tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post4391795681572341649..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: The Shroud of TurinUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-40907121761169186662010-03-19T15:16:33.116-04:002010-03-19T15:16:33.116-04:00Haha. This one got the atheists in a tight spot. N...Haha. This one got the atheists in a tight spot. Now all they can do is bark "unfair" like they're doing here.<br />This thing and some other relics have given out the same sort of blood samples and now there is sufficient evidence that Jesus is the son of God.<br /><br />@Doppelganger<br />Where are ur facts now. What u said is untrue.lol.And u just showed how pissed off u are at finding the truth and forcing urself to deny it.<br /><br />@all<br />Don't flame in anger that all ur life as an atheist was a lie because i wont be returning to view the flaming.<br /><br />BTW, The Bible is a history book. Christians just use it as a reference. Since it is written by humans, it can have omissions and mistakes. The Bible itself says that u have to search for the truth yourself. Christians believe in Jesus as the son of God and as of yet there is no evidence to disprove it.<br /><br />Now u can flame:Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09683864446992366813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-74901142710947246522008-04-01T13:33:00.000-04:002008-04-01T13:33:00.000-04:00James,XX male syndrome produces an effeminate infe...James,<BR/><BR/>XX male syndrome produces an effeminate infertile male with shrivelled testes and abnormal penis development.<BR/><BR/>Is that how YOU want to think of your Lord and Savior?Doppelgangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07019994267093407424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-20185457705893528292008-01-17T10:08:00.000-05:002008-01-17T10:08:00.000-05:00James, thank you for your thoughtful response. I c...James, thank you for your thoughtful response. I cannot debate the physics involved since I know little about the subject compared to Tipler, or you it seems. But what should I do when I have very strong reasons for doubting the virgin birth story as told in the gospels?<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/11/christian-scholarship-led-me-to-reject.html" REL="nofollow">Look at the results of scholarship on the Nativity stories</A>.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/09/jesus-was-not-from-lineage-of-david.html" REL="nofollow">Jesus was not from the lineage of David</A>.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/05/does-new-testament-prophecy-point-to.html" REL="nofollow">Prophecy does not point to Jesus</A>.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/12/was-jesus-born-in-bethlehem.html" REL="nofollow">Jesus was not born in Bethlehem</A>.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html" REL="nofollow">The dating of the Nativity contradicts the evidence</A>.<BR/><BR/>And I have some serious doubt <A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/05/jl-mackies-argument-against-miracles.html" REL="nofollow">about miracles</A> as evidence.<BR/><BR/>I suspect smart people <A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/10/religious-condition-rough-draft-part-02.html" REL="nofollow">can defend dumb ideas</A>.<BR/><BR/>Am I supposed to believe or be damned if I can't debate Tipler's arguments? I can only know and believe what I can understand. Does that mean ignorant people on such issues will be damned? That would be completely unfair. I maintain the proliferation of geographical diversity means that people believe what they do based upon <A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/02/from-atheists-perspective.html" REL="nofollow">when and where they were born</A>, which means as smart as Tipler is he might be able to defend Buddhism if he were born in parts of Asia.<BR/><BR/>And the Christianity Tipler defends does NOT seem to accord with how most Christians have understood their faith as seen in the Biblical passages listed at the link you provided. Most Christians would argue against the implied understanding of them as listed:<BR/><BR/><I>Biblical Scripture which Gives Evidence of Tipler's Omega Point Theory<BR/><BR/>- We are gods: John 10:34 (Jesus is quoting Psalm 82:6).<BR/>- We are God and God is us: Matthew 25:31-46.<BR/>- We live inside of God: Acts 17:24-28.<BR/>- God is everything and inside of everything: Colossians 3:11; Jeremiah 23:24.<BR/>- We are members in the body of Christ: Romans 12:4,5; 1 Corinthians 6:15-19; 12:12-27; Ephesians 4:25.<BR/>- We are one in Christ: Galatians 3:28.<BR/>- God is all: Ephesians 1:23; 4:4-6.<BR/>- God is light: 1 John 1:5; John 8:12.<BR/>- We have existed before the foundation of the world: Matthew 25:34; Luke 1:70; 11:50; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9; Isaiah 40:21.<BR/>- Jesus has existed before the foundation of the world: John 17:24; Revelation 13:8.<BR/>- The reality of multiple worlds: Hebrews 1:1,2; 11:3.<BR/>- God is the son of man: Matthew 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; 11:19; 12:18; 12:32; 12:40; 13:37; 13:41; 16:13; 16:27,28; 17:9; 17:12; 17:22; 18:11; 19:28; 20:18; 20:28; 24:27; 24:30; 24:37; 24:39; 24:44; 25:13; 25:31; 26:2; 26:24; 26:45; 26:64. (This is just listing how many times Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man in the Gospel of Matthew, although He refers to Himself as this throughout the Gospels. It was the favorite phrase that He used to refer to Himself.)</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-89453276535190584322008-01-16T19:34:00.000-05:002008-01-16T19:34:00.000-05:00John W. Loftus, you misquote Prof. Frank J. Tipler...John W. Loftus, you misquote Prof. Frank J. Tipler with "is genuine." What Tipler wrote on pg. 187 of The Physics of Christianity (2007) is "The DNA data supporting a virgin birth also support the hypothesis that both the Turin Shroud and Oviedo Cloth are genuine."<BR/><BR/>Prof. Lawrence Krauss in his review of Prof. Frank J. Tipler's book The Physics of Christianity ("More dangerous than nonsense," New Scientist, Issue 2603, May 12, 2007 http://genesis1.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/Tiplerreview.pdf ) doesn't give anyone any reason for thinking he (Krauss) is correct. Instead Krauss merely makes imperious bare assertions that one is supposed to take on faith<BR/><BR/>Krauss gives no indication that he followed up on the endnotes in the book The Physics of Christianity and actually read Prof. Tipler's physics journal papers. All Krauss is going off of in said review is Tipler's mostly non-technical popular-audience book The Physics of Christianity without researching Tipler's technical papers. Krauss's review offers no actual lines of reasoning for Krauss's lording pronouncements. His readership is simply expected to swallow whole what Krauss proclaims, even though it's clear that Krauss is merely critiquing a popular-audience book which does not attempt to present the rigorous technical details. Krauss's bare assertions and absence of reasoning in his review have no place in actual science.<BR/><BR/>Whereas Tipler gives detailed arguments for the existence of the Omega Point and the Feynman-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything which refute Krauss's bare assertions. See F. J. Tipler, "The structure of the world from pure numbers," Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything," arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276<BR/><BR/>The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to invent tenuous physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking's paper on the black hole information issue which is dependant on the conjectured anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence). See S. W. Hawking, "Information loss in black holes," Physical Review D, Vol. 72, No. 8, 084013 (October 2005); also at arXiv:hep-th/0507171, July 18, 2005. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171<BR/><BR/>That is, Hawking's paper is based upon proposed, unconfirmed physics. It's an impressive testament to the Omega Point Theory's correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the black hole information issue must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he's forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.<BR/><BR/>Quite ironically, Krauss actually has published a paper that greatly helped to strengthen Tipler's Omega Point Theory. See Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner, "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 ), which demonstrates that no amount of cosmological observations can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.<BR/><BR/>This isn't the first time that has happened to critics of Tipler's Omega Point Theory. There was a previous paper published by Prof. George Ellis and Dr. David Coule criticizing Tipler's Omega Point Theory ("Life at the end of the universe?," General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 26, No. 7 [July 1994], pp. 731-739), but in the same paper Ellis and Coule gave an argument that the Bekenstein Bound violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics if the universe collapses without having event horizons eliminated. Unwittingly, Ellis and Coule thereby actually gave a powerful argument that the Omega Point is required by the laws of physics!<BR/><BR/>So when Tipler's critics actually do real physics instead of issuing bare assertions and mystically nebulous cavils (the latter in Ellis's case, since Ellis is a theist who thinks that physics cannot be capable of explaining human consciousness), they end up making Tipler's case stronger! I find that deliciously ironic. (Ironic though it is, it's the expected result, given that the Omega Point is required by the known laws of physics.)<BR/><BR/>So never say that God doesn't have a profoundly keen sense of humor.<BR/><BR/>Tim Callahan in his review "The Physics of Nonsense" (eSkeptic, August 1, 2007) disputes Tipler's theology contained in The Physics of Christianity. One of the world's leading theologians, Prof. Wolfhart Pannenberg, defends the theology of the Omega Point Theory (Omega Point Theory) in the below articles:<BR/><BR/>"Modern Cosmology: God and the Resurrection of the Dead," Innsbruck Conference, June 1997 http://www.geocities.com/theophysics/pannenberg-modern-cosmology.html<BR/><BR/>"God and resurrection--a reply to Sjoerd L. Bonting," Gamma, Vol. 10, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 10-14 http://www.geocities.com/theophysics/pannenberg-god-and-resurrection-reply-to-bonting.html<BR/><BR/>Callahan errs in claiming that Prof. Frank J. Tipler's writings on the Omega Point Theory are motivated by Christianity. Tipler has been an atheist since the age of 16, yet only circa 1998 did he again become a theist due to advancements in the Omega Point Theory which occured after the publication of his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality. And Tipler even mentions in said book (pg. 305) that he is still an atheist because he didn't at the time have confirmation for the Omega Point Theory. Yet Tipler's first paper on the Omega Point Theory was in 1986 ("Cosmological Limits on Computation," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 [June 1986], pp. 617-661).<BR/><BR/>What motivated Tipler's investigation as to how long life could go on was not religion--indeed, Tipler didn't even set out to find God--but Prof. Freeman J. Dyson's paper "Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe" (Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 3 [July 1979], pp. 447-460 http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt ).<BR/><BR/>Further, in a section entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" in The Physics of Immortality (pg. 310), Tipler wrote, "However, I emphasize again that I do not think Jesus really rose from the dead. I think his body rotted in some grave." This book was written before Tipler realized what the resurrection mechanism is that Jesus could have used without violating any known laws of physics (and without existing on an emulated level of implementation--in that case the resurrection mechanism would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the emulation).<BR/><BR/>So Callahan gets the motivational causation wrong. Tipler's present Christianity derives from following the known laws of physics. Christian theology is preferentially selected due to the fundamentally triune structure of the Omega Point cosmology and due to existence having come into being a finite time in the past, hence deselecting the other sometimes-triune religion of Hinduism.<BR/><BR/>Callahan accuses Tipler of using "straw man arguments to dismiss those who might disagree with him," i.e., "those nasty atheists" (Callahan's words). But such is not the case, as Tipler does not dismiss his colleagues. Tipler is merely pointing out the fact that many in the field of physics abandon physical law when it produces results they're uncomfortable with. He even gives a number of examples of this, of which two follow:<BR/><BR/>""<BR/>The most radical ideas are those that are perceived to support religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity. When I was a student at MIT in the late 1960s, I audited a course in cosmology from the physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg. He told his class that of the theories of cosmology, he preferred the Steady State Theory because "it *least* resembled the account in Genesis" (my emphasis). In his book *The First Three Minutes* (chapter 6), Weinberg explains his earlier rejection of the Big Bang Theory: "[O]ur mistake is not that we take our theories too seriously, but that we do not take them seriously enough. It is always hard to realize that these numbers and equations we play with at our desks have something to do with the real world. Even worse, there often seems to be a general agreement that certain phenomena are just not fit subjects for respectable theoretical and experimental effort."<BR/><BR/>... But as [Weinberg] himself points out in his book, the Big Bang Theory was an automatic consequence of standard thermodynamics, standard gravity theory, and standard nuclear physics. All of the basic physics one needs for the Big Bang Theory was well established in the 1930s, some two decades before the theory was worked out. Weinberg rejected this standard physics not because he didn't take the equations of physics seriously, but because he did not like the religious implications of the laws of physics. ...<BR/>""<BR/><BR/>And,<BR/><BR/>""<BR/>This past September, at a conference held at Windsor Castle, I asked the well-known cosmologist Paul Davies what he thought of my theory. He replied that he could find nothing wrong with it mathematically, but he asked what justified my assumption that the known laws of physics were correct. ...<BR/>""<BR/><BR/>For those and many more such examples, see Tipler, "Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?," Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design (PCID), Vols. 2.1 and 2.2 (January-June 2003). http://www.iscid.org/papers/Tipler_PeerReview_070103.pdf<BR/><BR/>Callahan suggests that the universe's current accelerating expansion seems to obviate the Omega Point. But as Profs. Lawrence Krauss and Michael Turner demonstrate in their aforesaid paper "Geometry and Destiny," cosmological observations cannot tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.<BR/><BR/>Callahan also calls the multiverse an "untested and highly theoretical concept." (Although note that the physics of the Omega Point itself are not dependant on a multiverse formulation.) As Tipler points out on pg. 95 of The Physics of Christianity, "if the other universes and the multiverse do not exist, then quantum mechanics is objectively false. This is not a question of physics. It is a question of mathematics. I give a mathematical proof of [this] in my earlier book [The Physics of Immortality, pp. 483-488] ..." As well, experiments confirming "nonlocality" are actually confirming the MWI: see Frank J. Tipler, "Does Quantum Nonlocality Exist? Bell's Theorem and the Many-Worlds Interpretation" (arXiv:quant-ph/0003146, March 30, 2000 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0003146 ). Regarding Callahan's theological dispute on this matter, see Hebrews 1:1,2; 11:3.<BR/><BR/>For much more information on Prof. Tipler's Omega Point Theory, see the below website:<BR/><BR/>Theophysics http://geocities.com/theophysics/James Redfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284915453745539533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-20920765498326858922007-08-02T03:10:00.000-04:002007-08-02T03:10:00.000-04:00I've always thought one embarrassing blow against ...I've always thought one embarrassing blow against the Shroud is this: <I>why isn't it mentioned in the Gospels?</I> If such a shroud had been placed around Jesus, and if a flash-frozen image of him had been imprinted upon it and left behind in his empty tomb, you would think that it not only would have been talked about, but Jesus's disciples would have run around town, waving the damn thing like a banner and shouting about it from the rooftops. That Christians try to defend this relic as authentic is interesting, since nothing like it is mentioned anywhere in the Bible whose word they presumably revere.Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17933545393470431585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-52062333664047686772007-07-12T04:53:00.000-04:002007-07-12T04:53:00.000-04:00Hi folks:have a look herehttp://www.antoniolombatt...Hi folks:<BR/><BR/>have a look here<BR/><BR/>http://www.antoniolombatti.it/B/Blog/08060EC5-02F4-4E80-B69E-DA919F09CFA4.html<BR/><BR/>and here<BR/><BR/>http://www.antoniolombatti.it/B/Blog/B68FF6FA-A0BC-4512-B3AA-23C16F04956A.html<BR/><BR/>Ciao from Italy,<BR/>AntonioAntonio Lombattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12428713286882644161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-24642334495393743952007-07-11T14:04:00.000-04:002007-07-11T14:04:00.000-04:00Nickell also has a new book out on holy relics (wh...Nickell also has a new book out on holy relics (which may be the reason for the interview). Considering that the weave (and style) of the shroud are inconsistent with 1st century Palestine, and the fact that the shroud was known to be a fraud since the Church investigated it in the 13th (?) century...well,I think Tippler needs to check his numbers. The more I hear of Tippler, the more of a crackpot he seems. I wonder how he gets his probability numbers (and population figures) - for some reason, I have suspicions that his numbers come from somewhere in the pants region, rear area.Badger3khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04008838430274720250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-4631849139443795712007-07-11T03:55:00.000-04:002007-07-11T03:55:00.000-04:00on the subject of Joe Nickell, the shroud and Jesu...on the subject of Joe Nickell, the shroud and Jesus,<BR/>here is an interveiw with him on <A HREF="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/?p=109" REL="nofollow">Point of inquiry</A> regarding his investigations of relics and artifacts of Jesus.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-79538625821131184492007-07-11T03:45:00.000-04:002007-07-11T03:45:00.000-04:00I'm interested in what you have to write about. I ...I'm interested in what you have to write about. I recently (two weeks ago) went to a lecture at Trinity Western University on the topic - he was a fan of that Raymonds guy or whatever, believing that science could "prove" it is genuine. I found it interesting that this lecturer was a Philosophy prof at the private U, with a specialty in, oh what did he call it, evidence. He, of course, didn't touch on any opposing views.<BR/><BR/>What do you think of the pseudo-scientific investigations by freemasons, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas (Second Messiah), who have postulated that the image is Jacques de Molay? Is this far fetched?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13898041274552539731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-63450758191128653562007-07-11T02:06:00.000-04:002007-07-11T02:06:00.000-04:00There's also Joe Nickells SkeptiseumJoe Nickell is...There's also Joe Nickells <A HREF="http://www.skeptiseum.org/" REL="nofollow">Skeptiseum</A><BR/>Joe Nickell is a professional paranormal investigator. He works for CSI. The shroud is on the front page.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-44159871675945333242007-07-11T01:11:00.000-04:002007-07-11T01:11:00.000-04:00There's some good info here Shroud of TurinThere's some good info here <A HREF="http://www.skepdic.com/shroud.html" REL="nofollow">Shroud of Turin</A>Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17521159978231797601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-19230342231740426682007-07-10T23:01:00.001-04:002007-07-10T23:01:00.001-04:00Apologists like Gary Habermas think the resurrecti...Apologists like Gary Habermas think the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of the facts that (a) the image on the shroud seems to be something like a scorch on the cloth, and (b) the image is "three-dimensional".<BR/><BR/>I remember reading an issue of Books and Culture (a more intellectual magazine put out by the Christianity Today folks), where a Christian rejected the authenticity of the Shroud, on the grounds that recent experiments demonstrated that the same sort of image can be gotten by laying a piece of glass on a cloth (there's a lot more to it, of course).exapologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09915579495149582531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-46775619041898682712007-07-10T23:01:00.000-04:002007-07-10T23:01:00.000-04:00The image of the head on the shroud cloth does not...The image of the head on the shroud cloth does not exhibit what's called the "orb effect." If you wrap a cloth around your face and head and open it back up again, the areas on the cloth that came into contact with your face and head would be spread wide apart, completely distorting any image (sort of like a carnival mirror). Anyone can demonstrate this with a large piece of foil. The facial image on the shroud, however, is flat and narrow, almost misshapenly narrow. This suggests that whatever the cloth was laid up against was relatively flat, like a bas-relief sculpture rather than a human head. I've never seen a good response to this objection from the believer camp, even though it's quite damning IMO.<BR/><BR/>Regards,<BR/>DawsonBahnsen Burnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-44828336039257909562007-07-10T19:56:00.000-04:002007-07-10T19:56:00.000-04:00Isn't the biblical description also inconsistent, ...Isn't the biblical description also inconsistent, with the wrapping being in strips and a head cloth? <BR/><BR/>It seems odd that physical evidence would be left if someone rose from the dead. Who would think of going back in and getting the cloth after seeing their dead friend alive again?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-16349356139008371202007-07-10T19:09:00.000-04:002007-07-10T19:09:00.000-04:00Even if, and it's a big if, it is the shroud of Je...Even if, and it's a big if, it is the shroud of Jesus, it is NOT, repeat NOT, proof of a resurrection.ukexpathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08128721397173930411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-73271051171274690292007-07-10T15:06:00.000-04:002007-07-10T15:06:00.000-04:00hasn't this already been sufficiently debunked on ...hasn't this already been sufficiently debunked on a number of discovery type channels and countless books?<BR/><BR/>In my opinion, if this is what a Christian uses as one of their "pillars of faith"...wow, scary.lowendactionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15509676520378562142noreply@blogger.com