“1. In RC, the Bible (a) isn’t read much and, if it is, (b) takes second or third place, behind words from men.”
Actually, we wrote the New Testament. And we know the Bible better than you do.
“2. All of the shroud stuff: More fantasy. Probably started as a revenue-generating scheme.”
Except there’s no evidence it’s a fantasy. It exists. It’s pretty darn hard to explain away. Just the evidence about the coins alone is hard to explain away: https://aleteia.org/2017/04/26/shroud-of-turin-coins-may-finally-have-been-identified/
That’s interesting, and something I hadn’t seen before.
“Just the evidence about the coins alone is hard to explain away”
The sticking point for me is that it’s an image that would not emerge for centuries and centuries, until the advent of photography.
Everything that people have given as “reasons” that it is a forgery is easily—easily—disproved, especially the fantasies that it can be reproduced and that testing of a medieval patch dates the shroud itself.
Vlad ol’ boy! How ya been?