Lucian
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Objection! Your honor, is the esteemed counsel for the defense kidding?
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Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud
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Objection! Your honor, is the esteemed counsel for the defense kidding?
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
Not quite. As I understand it, the argument is that the Sudarium was put over the head while the crucified was still on the cross. After he died and was taken down, the Sudarium was removed, and the body was then wrapped in the Shroud and placed in the tomb. The Sudarium was also placed in the tomb in accordance with Jewish custom (i.e., all blood must be buried with the body.) So it's conceivable that both cloths (were they authentic) would have images of the face.
However, the carbon date still proves the Shroud to be a forgery beyond any reasonable doubt.
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Jabba
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Akri,
- I tried to explain that back in 5870:
- At the time of my original comment, I assumed that there must be at least one somewhat subjective decision to be made by the researchers after the protocols. (There is lots of room for subjectivity in determining the protocols, but I don't think that blinding can be applied when selecting protocols.)
- I assumed this (above the parentheses) because, 1) The scientists selecting the protocols had included Blinding; 2) Subjectivity has a way of sneaking into apparently objective procedures (for instance, the care given to the surrounding statistics can reflect bias); 3) I did expect the scientists involved to lean significantly towards the skeptical side; 4) Human drives and consequent behaviors tend to be significantly subconscious (there's no need for conspiracy in such things -- we humans naturally lean towards one side or another, and our lean has a big effect upon our subsequent behavior); and, 5) Gove apparently got STURP excluded from the research because he believed them to be biased.
- I'm still working on Ian's questions about my explanation.
--- Jabba
Assumptions are not enough to make doubt reasonable. You need actual evidence.
Within limits, perhaps, but not to the point where it can affect the results.
This has nothing to do with subjectivity. They proposed one set of protocols, and then changed them because that set was infeasible. That's not subjectivity.
Unless you have evidence that subjectivity was involved in the Shroud testing this is not grounds for reasonable doubt.
That isn't evidence that subjectivity affected the testing, and is not grounds for reasonable doubt.
That isn't evidence that subjectivity affected the testing, and is not grounds for reasonable doubt.
Do you trust Gove's judgement here? If so, why do you not also trust his judgement that the scientists running the tests were not biased, and that the results were correct?
Belz...
Fiend God
At this point you're just lying, Jabba. All this has been explained to you thoroughly, and you simply refuse to accept it.
The Norseman
Meandering fecklessly
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Two of the labs were blinded, just like you want, even though there's no scientific reason for it. Why are you still pretending there's any bias against a first century date? Many of the scientists wanted it to be from the first century but were disappointed that it wasn't. Are they lying, Jabba?
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
I haven't seen evidence that you are capable of being reasonable about the shroud.
Posts like the above are compelling evidence that you are decidedly unreasonable about it.
You're dogmatic about the shroud, and your numerous attempts to sugar-coat that fact are appalling examples of reason.
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Do you actually understand what "reasonable doubt" means?
Oh! Oh! I know the answer to this question!
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Do you think you have acquitted yourself with this almost unreadable whatever?
Did you read posts 6002 and 6006, let alone the rest of this thread? Did you look at the Nature paper itself? Do you understand that two of the labs did blind the samples so that no one involved in performing the actual carbon dating knew which gasified sample was which? Where would the opportunity for subjectivity come in?
Your doubt is embarrassingly irrational and born of desperation.
This is just like your theory that there had to be a patch of some kind, invisible but maybe not, or patching, but not with material from the shroud, or perhaps from the shroud but somehow having a different date... You are simply denying the obvious facts.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
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The Norseman
Meandering fecklessly
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I "shouted" it so loudly that the Voyager II spacecraft told me to knock it off.
I'm starting to think that small tufts of lint off of the True Shroud™ are being used as earplugs.
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
If I'm ever arrested for a crime that I definitely committed, I want the jury to have the same understanding of 'reasonable doubt' that Jabba has. Freedom!
catsmate
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And of course that wouldn't effect the other evidence showing the shroud is a fake.
So no, you don't understand the concept of 'reasonable doubt' you're just using the buzzword as part of your attempt to avoid an uncomfortable reality.
Gove, and other scientists, wanted STURP removed from the process of planning the testing because they were widely considered not just biased but obstructive. This was agreed by Cardinal Ballestrero.
Would this be a good time to point out why there were suggestions of blinding the radiocarbon dating process? It wasn't as Jabba and the shroudies have implied to eliminate bias on the part of the scientists performing the testing, it was because of the worry that elements within the church would attempt to distort, skew or fake the tests.
There was a feeling within the scientific community that the Vatican, STURP or others would substitute material known to be far older than the shroud during the sampling process. This was most publicly expressed by Denis Dutton in his letter to Nature in January 1987 where he pointed out that the church had a vested interest in "keeping alive at least the possibility that it is the actual burial cloth of Jesus" to support the "veritable industry [that] has been built up around the Shroud".
This worry led to Tite responding and the development of the procedure actually used.
I'm reminded of my first time on jury duty and a fascinating discussion we had over lunch about what exactly was a reasonable doubt.
You don't have 'reasonable' doubt, Jabba. Reasonable doubt is where you can point to a clear process by which all three laboratories, including the two which blinded the samples at the final stage, could have made the same dating error. Reasonable doubt is where you can point to an actual flaw in the process of sampling, processing or reporting of results. Reasonable doubt is where the alternative theory is actually tenable without resorting to magic.
What you have is unreasonable doubt, fostered by your intense desire to have the shroud be the real burial cloth of Jesus. This unreasonable doubt is what drives the insinuations of unconscious bias having some kind of magical effect on objective machinery, a magical effect that even affects blind samples. Unreasonable doubt is where you ignore pieces of evidence which don't fit in with your preferred outcome. It's not scientific or rational, it's allowing your emotions to override your judgement. Laid out like that, can you see that your position is not one of reasonable doubt but of unreasonable doubt?
Nobody in this thread is trying to get you to abandon your faith (if you were to discuss your doubts about faith in another thread, that might be different). But faith in Jesus or God should not be affected by whether a piece of cloth is from the 1st or the 14th century, because nothing about the dating of the shroud has any bearing on whether Jesus existed or whether gods are real or imaginary. The evidence is what matters, and the evidence is that the shroud is from the 14th century.
The men of the Vatican don't allow the fact that the shroud is mediaeval to damage their faiths in their God, because rightly they understand that a piece of cloth doesn't have that power. Neither do most Christians because their faith is in Jesus and God, not a piece of cloth.
You've invested this piece of cloth with magical properties in the way it affects your faith. It's almost as if you have turned the shroud itself into a god. It isn't, it's just a piece of cloth which like hundreds of other religious objects has developed a raft of myths and superstitions around it. Just like all those fragments of the 'true cross' which, if put together would be enough to construct several hundred crosses and none of which came from an actual 1st century cross, let alone the actual cross on which Jesus was supposedly crucified.
I don't profess to fully understand the thinking which goes into the way you think about the shroud, but I would like you to consider this analogy about a hockey puck.
On my mantelpiece, I have an ice hockey puck which was used in a UK Challenge Cup final in 2002, being the last time the cup was won by the Sheffield Steelers (the team I support). I was at each leg of the final and have fantastic memories of the games.
If I one day discovered that the puck had been switched so that it's just an ordinary puck and not one used in that particular final, I wouldn't stop supporting the Sheffield Steelers, and I wouldn't feel that their victory had been tainted. I'd probably still keep the puck on the mantelpiece, because it's a reminder of the game, it's not the game itself or a substitute for my support for the team.
Just like that hockey puck, the only thing the shroud should be is a reminder of your faith just as any religiously-inspired painting, statue, piece of architecture or even piece of music. It can be that reminder of your faith no matter when it was produced, because it isn't the faith itself.
What you have is unreasonable doubt, fostered by your intense desire to have the shroud be the real burial cloth of Jesus. This unreasonable doubt is what drives the insinuations of unconscious bias having some kind of magical effect on objective machinery, a magical effect that even affects blind samples. Unreasonable doubt is where you ignore pieces of evidence which don't fit in with your preferred outcome. It's not scientific or rational, it's allowing your emotions to override your judgement. Laid out like that, can you see that your position is not one of reasonable doubt but of unreasonable doubt?
Nobody in this thread is trying to get you to abandon your faith (if you were to discuss your doubts about faith in another thread, that might be different). But faith in Jesus or God should not be affected by whether a piece of cloth is from the 1st or the 14th century, because nothing about the dating of the shroud has any bearing on whether Jesus existed or whether gods are real or imaginary. The evidence is what matters, and the evidence is that the shroud is from the 14th century.
The men of the Vatican don't allow the fact that the shroud is mediaeval to damage their faiths in their God, because rightly they understand that a piece of cloth doesn't have that power. Neither do most Christians because their faith is in Jesus and God, not a piece of cloth.
You've invested this piece of cloth with magical properties in the way it affects your faith. It's almost as if you have turned the shroud itself into a god. It isn't, it's just a piece of cloth which like hundreds of other religious objects has developed a raft of myths and superstitions around it. Just like all those fragments of the 'true cross' which, if put together would be enough to construct several hundred crosses and none of which came from an actual 1st century cross, let alone the actual cross on which Jesus was supposedly crucified.
I don't profess to fully understand the thinking which goes into the way you think about the shroud, but I would like you to consider this analogy about a hockey puck.
On my mantelpiece, I have an ice hockey puck which was used in a UK Challenge Cup final in 2002, being the last time the cup was won by the Sheffield Steelers (the team I support). I was at each leg of the final and have fantastic memories of the games.
If I one day discovered that the puck had been switched so that it's just an ordinary puck and not one used in that particular final, I wouldn't stop supporting the Sheffield Steelers, and I wouldn't feel that their victory had been tainted. I'd probably still keep the puck on the mantelpiece, because it's a reminder of the game, it's not the game itself or a substitute for my support for the team.
Just like that hockey puck, the only thing the shroud should be is a reminder of your faith just as any religiously-inspired painting, statue, piece of architecture or even piece of music. It can be that reminder of your faith no matter when it was produced, because it isn't the faith itself.
Jabba
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Ian,
- From my readings, I get Hall, Evin, Otlet, Adler and maybe Meacham advocating for blind testing. I accept that Hall desired the blinding in order to satisfy the public (rather than science) -- but as far as I can tell, the only participant with religious connections was Adler, who was Jewish. That isn't to say that these, or other participants pressing for blindness, didn't have significant religious interests -- but so far, I have no reason to think that they did (except that the guys mentioned sat next to each other at the table).
- I suspect that you have info that I do not yet have (or, have not yet recognized)...
- Thanks.
--- Jabba
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
Well said, Agatha.
Jabba - the problem with you talking about reasonable doubt is that it leads you inescapably to the accustaion of deliberate fraud. Here’s why -
- if you think there is reasonable doubt about the accuracy of the dates reported by the three radiocarbon labs, then you are left having to explain how all three labs could possibly report the same date range of circa. 1260-1390.
That would appear to leave only two possibilities in respect of your reasonable doubt -
- either (A) all three labs correctly measured the date to be in the range c.1260-1390AD. In which case your reasonable doubt was unfounded.
- or else (B) all three labs conspired to fraudulently report a dishonest date. In which case your reasonable doubt would be well founded.
Those appear to be the only two possibilities. Can you think of any other way that 3 different labs in the USA, Switzerland and England could all come up with the same entirely false date?
Either the date is truly what the labs measured, or else it is a fraud.
In other words, when you say you have a reasonable doubt like that, what it actually means is that you think it’s reasonable to say that “B” is true and the three labs conspired together to deliberately report a false date in order to claim that the shroud could not date from the time of Jesus.
Do you really think that is a reasonable doubt?
Christian Klippel
Master Poster
Plus, would have to have it done in a way that in turn will fool the British Museum Research Laboratory, which did the statistical analysis of the data. Or, that lab had to be in on it as well.
What Jabba fails to understand is that such an undertaking would not only risk one scientists reputation to be irreperably damaged if found out, but _all_ the involved scientists. That is, from the three dating labs plus the BMRL. Plus, of course, of those labs themselves for allowing such a big deception to occur in the first place.
Given the fact that this was a really high-profile case this is extremely unlikely. There were just too many eyes watching and observing, the outcome would in no way be enough to accept the risk.
Greetings,
Chris
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