[orionblamblam]

> Are you claiming not to be an atheist?

I am not an atheist.

> Then you're either a liar

Yawn. Coming from you...

> The rest is mostly ad homs.

What, you mean this: "As I have repeatedly pointed out... there's a boatload of weird things in this world. But given time and effort, they all, so far, reduce to the purely mundane. Why should I suddenly accept that *this* is an exception? "

Please answer that.

[A.J.Armitage]

What kind of God can't do a miracle now and then? One that doesn't exist. A person who rules out even the possibility of miracles while not being a full-on atheist is simply an example of the refusal to think clearly.

[shroudie]

Orionblamblams, you state that there haven't been any miracles. You suggest that this is so because none have been documented adequately. This is, of course, your opinion. Plenty of people do believe that miracles are adequately documented. Would you be so kind as to share with us by what criteria you can make such a bold statement.

You and many of the Jesus Seminar folks seem to share a profound faith that miracles do not happen. I recognize that this is an ad hominem statement. What else, however, can I think as you refuse to present a logical case. Their arguments have been that the enlightenment experience has shown that many things once thought miraculous have been shown to have quite natural explanations. But such Newtonian based thinking is shown to be bankrupt by new discoveries in quantum theory, chaos, non-locality and anthropic bias reasoning.

You have a very skewed sense of logic as demonstrated by your unwavering defense of the carbon 14 test validity. Imagine if you will that, in a murder trail, an expert testifies that a gun was used in the murder. But later, it was shown that the forensic evidence was flawed. New evidence makes it clear that no one can know if the gun was used or not. Using your logic we must consider that the gun was used unless it can be proven that the gun was not used.

We know, definatively, that what was tested by radiocarbon dating was not a representative sample of the Shroud. The tests cannot be considered valid. They have been completely discredited. You wish us to trust unrealiable tests in the absence of other tests to the contrary. Are you for real? Shall we hang the poor guy because we don't know know if the gun was used in a murder?

You are clearly out in left field.