Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

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This topic keeps taking me down weird paths. I've been reading through this thread a bit at a time and one of those paths lead me to the conservapedia article on the shroud.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Shroud_of_Turin

The Shroud of Turin (in Italian, la Sacra Sindone) is the most studied artifact in the history of the world, causing some agnostic or atheist scientists to convert to Christianity.[1] Other scientists who have not converted do consider the Shroud to be the authentic burial cloth for Jesus Christ.
The Shroud contains real blood stains consisting of human male DNA, and a blood type that is AB. The height of the man was 5' 11"; his weight, about 170 pounds. Coins visible only to modern technology had been placed over the man's eyes, a tradition not known to historians until modern archaeological excavations revealed the practice; the coin over the right eye was minted by Pontius Pilate, and the coin over the left eye was minted only in A.D. 29.[2] The angle of the man's arms during the crucifixion can be inferred from the flow of blood seen on the Shroud: 65° for one arm; 55° for the other.
There is overwhelming forensic evidence on the Shroud indicating that it is the image of man who was both scourged and crucified, yet (as described in the Bible) without the breaking of the victim's leg as commonly done as part of the punishment.[3] The bloodstains on the Shroud were formed before the image was made. The image is scientifically precise in a way unknown to any medieval forgers: the thumbs are not visible because the nails were through the wrist, not through the hands as mistakenly thought until the 20th century.
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Wow. One aspect of this that I found interesting is how the conservative community has so coopted the word, conservative today that for them the meaning of conservative has become closely identified with credulous religious belief.

As an aside, I'm rereading Joe Nickell's book that I bought at a TAM many years ago now.

As to the comments about Jabba: That interests me a bit also. I didn't understand how long this thing has been going on when I first commented in this thread.

I have a few thoughts both about Jabba and the responses to him. First, for me, the responses to him have been unnecessarily antagonistic. He is not coming from the same place that people with a scientific or skeptical view of life are. That's just the way it is and no amount of rancor is going to make him all of a sudden develop a different world view.

He has presented evidence. For me, the quality of his evidence that I've looked at is the same kind of thing that 9-11 conspiracy theorists put forth. But that is an opinion based on a world view where I expect the biases of some people to routinely lead them to believe weird things and to promote weird theories without adequate evidence. My world view leads me to find some people credible and others not credible based on how I perceive they are struggling to find truth. I suspect my approach to this is similar to that of the regular JREF posters in this thread and it is different than that of Jabba.

But what is the point of this thread? For people to form a community around taking whacks at true believers or to engage in a thoughtful pursuit of truth with a true believer. I think it is most interesting if it is the latter but a lot of this thread looks like the former to me.

A few more comments more specifically about Jabba:
I think he is mostly what he presents himself to be. It is interesting that he presented some evidence that suggests he has been in contact with the what is called the shroudies in this thread. That doesn't seem surprising.

I found some of his attempts to find truth and to discuss his ideas interesting since they went a bit against my assessment of him as mostly what I call a true believer. But then, as others have noted many times, he doesn't follow up with actual descriptions of what he is basing his beliefs on. The behavior strikes me as a little strange but not so weird that I think he is other that what he seems to be. Somebody that has bought in to the shroud mythology mostly and wants to test his beliefs a bit in a skeptical community.
 
pakeha said:
Gosh.
Who knew the Shroudies had issued a challenge to Richard Dawkins on the subject of the TS?
Here's one blogger's response to it.

edited to add:
Here's Dawkins' commentary which inspired the challenge.
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Thanks for the links. I notice the blogger, advocated for the idea that the image was scourged. I don't think this represents the consensus scientific view today. Nickell produced pretty good results by just rubbing. To my eye Nickell's succeeded completely in creating an image (of the face) which looked very similar to the shroud. And the recently released results by the Italian group used a similar technique. Scourging also conflicts with what McCrone found. I have read several times in Shroud blogs that McCrone's work has been discredited. Is that routine Shroud blather or is there some substance to that?

I also noticed the blogger quoted Davor Aslanovski. The passage is a bit long so I won't quote it all but I thought it provided a very accurate description of what is going with regard to the shroud mythology.

We are not dealing with just a scientific heresy – a veritable pseudoscience has been created. Sindonology. The study of one single relic, isolated from everything else, conducted outside the world of orthodox academia, and often with deep disrespect and distrust for what the orthodox scientists have to say. And when any orthodox scientist reads the endless on-line discussions of these ‘sindonologists’, the papers presented at their conferences, and the occasional publications that they produce, he will invariably notice one thing: these people veritably despise the academic world. And this warrants some attention and an attempt to understand why this is so. I propose this answer: The average ‘sindonologist’ has come to the (accurate) conclusion that the image in the Shroud is like no other in the history of human art, and that it, at least for the time being, escapes scientific explanation; he has, through various experiences in his life, become fed up (and rightly so) with the skepticism, rationalism, agnosticism, and the general disbelief that permeate the academic world today;...
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Scourged or scorched?
The blogger mentions scorched, as far as I can tell and it appears to be an on-going experiment.
Here's yet another take on the Shroud recently published.

The comments of Professor Ramsey are telling.
"We're pretty confident in the radiocarbon dates," he told me. "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up.

"One is that the samples were contaminated. But that doesn't work, because to make an 2,000-year-old object appear just 800 years old, about half the material would have to be contaminant, and that's if it was all modern. If it was older, it would have to be even more. Various tests done at the time of the original measurements also suggested that the material was fairly pure. It's also been hypothesised that the patch we tested was a modern repair, but most of us agree that's implausible, because the weave is very unusual and matches the rest of the shroud perfectly. Then there are more complicated notions, like contamination with carbon monoxide, but tests have shown that carbon monoxide doesn't react with the fabric under the circumstances that you might expect."

Regarding the ENEA findings, he is similarly sceptical."There are several possibilities, and it could just be a chance effect due to a number of different phenomena," he say. "But in archaeological science, being able to reproduce something doesn't imply that that's the technique used; it may simply show that you've got a new technique you want to try out." He adds that the confidence in the medieval result is such that, were it not suggested to be a relic, there would be no more discussion over its age."
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As in the other links, the comments are fascinating.
 
;) In any case, linen DOES fade and discolour easily in sunshine. And it scorches easily, too.
 
davefoc said:
:o

ETA: I know that contamination has been put forth, but isn't the main argument that there was an invisible patch that the C14 testing was done on?
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An invisible patch would be a miracle in and of itself.
 
davefoc said:
:o

ETA: I know that contamination has been put forth, but isn't the main argument that there was an invisible patch that the C14 testing was done on?
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Not only a miracle, the 'invisible' patch idea was falsified years back.
This was shown back on page I-don't-remember of this same thread, if you're interested.
 
davefoc said:
:o

ETA: I know that contamination has been put forth, but isn't the main argument that there was an invisible patch that the C14 testing was done on?
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Rather convenient that the claimed patch is "invisible"!

In that case it seems science and everyone else is wasting it’s time, because everything ever known in the universe might just as easily be claimed to be entirely wrong due to invisible evidence of the contrary.

However, the Vatican's own scientific advisor and their textile expert examined the shroud for over a month, for the first in time in 500 years with the backing cloth removed, and they have repeatedly said that they are quite sure there was no such "invisible" patch and that they were amazed that Rogers could have made such a badly mistaken claim ... afaik, neither Ray Rogers nor Benford & Marino (who wrote the book which gave Rogers the idea of an “invisible” patch) have ever even seen the shroud since the C14 sample was cut (if they ever saw it at all).
 
pakeha said:
Not only a miracle, the 'invisible' patch idea was falsified years back.
This was shown back on page I-don't-remember of this same thread, if you're interested.
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If you mean by falsified, that the questionable arguments in favor of the implausible idea were shown to be false, then yes. If you mean that an invisible, undetectable patch was not seen and not detected then ...

But my question really went to whether this was the principal argument for the shroudies that the C14 results were incorrect. It seems like the contamination argument gave way to this argument when the contamination argument was discredited. And a related question: Do any pro-authenticity arguments ever die?
 
davefoc said:
.... If you mean that an invisible, undetectable patch was not seen and not detected then ...

But my question really went to whether this was the principal argument for the shroudies that the C14 results were incorrect. It seems like the contamination argument gave way to this argument when the contamination argument was discredited. And a related question: Do any pro-authenticity arguments ever die?
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When you investigate exactly what an invisible mend entails, you'll learn it is invisible from one side only.
The TS was separated from the Holland cloth backing in 2002 and extensively restored.
The idea of an invisible mend has been falsified.

2012 also saw the falsification of the contamination idea as well.

The words of Dr. Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, one of the world's leading textile experts on ancient textiles and the Shroud of Turin, and who specifically led the examination and restoration of the Shroud in 2002, are particularly illuminating on these questions. Following the Shroud's lengthy examination and restoration she stated:


I would like to add here a note on the hypothetical reweaving done in the 16 century. There is no doubt that the Shroud does not contain any reweaving. The fabric is scattered with irregularities which are the result of faults made during the weaving process, and which could be mistaken for reweaving. But they are normal for fabrics of the early periods. Such irregularities are actually proof that a fabric has been woven on a hand-loom which points to an early date of origin of the fabric. Reweaving in the literal sense does not exist. Once the piece of fabric is taken off the loom the weaving process is finished. Aterwards one can only alter a fabric by using needle and thread. An example would be a hole which has been mended by imitating its weave structure. This process will always be recognizable as mending and in any case visible on the reverse of the fabric.

Professor Giuseppe Ghiberti, the Vatican Scientific Advisor for the Shroud and a participant at the 2002 examination and restoration also state's :

The truth is that there is no patch and no darn. During the last analysis made in 2002, when we carried out restoration and cleaning operations, Dr. Mechthild Flury-Lemberg (the leading world scholar on ancient textiles) examined the Shroud very carefully and concluded that there are no added threads. Beyond any doubt, there is no textile patch or darn in this linen. After 500 years, the (Holland) backcloth was completely removed and we were able to see the backside: there is no darn at all.

Moreover, you apply a patch or a darn where there is a hole, while the samples had been removed in a corner area with no scorched holes and no medieval darns. I am astonished that a scholar such as Rogers has written so many inaccuracies in his article.
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Really, in light of the evidence, I don't think it's farfetched to claim the Shroudies resemble Bigfoot enthusiasts more than pious believers.
 
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pakeha said:
...


Really, in light of the evidence, I don't think it's farfetched to claim the Shroudies resemble Bigfoot enthusiasts more than pious believers.
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I think this is true not only for bigfoot advocates, but also true of the microcultures that develop around many of these far out theories including the truther and birther groups.

One of the things that struck me about some of the shroudie literature I read through was the close correlation between the nature of the shroudie arguments and other the arguments of other groups characterized by an extreme unwillingness to acknowledge evidence that counteracts deeply held views.

Confirmation bias is a powerful force for all human belief structures but something seems to happen in these groups where confirmation bias just spirals out of control. The process initially seems to be driven by other biases including a strong desire to be the teller and holder of unique esoteric knowledge and group bias where the individuals come to strongly identify with their fellow believers. But eventually belief becomes absolute like a one way door latched in one position forever.

I don't understand what is going on here, but I came to notice the phenomena initially during the OJ Simpson trial. There was overwhelming evidence of Simpson's guilt and yet a whole little microculture developed populated with people that had a deep esoteric knowledge of the case and a variety of wildly implausible theories that ostensibly proved Simpson's innocence.
 
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davefoc said:
I think this is true not only for bigfoot advocates, but also true of the microcultures that develop around many of these far out theories including the truther and birther groups.

One of the things that struck me about some of the shroudie literature I read through was the close correlation between the nature of the shroudie arguments and other the arguments of other groups characterized by an extreme unwillingness to acknowledge evidence that counteracts deeply held views.

Confirmation bias is a powerful force for all human belief structures but something seems to happen in these groups where confirmation bias just spirals out of control. The process initially seems to be driven by other biases including a strong desire to be the teller and holder of unique esoteric knowledge and group bias where the individuals come to strongly identify with their fellow believers. But eventually belief becomes absolute like a one way door latched in one position forever.

I don't understand what is going on here, but I came to notice the phenomena initially during the OJ Simpson trial. There was overwhelming evidence of Simpson's guilt and yet a whole little microculture developed populated with people that had a deep esoteric knowledge of the case and a variety of wildly implausible theories that ostensibly proved Simpson's innocence.
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Yes. Clearly all of the above may be going on in the case of Jabba's belief in the shroud (assuming of course that he really believes what he says, and is not just arguing for the sake of it).

At risk of repetition - it seems to me that we are dealing here not so much with the shroud itself, but more specifically with Jabba's religious beliefs which persuade him to defend articles such as the shroud at all costs, inc. the cost of being blind to the difference between genuine scientific studies vs. religious propaganda of the sort which fills the internet on shroud websites.

Is that “confirmation bias”? It seems to be a type of behaviour very common amongst theists who visit forums like this (eg also evident on the old Richard Dawkins forum and on Rational Scepticism). That is - they treat religious claims and scientific discoveries as equally likely, and as if scientific explanations were only a 50/50 matter of choice or personal opinion, and no more valid than the religious claims which fill Christian websites and certain religious books.

It's most obvious amongst creationists who deny evolution, where their arguments often end up in claims that because science can't absolutely prove all aspects of evolution, it should be taken as equally likely that creationist answers are true instead.

In Jabba's case he regards the claims made on shroud websites as equally likely and of equal validity to any independent scientific studies. On that basis he concludes, as he has actually said here several times, that the overwhelming volume of evidence is on the side of shroud authenticity, because shroud websites have posted 1000x as much verbiage about the shroud as has ever appeared in any genuine scientific studies.

Religious belief is obviously a driving force behind that behaviour. But perhaps too a significant factor is scientific ignorance and the belief that science is no more valid than anyone’s personal uniformed opinion.
 
IanS said:
Rather convenient that the claimed patch is "invisible"!

In that case it seems science and everyone else is wasting it’s time, because everything ever known in the universe might just as easily be claimed to be entirely wrong due to invisible evidence of the contrary.

However, the Vatican's own scientific advisor and their textile expert examined the shroud for over a month, for the first in time in 500 years with the backing cloth removed, and they have repeatedly said that they are quite sure there was no such "invisible" patch and that they were amazed that Rogers could have made such a badly mistaken claim ... afaik, neither Ray Rogers nor Benford & Marino (who wrote the book which gave Rogers the idea of an “invisible” patch) have ever even seen the shroud since the C14 sample was cut (if they ever saw it at all).
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None of them were present for the sampling in April 1988.
 
Some things that are clear from this thread:

Jabba, despite months of prevarication, has no evidence to offer.

The authenticity of the shroud is pure bunk having been disproven by the C14 analysis.

The authenticity of the shroud is entirely irrelevant to any faith, and nobody can tell why bleevers glom onto it as in any way important to their faith.

Can this thread die now? Pleez?
 
davefoc said:
I have a few thoughts both about Jabba and the responses to him. First, for me, the responses to him have been unnecessarily antagonistic.
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I disagree. The patient and kind approach was initially attempted, but failed. Go back to the beginning, people actually treated Jabba as someone who was interested in constructive discussion. He came in boasting about how he was highly educated on the subject, and even maintained a webpage dedicated to shroud authenticity. However, after months and months of attempts to engage him, people got frustrated. The nice approach failed, it became necessary to change tactics. In the end, people got tired of banging their head on the wall, and started taking it out on him, since he was causing them to do it.

In the end, none of this is really necessary, of course, but given that rational attempts were failing, something needed to change.
 
pgwenthold said:
I disagree. The patient and kind approach was initially attempted, but failed. Go back to the beginning, people actually treated Jabba as someone who was interested in constructive discussion. He came in boasting about how he was highly educated on the subject, and even maintained a webpage dedicated to shroud authenticity. However, after months and months of attempts to engage him, people got frustrated. The nice approach failed, it became necessary to change tactics. In the end, people got tired of banging their head on the wall, and started taking it out on him, since he was causing them to do it.

In the end, none of this is really necessary, of course, but given that rational attempts were failing, something needed to change.
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Jabba could make Jesus swear. :D
 
abaddon said:
...
The authenticity of the shroud is entirely irrelevant to any faith, and nobody can tell why bleevers glom onto it as in any way important to their faith. ...
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I can.
Check out the cottage industries spawned by relics.
In fact, this was apparently the reason the Pope ordered those limits on the exposition of the TS.
All of this has been gone over earlier in this very thread.

From what I could observe at Bruges, where the relic of the Holy Blood is exhibited three times a day in the Basilica, the steady flow of cash generated by offerings plus the sale of trinkets is considerable.
 
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