# Should atheists take the Shroud of Turin seriously? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2014, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680 "2014-03-14T10:11:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/21 "2014-03-14T18:00:27Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > To me, the REAL miracle is the [Virgin Mary in Grilled Cheese Sandwich](http://seekingcanaan.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/virgin-mary-grilled-cheese.gif). Explain that, atheists! _munch_ _munch_ _munch_ What miracle? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/22 "2014-03-14T18:07:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > _munch_ _munch_ _munch_ > > What miracle? The miracle that you apparently survived eating a many-year-old cheese sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/23 "2014-03-14T18:10:37Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Hardly matters, as which atheists takes the pope seriously? I was trying to illustrate the point that if religious leaders don’t take the shroud seriously, there’s not a chance an atheist would. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/24 "2014-03-14T19:54:10Z")
I believe that the Shroud of Turin is genuine, personally, though it wouldn’t shake my faith if it wasn’t. The carbon dating doesn’t convince me: the portion of the shroud used for carbon dating appears to be from a piece that was damaged in a fire in the middle ages and reconstructed. And then, of course, as Cecil points out, there are miraculous explanations. I don’t see any reason that atheists would take it seriously though- even if it were proved beyond doubt to be a first century Palestinian relic, that still wouldn’t prove that it was the burial shroud of Jesus. There were lots of other crucified men in first century Palestine. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/25 "2014-03-14T20:00:17Z")
Most Catholics I know, lay and clergy alike, don’t take the Shroud seriously (I sure don’t), so why would we expect atheists to take it MORE seriously? As a Christian, it goes without saying that I believe in all kinds of things atheists find absurd. That doesn’t mean I believe in EVERYTHING they consider absurd. There were Church authorities centuries ago who called it a fraud and said they knew the artist who had created it. SInce then, carbon dating suggests the Shroud isn’t that old. I don’t KNOW it’s a fake, but it seems highly probable. And since I never heard a SUnday sermon about the SHroud and never heard about it once in 13 years of Catholic schooling, I never thought it was terribly important anyway. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/26 "2014-03-14T20:23:33Z")
it is either a serious relic or a serious fraud. either is seriously significant. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/27 "2014-03-14T21:17:34Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > it is either a serious relic or a serious fraud. either is seriously significant. Well, you’ve got a point there. It does give me a little pause that this rather obvious piece of balderdash still inspires people to some degree, even when it’s been thoroughly debunked continuously since Henri de Poitiers in the fourteenth century. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/28 "2014-03-14T21:57:19Z")
I don’t take it seriously as the burial shroud of Jesus, but I do take it seriously as a work of art and as a scientific and historical puzzle. We still don’t know who made, why, or how. That makes it fascinating to me. One thing that bugs me is that people assume it was either the burial shroud of Jesus or that it was a deliberate hoax. That sounds like a false dichotomy to me. Sure, I think the most likely scenario is that it was produced as a deliberate hoax. Yet I can’t discount the possibility that the artist himself wasn’t trying to fool anybody. If it was a deliberate hoax, he might have said, “Look at this thing I discovered. It must be the burial shroud of Jesus and his image was miraculously imprinted on it.” If it wasn’t a deliberate hoax, he might instead have said, “Look at this work of art I created. It is my artistic conception of what the burial shroud of Jesus might have looked like.” Since we don’t know who the artist was or what he was thinking, we may never know how he presented it to others. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/29 "2014-03-14T22:20:22Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > There were lots of other crucified men in first century Palestine. And there are enough pieces of the True Cross to build a Noah’s Ark. > [@bibliophage](#): > > One thing that bugs me is that people assume it was either the burial shroud of Jesus or that it was a deliberate hoax. That sounds like a false dichotomy to me. Sure, I think the most likely scenario is that it was produced as a deliberate hoax. Yet I can’t discount the possibility that the artist himself wasn’t trying to fool anybody. If it was a deliberate hoax, he might have said, “Look at this thing I discovered. It must be the burial shroud of Jesus and his image was miraculously imprinted on it.” If it wasn’t a deliberate hoax, he might instead have said, “Look at this work of art I created. It is my artistic conception of what the burial shroud of Jesus might have looked like.” Since we don’t know who the artist was or what he was thinking, we may never know how he presented it to others. Religious fakery, much like art fakery, is big business. Brushing For Bucks explains a lot of tomfoolery. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/30 "2014-03-15T00:04:23Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > . . . the portion of the shroud used for carbon dating appears to be from a piece that was damaged in a fire in the middle ages and reconstructed. . . . Partly true: the part that was carbon dated was damaged in a fire, but was not from any part to which later fabric had been added. That would render the exercise pointless. Being burned in a fire wouldn’t change the results, as the tests are for carbon nuclei, not carbon atoms. Fire is ordinary atomic chemistry, not nuclear chemistry. Nothing in an ordinary fire could conceivably turn carbon-14 atoms into carbon-12 atoms, or vice-versa. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/31 "2014-03-15T08:35:34Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > To me, the REAL miracle is the [Virgin Mary in Grilled Cheese Sandwich](http://seekingcanaan.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/virgin-mary-grilled-cheese.gif). Explain that, atheists! Extreme gullibility. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/32 "2014-03-15T09:47:22Z")
> [@](#): > > … Harvard University physicist Thomas Phillips, writing in the journal Nature, argued that if Christ had in fact been resurrected while wrapped in the shroud, a phenomenon known as “neutron flux” would have occurred, throwing off the results of the carbon-14 dating. … Given the amazing number of examples that we have of resurrections that didn’t also have evidence of neutron flux . . . it’s a miracle that no scientist thought of this before Phillips! CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/33 "2014-03-15T10:40:46Z")
I thought radio carbon dating had put the thing in the middle ages. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/34 "2014-03-15T11:02:04Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > It seems like science takes the Shroud rather seriously, though perhaps this is just because it’s been studied so long. What a crock of shit. The shroud was 26 years ago [carbon dated to between 1260 and 1390](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_turin). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/35 "2014-03-15T11:13:43Z")
What bibliophage said. When I posted early in this thread, apparently I was using a different meaning for the phrase “take seriously” than what the OP intended. Indeed, nearly the opposite meaning. To a non-theist, “take seriously” means “use science and historical evidence to try to determine the likely age, provenance, and purpose of some object; devote a reasonable amount of resources to this task, and consider the object’s symbolic importance to many people, and the interesting story of it’s being ‘sold’ as something in particular, when deciding how much effort is worth putting into this.” From some other posts in this thread, it seems that by “take seriously” the OP meant something like “say and do unspecified stuff which shows you think some miracle explains this object – and that you accept whatever the medieval church leaders said about it uncritically.” I find it strange to call this “taking something seriously” – to me, a better phrase would be “approach frivolously” or “_utterly fail_ to take seriously.” My point is, the OP should have said in the beginning what he/she meant by this simple-looking yet ambiguous phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/36 "2014-03-15T11:31:39Z")
One needs to remember that in the Middle Ages relics and icons were important stuff worth a lot of money and therefore there was an active industry in their manufacture. Therefore when the scientists put a date of such an object in that range, it is highly believable and those who would question it have a huge burden of proof. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/37 "2014-03-15T13:24:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Being burned in a fire wouldn’t change the results, as the tests are for carbon nuclei, not carbon atoms. Fire is ordinary atomic chemistry, not nuclear chemistry. Nothing in an ordinary fire could conceivably turn carbon-14 atoms into carbon-12 atoms, or vice-versa. Soot from the fire landing on the cloth would add their “newer” carbon nuclei into the mix, and could conceivably alter results. Whether they took measures to remove the soot, or estimate the amount of soot present so they could correct for the contamination, I don’t know. Are there other burial shrouds still around from the 1300s and from Christ’s time? Have any of these been examined for faint imprints? ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/38 "2014-03-15T13:27:30Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Soot from the fire landing on the cloth would add their “newer” carbon nuclei into the mix, and could conceivably alter results. Whether they took measures to remove the soot, or estimate the amount of soot present so they could correct for the contamination, I don’t know. > > Are there other burial shrouds still around from the 1300s and from Christ’s time? Have any of these been examined for faint imprints? I don’t quite get the point but it has a strong smell of rationalization rather than the sort of evidence needed to convince non-believers. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/39 "2014-03-15T13:31:12Z")
> [@Frank\_Merton](#): > > I don’t quite get the point but it has a strong smell of rationalization rather than the sort of evidence needed to convince non-believers. 😕 I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_Merton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Frank\_Merton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Merton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680/40 "2014-03-15T13:37:15Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > 😕 I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. Looks like you are trying to find excuses for evidence you don’t like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-atheists-take-the-shroud-of-turin-seriously/683680.md?page=3)