent evidence into account, that the best explanation for all of it is authenticity.

I have even shown how all your other hypotheticals rely upon this plurality of evidence, even if you yourself do not name them. It is suspicious that you do not address that.

(2) does not save you, cure the problem in your reasoning, or excuse you from considering other evidence. The other elements still apply. The nature of the weave applies. The carbon dating applies. The athropometrical anomaly applies. Taken together, the strength you propose to contrive by (2) simply does not overcome the rest of the evidence. It does not matter whether blood would be more likely to appear on an authentic burial cloth if the other evidence parsimoniously precludes authenticity, and therefore that the conclusion drawn by circumstantial reasoning requires that the blood arrive on the cloth -- however unlikely by presumption -- by artificial means. (2) does not allow the tail to wag the dog, no matter how many of its legs you ignore.
 
elbe,
- That wasn't a hypothetical question.

The biggest hypothetical going is "if I could present evidence that the cloth is the shroud..."

Instead we have the most feeble attempts to support a claim ever on these forums. We get no vigorous argument just blatant dishonesty.
 
It's unclear what you're referring to. this is unquestionably a hypothetical question. It does not ask for judgment on known facts, but rather for judgment were certain conditions assumed to hold, that are not known now or then to hold. A hypothetical question is one answered on the basis of assumption, not on fact. You confirmed that the question linked supra was a hypothetical question. So you need to clarify what question you're now claiming is not hypothetical.

You correctly note that some of your critics have, instead of answering the hypothetical question, pointed out that your hypotheses are questionable. This is not inappropriate, given their knowledge of your previous attempts to convert hypotheticals and given my analysis above of your entire past few days' line of argument.

However it is not true that your question was not answered in the hypothetical. Since you couldn't be bothered to read my answer, I'll repeat it once more, expand upon it, and thereafter consign you to the throes of intentionally neglecting your critics answers.

Hypothesis (1) asked us to assume arguendo the stains on the shroud were blood, by which I take you to mean human blood.

Hypothesis (2) asked us to assume arguendo that blood would be more likely found on an authentic shroud than elsewhere.

It is unclear whether you intended these to be two separate elements of circumstantial evidence. This is relevant because it is unclear whether you've relaxed your claim that one element of circumstantial evidence alone can be probative of a specific question.

In any case they are not severable. (2) is not evidence separate from (1), but rather an argument intended to apply to (1). That is, it is an argument intended to persuade the reader that of all the possible things he can infer from (1), he should prefer the inference that the blood arrived on the shroud because it is an authentic burial shroud of Jesus.

Argument is not evidence.

Or to be more helpful, (2) is moot if there is no such thing as (1). Insofar as (2) arises from, and has life only by virtue of, hypothesis (1), they are not independent elements, nor is (2) evidence by any definition.

Hence you have presented only one element. One element doesn't make a circumstantial case for any particular proposition any more than one thread makes a burial shroud. What we learn from the online law references you cited but obviously never read is that a circumstantial case is woven from a body of evidence, a series of discrete and independent directly observable facts from the totality of which can be reasonably inferred a single, particular proposition. The strength of a circumstantial case is vested in the body of it, not in how strenuously one believes in a single inference.

"Circumstantial evidence for authenticity" does not arise from one piece of evidence proffered to the exclusion of all others. "Circumstantial evidence for authenticity" would be the judgment, having taken all pertinent evidence into account, that the best explanation for all of it is authenticity.

I have even shown how all your other hypotheticals rely upon this plurality of evidence, even if you yourself do not name them. It is suspicious that you do not address that.

(2) does not save you, cure the problem in your reasoning, or excuse you from considering other evidence. The other elements still apply. The nature of the weave applies. The carbon dating applies. The athropometrical anomaly applies. Taken together, the strength you propose to contrive by (2) simply does not overcome the rest of the evidence. It does not matter whether blood would be more likely to appear on an authentic burial cloth if the other evidence parsimoniously precludes authenticity, and therefore that the conclusion drawn by circumstantial reasoning requires that the blood arrive on the cloth -- however unlikely by presumption -- by artificial means. (2) does not allow the tail to wag the dog, no matter how many of its legs you ignore.

Just a little bit of friendly advice. Were I you, I would avoid using the term "body" at all.

Any second now, you will be hit with "So you agree there was a body?"

We are no longer dealing with cherry picking of posts, we are dealing with cherry picking of individual words from sentences and their subsequent rearrangement, followed by the publication of same elsewhere that nobody can control, edit, appeal or affect in any way.
 
GuitKitty,
- Give me an example of where someone has answered one of my hypothetical questions. You don't answer an hypothetical question by saying that the hypothesis is wrong.

Why do we need to concern ourselves with hypotheticals when the cloth we are discussing actually exists?
 
Filippo Lippi said:
The reason for doing so being.... THIS

He is copy/pasting your responses to his Idiotic shrouddebates.com as you speak!

Seriously, look at the length of that one page alone. I'd be mighty pissed off if I were on his list of approved speakers and appeared on that page.

I have posted the following comment to his blog.

Readers who are not aware of the original conversation should be aware that Jabba/Rich Savage has omitted many responses and changed/re-ordered others.

Let's see if it is moderated

For some inexplicable reason, your comment has not been published on that page. There are lots of out-of-context and edited copied responses from this thread, but your comment doesn't appear. I just don't understand why.
 
For some inexplicable reason, your comment has not been published on that page. There are lots of out-of-context and edited copied responses from this thread, but your comment doesn't appear. I just don't understand why.

It is still awaiting moderation
 
- You all seem to agree that my hypotheticals should be ignored...

Because 1) doesn't matter, and 2) is wrong.

Why don't you just ask, "If you had a notarized affidavit by God saying that it was the burial cloth of Jesus, would it count as evidence?"
 
- You all seem to agree that my hypotheticals should be ignored...

Addressing and disagreeing with your hypotheticals is not ignoring them, Jabba. It's addressing and disagreeing with them. If the other ISF members had ignored them, then your threads would have been inactive.

For the record, you have my permission quote this post on your mess of a "map", as long as you quote me in full, unlike the other time you quoted me without my permission.
 
For some inexplicable reason, your comment has not been published on that page. There are lots of out-of-context and edited copied responses from this thread, but your comment doesn't appear. I just don't understand why.
Jabba being deceitful? No.....
 
You asked a yes or no question: "would anyone here agree that I have provided some circumstantial evidence in favor of authenticity?"
People said "no", that's an answer. It's not the answer you were looking for, however.

I asked if you could actually show what you suggested you could, if you could not the entire hypothetical is a waste of our time.
elbe,
- Are you thinking that the hilited question is a hypothetical?
 

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