The Recovering Hopper writes in a blog posting, Two Very Different Sides:
At lunch I read a chapter where Heller describes how things just seemed to come together for the ad hoc group of scientists: STURP is declared a non-profit agency in record time, donations fly in just as needed, a wild stock tip supplies hotel fare, an old lady volunteers to hand-weave an imitation shroud for a trial run. As I’m reading all these I suddenly spoke out loud: “It’s a secular miracle!” and then I burst out in laughter.
Good article. It includes some discussion of Heller’s book and Ian Wilson’s two books.
I am not one to see the hand of God in everything that happens. On the other hand, at time there are events that are “providential.” You have to wonder, if not be amazed.
I believe that it’s pretty well established that the Shroud is authentic and has been with us (humanity) for a 18 years short of two millennia. It was not until the advancement of science in the twentieth century that we have been able to understand what it truly represents.
Is it just an accident, errant circumstance, that through science we are now getting a much better understanding of what the passion and crucifixion really meant. It just happenstance that science demonstrates that the image on the Shroud was created within forty-eight hours of the death of the man in the Shroud and that it was somehow separated from the body at that time.
Brothers and sisters a modest proposal: Through scientific study of the Shroud, a new Revelation is occurring before our very eyes. It’s not the end of the World, it’s the beginning. I expect by the way that most of us will still be around on December 22, 2012 :).
If the Shroud had really been formed by supernatural processes, imprinting an image at the instant of Resurrection of the crucified, then why would the same miraculous intervention from on high have allowed an “entirely erroneous” C-14 dating some 20 centuries later?
Any answer that uses the words “to test our faith” will be greeted with a wry smile…
The same question could be asked of many things. Why would God send His Son to die on the cross, to be abused and tortured? Why not come down to the earth, ripping and roaring and set a shining being on a golden throne?
Unfortunately, your question is really not a about the shroud. You are impugning faith, which does not belong on this forum. It exposes your motive, which is not scientific but philosophical.
That being said, the answer to your question can be found in nature. God is an non-finite being. His creation is finite. It has bounderies and time. A sun flower may begin as a seed. A stem grows, a bulb forms, then a flower opens recreating the seed. In the divine realm, there is no time. There is only absolute, there is only “flower”, no seeds or stems or bulbs.
Evolution and physical processes are aspects of creation. Pain and suffering are simply human language descriptions of processes that all things in the universe go through, rocks and erosion, humans and broken hearts. It’s evolution, trial and error, a universe perfecting itself, moving towards its destiny ingrained within the photons that make up its building blocks.
How does this relate to the shroud? As with Jesus, the Creator, the Mind behind Nature, expresses his creation as a process. What we see as flawed scientific experiments and imperfect impericalism is nothing more than the natural progression of the universe, evolution changing reality over time. God allows it as he allows any imperfection, because in the flaws we discover that perfection in possible and there exists a path that leads to it.
Sciencebod is making the shroud question a matter of theology. The creator of this site has gone to great lengths to accentuate the real science behind shroud (versus campy experiments that mock authentic research). That being said, faith is bound up in the subject matter. Faith in God, faith in Christ as communicated to us through sacred scripture and the tradition of the early church. The message of the cross is truly foolishness to those who are commited to another path. We should be honest about this. If this image was of Abraham Lincoln, we would be mystified, but millions of dollars, hours of research and philosophical debate wouldn’t be aimed at it.
This debate is no longer about an old piece of linen with a familiar image mysteriously imprented upon it. Sciencebod, and those like him, have perverted it into a stage for tired attacks on faith. Remember this as sciencebod continues to troll this site, as the dialogue rambles on, back and forth, smug comment after snarky comment, ending up at the point from which we began, with nothing really new brought into the discussion. His true colors bleed through his last comment and are unmistakable. This about arrogance and bigotry, not science.
Well, I could ask you to define what you mean by the term “troll”, and then suggest that it is perhaps you who is the troll, not I.
But I shan’t,and for one simple reason. In some 10 years of visiting and contributing to internet forums I have learned one simple fact of life – namely that those who bandy around the term “troll” or “trolling” are invariably single-issue fanatics who adopt sites as their own, who attack and exclude those whom they see as heretics to their own political or religious persuasion.
There is nothing in the title that says this site is primarily about religious faith, far less some sectarian group within the ambit of faith, nor is there anything ostensibly religious in Dan Porter’s sidebar. In fact it is remarkably even-handed for someone who is clearly a devout but non-dogmatic Christian.
I won’t allow comments such as yours to drive me off this or any other site that invites comments from all and sundry. But I shall severely ration or curtail my contributions, for the simple reason that every word that is written here can become tomorrow’s Google listing, and I have no desire to be labelled with your bigoted name-calling.
As a nominal and totally futile mark of protest, i shall now absent myself from this site for a week, possibly more, and would respectfully ask Dan not to make me or my comments, here or elsewhere, the subject of further new postings (while delighted and honoured to have received his attention prior to today).
The direct answer to the question from “sciencebod” (surely an inapt choice for his misnomer) is “So that God would expose the arrogance of those carrying out the C14 test, by showing them to be incompetent in fundamental sampling principles”. Sure, the gullible will believe anything, but the skeptic believes nothing, a poor starting point for any honest enquiry. The wise ask questions and hope for an answer. As another wise man expressed it: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” Hamlet I:5