Posted on 10/05/2009 11:22:44 AM PDT by Gamecock
An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake. The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ. "We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday. A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Yes to God alone. Attempting to apply to any thing other than God, the unique reverence, respect, honour etc. due to God alone is idolatry. The Pagans you cite are committing idolatry.
Is not FAITH the only real evidence of God's existence? ...of Christ's existence?
Christ's existence was not known to the Apostles and their contemporaries by faith ... He was truly incarnate: He walked, talked, breathed, ate, slept, woke, worked, performed signs among them. His life, ministry, death, and resurrection was and is a matter of objective, physical reality. We know about it by eyewitness testimony. That is the evidence of Christ's existence. As for the existence of spiritual God ... there's plenty of material and philosophical evidence to suggest that He exists. See St. Thomas Aquinas' famous "five proofs for the existence of God" ... I think they fall a bit short of positive proof, but certainly suggest that belief in God is not unreasonable. That Jesus of Nazareth was and is God ... that's a matter of revealed knowledge ... of faith.
For that possibility alone, he has been reviled and insulted.
Nonsense. He was reviled for doing bad science.
. All of these relics are mere distractions from what is true and real.
Says you. Others find them to be useful reminders of what is true and real. As I told the other fellow: If you find them bothersome, avoid them.
God is. Christ is the corporeal presence of God as he is the Son of God and the Holy Ghost.
That looks a whole lot like a heresy called "modalism". We Christians believe that God exists in three distinct Divine Persons, revealed to us as The Father and The Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son, Who exists eternally as do the Father and the Holy Spirit, took on human nature and became incarnate. By doing so, He became the "image of the invisible God", as St. Paul reminded the Colossians. The Father sent His Son as the perfect icon of God ... any mere material icon is a reminder of the reality of the incarnation ... a reality unknown to the Jews of Moses' time (obviously). It is a reminder that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us". It is a reminder that "God so loved the world that He sent His only Son ..." Some folks seem to me to be very uncomfortable with the earthy, material, physical reality of the incarnation. I don't know why.
A question you yourself should consider answering.
It’s not a rebuke. Both are “yes and more than that” not “no, not at all.”
The underlying Greek is clear. He’s not rebuking the woman. He’s endorsing her honoring of his mother because of him. He says, “Yes, and the reason for blessing my mother is because she, like you should, hears and keeps the word of God.”
To Thomas, he’s not rebuking. He’s acknowledging the basis of Thomas’s belief. There’s NOTHING wrong with believing based on empirical evidence. NONE OF THE OTHER APOSTLES BELIEVED WITHOUT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. They believed only when they saw him. They disbelieved the women, based on the women’s words. They believed when they saw.
Thomas disbelieved when all he had was testimony of his fellow apostles. He did not fully believe when he saw. He needed touch as well. (Of course, it’s possible the other apostles also touched but that isn’t recorded? But he told Mary not to touch? But not because she needed to touch in order to believe—she clearly believed. So we just don’t know; “touch” probably means “hold on, cling.”)
Jesus does NOT rebuke Thomas. He merely points out that Thomas’s touching is VERY, VERY, VERY important and good because in the future, generations will not be able to see or touch and the link we have with Jesus’ resurrection is via the testimony of those who touched and saw.
You’ve turned this passage on its head (and the other one as well.)
No, according to your own personal interpretation of the Bible.
You of course are welcome to it, but fat lot of good it's going to do anyone else.
Better get rid of your camera. And all your photographs. And all your books with illustrations. And all those funny green pieces of paper in your wallet.
Newspapers? Magazines? Portraits?
Trash 'em.
Ditch your computer, while you're at it.
All those graven images are giving offense.
No smiley. This is not a joke.
Ah! The ‘James Randi’ Theory of Scientific Debunking = If I, as a legendary magician, can duplicate any kind of paranormal or religious belief using my magician’s talents, then it is obvious that said paranormal or religious belief is demonstrably false. Because I said it is.
I have no dog in the fight. I don’t really care one way or the other whether the shroud is legit or not. But anyone with an IQ greater than their hat size who has done any amount of research or reading on the actual science and factual evidence surrounding the shroud would be pretty hard pressed to not have some belief that it may surely be authentic.
But then, read my tagline. Russell said it better than I can.
Seems there are many on this thread whose IQ’s will never grow to reach their hat size. And for some unknown reason, they keep wanting to open their mouths to prove to the world how encyclopedic their ignorance is.
I presume that's full time, skilled, professional labour.
I know what my time costs for a year and a half ...
“It was pronounced a fraud in 1389 by Bishop Pierre D’Arcis, who claimed to have talked to the man who painted it.”
I guess this Bishop was lying.
That would be a poor guess.
A lie is an intentional falsehood. What evidence do you have that the Bishop knew he was speaking a falsehood?
I did not “decide the intent.” The intent was clear...and it you were in the least bit intellectually honest you would admit it...but then judging from your previous posts, there is little chance of that.
Uhhh ... Jesus Christ is GOD!!! You know ... "second" Person of the Holy Trinity? Through whom all things came to be?
If(!) the shroud is really His burial cloth ... then it exists because He wants it to exist. He made it that way ... nobody else did. If He had wanted it to vanish ... it would have vanished.
Scripture records that His burial cloths were still in the tomb ... and even records the manner in which they were left.
I don't think that's something to take lightly.
Indeed, as in Vespasian's retort to Titus when his son criticized him for taxing public urinals (Suetonius, The Deified Vespasian 23.3).
One can intend to revere without intending to worship. You are not in a position to know that of anyone but yourself or those who declare their intent.
...if you were in the least bit intellectually honest you would admit it...
Right. So whoever disagrees with you is a liar.
LOL
But what's really at stake here is disagreeing with your own personal interpretation of the Bible.
So what?
Yeah, so??
I’ve argued at length that the reason the Gospel mentions them is that they were known to be in Christian custody when the Gospel of John was written.
I take the Incarnation seriously. So, he is crucified and buried. The burial cloth is part of burial. When he rose, do you expect he would deliberated, “do I take that stuff there with me”? To where?
I never said it’s trivial. I just said the idea that Jesus is deliberating within himself about what to do with the cloths is beside the point. The are witnesses to his burial and the Church understood that and took them and kept them as relics.
So where does the idea that Jesus hesitated and thought that he might wave his wand and poof!! they’re gone?
Unless people think that there’s something illicit about tangible evidence, heirlooms etc.? The concern over “why would Jesus leave these behind” arises out of some kind of antipathy to tangibility, out of the idea that faith should have nothing to do with the physical and tangible and visible—that also lies behind the attempt to make Jesus’ loving encouragement of Thomas into a rebuke. It comes from an almost Gnostic idea of faith as somehow superior to and independent of tangibility.
But this is an Incarnate God we are talking about. We should be rejoicing in the tangibility, not fearing it as a crutch.
Irrelevant.
Your words:
Unfortunately the question of worship is secondary. It is the graven image itself that gives offense.
"It is the graven image itself that gives offense."
In my wallet, right now, are graven images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, and Andrew Jackson. I think it goes without saying that I value the image of AJ much more than the image of GW ... and vastly more than the metallic image of Franklin Roosevelt in my pocket.
Now, you tell me that these graven images themselves give offense to God.
I say, stuff and nonsense.
At least I'm consistent.
Yeah, they’re not cheap. One per shul.
Anyway, to get back to the thread, I’ve seen (apparently) Sifrei Torah intentionally damaged/degraded to be sold off as “Shoa” (Holocaust) damaged torah or ancient torah.
Faking religious items is big business; not limited to Christiandom.
"4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.or you choose the version in Deuteronomy 5: 8+9 (NRSV)
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
"8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.The commandments are the same. The idol is offensive with or without the worship.
9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,"
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