Imagine that there really is a supreme being
UPDATE: See An Email from David Rolfe to the Shroud Science Group
This silly letter, along with an appeal to subscribe to Free Inquiry magazine, has been received by at least one university library, a seminary and the residents of a retirement/nursing home. The seminary library already has a subscription to the popular Atheist magazine.
RICHARD DAWKINS, FRS
OXFORD, U.K.Dear Friend,
Just for a moment, imagine that there really is a supreme being who created all things, including the human race. Would he (or she or it) give you such a highly developed brain and then punish you for using it?
Would the most advanced life-form in the universe devise such grand concepts as DNA, nuclear fusion, and quantum mechanics and then spend all eternity fussing about whether you regularly sing to him, vote against gay marriage, or accept on faith that Earth is only 6,000 years old when there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary?
Frankly, I don’t believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful creator. But even if I did, I’m certain he would want us to think for ourselves and eschew such claptrap.
He would be committed to the application of reason and encourage scientific discovery and the cultivation of moral excellence. He would want us to be more concerned about living a valuable life than enforcing arbitrary rules to avoid a vindictive punishment in an afterlife.
And in my opinion, he would undoubtedly want you to read FREE INQUIRY. Why? Because let’s face it … a guy that smart wouldn’t want to spend eternity with anyone dull enough to blindly believe in him!
So maybe, just maybe, FREE INQUIRY is your ticket to salvation. If not spiritual salvation in a mythical afterlife, then certainly intellectual salvation in this life.
Sincerely,
Richard Dawkins
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Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
Is there a hint of desperation in this? Maybe all is not well in atheist land.
Only if you believe in pre-programmed desperation brought to you by your church Mr. John Klotz