Joe Marino writes:
So the basis for determining if Dan is a skeptic of the Shroud or not is NOT anything to do with examining the data but K.C.’s educated opinion? Gosh, what a great system!
A reader from the University of Massachusetts writes:
So KC admits that we don’t know if the TS is real or not. He says that your Christian ideology has introduced some bias into this discussion. He thinks you should alter your position from “probably real” to “don’t know” since the evidence is inconclusive. Given his admission that the evidence is inconclusive, is he willing to say that we don’t know if the the TS is real or not? I suspect not.
B&B writes:
When he writes, “Let us not fall into a fallacy of a false dilemma. The two choices here aren’t either the shroud is a fake or the shroud is proof of Jesus, there are many other possible answers to the shroud riddle,” he is committing a bigger fallacy, the half-truth fallacy. I don’t recall that you have ever said that the shroud is proof of anything. If anything you make the point that it is not.
Another reader notes:
So its false by default if not proven real? Smoking Skeptoidism! Talk about Fundamentalism of another kind!
And another reader writes:
He actually wrote, “You said that you too were once a skeptic of the shroud, and I don’t think that I truly believe you, otherwise you still would be.” Amazing arrogance. And so, like you, Jewish Barrie Schwortz who was once skeptical of the shroud could not have been or he still would be. So Jewish chemistry professor Al Adler who was once skeptical of the shroud could not have been or he still would be. So chemist and general all around skeptic Ray Rogers who was skeptical of the shroud could not have been or he still would be.
Note: It is “would have been” for Al Adler and Ray Rogers.
What struck me as most illogical, now that I’ve reread what KC wrote, is this statement:
If you can accept almost every other important scientific principle and discovery, why limit yourself to science that does not happen to contradict something that you presumably only believe because you happened to be raised in a Christian household? (bold his)
What science does he think contradicts something I believe as a Christian? And why does he think I “presumably only believe [such] because [I] happened to be raised in a Christian household?”