Evidence: The Gathering

[Esquilax]

That was a lot of typing in order to say nothing.

That's a consequence of what I was replying to, Randy. An argument from ignorance isn't exactly effusive with talking points to address.

Objectively speaking, the Shroud of Turin cannot be proved to be the burial cloth of Jesus, can it?

We both know and agree on this. Where we differ is in our views of what we can BELIEVE about the shroud based upon all the information we know about it. MOST crucified people were not scourged first. MOST crucified people did not have a lance wound in their side. AND to hear you boys tell the tale, MOST crucified people weren't even buried at all...they were left to rot on the cross or thrown into a shallow grave.

So, that makes this shroud kinda unique, doesn't it?

Are you asserting that the only possible origin for the shroud is that a person literally died in the exact way that you happen to interpret the markings on it? No other possible ways it could be made, other than that the figure on the cloth was a real person, who died in the exact way the bible describes the crucifixion?

Oh, and all that pollen and stuff that has been documented from the shroud...you know the stuff that only grows in a tiny region of ISRAEL...wow, what a coincidence that the forger was smart enough to TAKE his canvas to Palestine first...just so he could contaminate it with pollen spores native to NOT EUROPE.

So the only forgers in existence come from Europe?

But hey, I say it's probable; you say it's not. I say it's another clue that leads some to faith; you say no way.

Whatever.

Man, if your only response is to propose an unreasonably strict set of criteria regarding the provenance of the shroud and then insist that they are the only possible ways the shroud could have come into existence, then of course you're gonna be this blase over it; the alternative is recognizing that the possibility space is wider than the self-serving assumptions you're making here. If we've got little information, which is about the best you could say regarding what you're presented, then there's no reason to make any of the leaps you're making, and every reason to discard the shroud as denoting anything at all until its origins can be made clear.

Meanwhile, the boys in the lab are coming to the conclusion that there is nothing else like this piece of cloth known to man.

According to you the boys in the lab are only able to get inconclusive results, that you then spin into confirmation of your own beliefs somehow. Gonna need a citation for your claim here; doesn't sound like any scientist I've ever read about.