Oh No! Fake Shroud of Turin?!
The skeptic’s world is all a-buzz about this latest “finding” about how the Shroud of Turin may not be such a divine miracle after all. Seriously, just about everyone is reporting on this story. So, I just have to ask, who cares?
There are 2 reasons for making such a big deal out of this. Either they’re trying to “prove” that Christianity is a false religion, or they’re trying to kick up controversy. It’s fairly obvious that whatever the goal was, the second one is really all that’s going to happen. Let’s look at this from a Christian point of view. What does the research say? Mostly it says that he came up with a way to put a similar image on a similar type of cloth with means that they might have had some time in the past. So what! You’ve got to be kidding me. We have (according to statistics that Richard Dawkins quoted, and I haven’t researched) just under 50% of the people in this country blatantly admitting to the belief that all the scientific evidence for evolution is crap! In the face of such an enormous amount of evidence for our planet being billions of years old, they believe that it’s more like 10,000! Now, let me ask again, what were you thinking you would do with science to show these people that the shroud is a fake? It’s already been dated to the 13th or 14th century, and that didn’t mean a thing to the ‘true believers’.
Don’t get the wrong idea – I understand completely that it might be nice for you to just systematically disprove every last little piece of divinity that these people cling to. But it just isn’t going to happen this way. Seriously, it’s more like a neat thing to wonder about for most Christians, rather than a place to base your beliefs. People like to claim to have a piece of the ‘true cross’, or put a bone from a saint in their church. How many people in the country have a baseball that was signed by their favorite player. Yeah, it would suck to find out that the ball was a fake, but does that make you think any less of the player? I really don’t think it’s any different for Christians, even in the event that you could definitively prove that it wasn’t divine (which I doubt you could, for them).
I wouldn’t really have a problem with someone sitting in their basement and tinkering with this idea in their free time, but what we actually have is funded research in the quest to disprove the shroud. From one report:
Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.
Well, good that it didn’t affect him, but that’s not the point. This is what this Italian association of atheists and agnostics chooses to spend money on? I don’t know the situation in Italy nearly as well as I do here, though I’d like to (actually, I feel the same way about their wine…). But I really must protest to any significant use of funds for such a purpose. It doesn’t get us anywhere, but it makes the A&A community look like we’re actively working against religion. A campaign of hate is pointless. Let’s see that funding going to getting better science and reasoning courses in schools, or exposing domestic abuse condoned by certain religions. The Shroud of Turin? Come on, it’s a trinket. There are much more pressing issues facing our world today.
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It’s just how science works. People will research what they feel like researching, and trying to make them focus on something else won’t automatically come up with better results (I’m fairly sure Carl Sagan made this point far better than I can).
That said, this particular piece of research was aimed towards answering a very specific criticism: proponents of the original shroud claim(ed) that it was impossible to manufacture a fake using methods available to people at the time it was made. These researchers set out to determine whether or not it was possible, and it turns out that it is.
Who knows, maybe the results of this will have importance elsewhere. Maybe it’ll change how historians/archaeologists think about various relics they’ve found or something.
It’s a good point. I am a big proponent of research for its own sake. I remember in college how my professors had to fight for funding and explain how just because you can’t see the benefits directly it still is very important. Perhaps some good results will come out of this. And of course it is their money. I don’t mean to say that they shouldn’t be allowed to do this with it. I just think that the shroud of Turin is mostly insignificant to most of them as well as us. My opinion is that there are better targets. That’s all.
I agree that the dyed-in-the-wool Christians won’t care that he was able to recreate it, but is that any reason NOT to do it? Or is it really any reason for people NOT to say “Ha! I told you so!”? If all our actions are determined by who we can or cannot convince/convert, then nothing will ever get done.
Think about it this way – when Tiktaalik was discovered, did the scientific community really think that those creationists would sit up and say “Wow! We were totally wrong!”? No, of course not. Did that stop everyone from oohing and ahing about it? No. Did that stop everyone from saying “HA! We told you so, Creationists!”? No!
While everyone knows fundamentalists won’t budge from their stubborn beliefs, these things are still important, so of course the science and skeptic community will be talking about them. As for shoving it in Christians’ faces, it’s human nature to say “I told you so”.
Admittedly, I enjoy a good “I told you so” at least as much as anyone else. And I guess I’m nit outraged too much. I just don’t think this is the right subject to put resources into, since we already knew it was bogus and they won’t listen anway.
I agree that the “true believers” are a lost cause, but showing people that there is a logical explanation for every miracle or super natural claim may convince some of those who are just beginning to see the logical inconsistencies in their own faith.
That’s a pretty good justification, really. It seems like the vast majority of people actually just don’t really think about it, which keeps them in the rut that they were born into. You have earned 3 dissent points for making me rethink this in a new light!
(Disclaimer: Dissent points cannot be redeemed for anything, nor do I plan to keep track of them in the long run.)
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