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But if they are not fake is that good enough for you?
Or how about the shroud of Turin or the image of Pur Lady of Guadalupe.
@ Dumb Ox
Both examples have been thoroughly disproven. The shroud of Turin was made around 600 ADE. The Lady of Guadalupe is pure hearsay and was a scam to get pilgrims and their money to visit.
Even if both hoaxes were not disproven doesn't prove a god. You must provide empirical evidence that can be peer reviewed and independently verified. References to hearsay about supposed miracles are just irresponsible nonsense.
No it's actually dated within the time of Christ, although Carbon 24 dating cannot give an exact time frame. You are probably thinking of the study done in the 70s that dated a tip of the shroud that had a lot of contact and contamination. Furthermore, that tip was probably sown on in the Middle Ages since there are historical records of part of it being burned (only some of the edges and some of the interior).
A latter study (I think in the early 2000s) found that it dated back to the time of Jesus.
Furthermore, they found pollen which is only found in Israel and the surrounding territory.
The real kicker though is that no paint strokes have been found on the image. We scientifically know that it was not painted. In fact the image that we see is a photograph negative. Photography did not exist in the Middle Ages. Also, scientists still don't know how exactly the image could have been made or reconstructed.
I am talking about the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is on a plaint cloth that deteriorates in 30 years. There was and atheist who tried to make a replica. His started to determinate in 10 years or something. I forget his name though.
Even if the shroud of Turin was dated for the right time and scientist cannot figure out how it came to be. (I am not saying either of the aforementioned are true,) why is this evidence of god? Why something so vague, unsubstantial, (that could be anyone's face,) as something god left around as actual proof, when so busy going out of his way hiding the rest?
Why would your god have such a whack system to turn skeptics into believers? He only cares about a tiny segment of population, (of all the people that ever lived?) What about all the people that lived in the Americas when all this supposed miracle/proof making was going on? Does this all mighty benevolent god just not give a crap about them having any chance to know god and get afterlife reward? Even though he supposedly created them as part of his plan? (gave them a soul, worried about their free will, etc.) Why does god damn everyone to hell until someone goes and tries to convert these populations that never heard or seen evidence of this god, that he leaves it to humans to spread his power and word on his perverse system of rewarding only those that believe in him and follow his arcane and strange rules?
God demands people to believe in him to get rewarded in the un-prove-able afterlife, and one of the few supposed evidences we can see today is a face on a piece of cloth? The faith really gets in trouble if they say their god is "all good." Only a god with a twisted sense of humor and giant rat maze like games would setup a system like that for people to "get their reward."
Bullshit!
1) There was a type pf photography in the middle ages. It was a silver nitrate cloth exposed to sunlit images. The images appear on the cloth in a few months and it is known that this process was used widely at the time.
2) The "shroud" was found in Turin NOT in Israel which is telling. Since the center of christianity was Constantinople there is no reason for the "shroud" to be in Italy.
3) There was NO pollen found, that was a rumor dispelled decades ago.
4) Only highly dubious religious organizations and none scientific attribute the "shroud" to jesus time.
5) You forgot his name! How fucking convenient. Not credible at all.
@Dumb Ox: "Shroud of Turin"
Look at it. Is that the face of 1st century Palestinian Jew? It's a fake like all the other crap that the church has used to separate pilgrims from their money over the centuries.
This is mere assertion and bs. Because I can say the exact same thing, but I have given evidence.
OK. The Shroud is covered in DNA and pollen, etc., from all over the world. It's been displayed and handled for centuries, so that's no surprise, but it means that evidence of those types is worthless. The carbon testing is more of a puzzle, since different parts of the Shroud appear to date from different eras. However, even if the bulk of the fabric dates from around the 1st century CE, that only proves that it's old.
As for the image itself, why are you ruling out medieval photography? Camera obscura existed in that period, and it's possible that artists experimenting with new pigments or materials discovered some kind of light-sensitive materials that were subsequently lost. The composition of the image resembles medieval artistic portrayals of Jesus, and the face is distinctly European.
Again, we're talking about the supposed supreme ruler of the universe. Why would it communicate with us through ambiguous objects like this? On the balance of probabilities, is the Shroud more like to be a message from god, or a medieval fake created using ancient fabric and techniques as yet unknown, with the aim of attracting lucrative pilgrim traffic?
@ Algebe
Most of the interesting things about the shroud are not apparent to the naked eye. So inorder for the Mideval forgers to have hope of success, there would need to be a somewhat wide spread amount of scientific instruments which could detect those features. However, there are no historic records of such devices.
@Dumb Ox: "there would need to be a somewhat wide spread amount of scientific instruments"
Many of the interesting things about the Mona Lisa aren't visible to the naked eye. You might need instruments to detect those effects, but not to create them.
You should give medieval and Renaissance people more credit. Despite the stultifying ignorance and superstition imposed on the masses by the Catholic church, there were still geniuses of the first order. Some, like Leonardo and Galileo, flourished, albeit with limitations on their potential. Others, like Bruno, were cruelly murdered. Also, many of the great artistic and scientific achievements of the Renaissance were lost in Savanarola's "Bonfire of the Vanities." Who knows what was lost?
Dumb Ox,
Are you for real? Do you really think that the Shroud of Turin is about 1,985 year old and was used on Yeshua's corpse? Think!!
So Yeshua gets crucified and his body is removed from the cross, cleaned up, and wrapped in the magical shroud. He's then in the tomb for a couple of days, wakes up, gets unwrapped, puts on some clean white duds and goes to see his buddies who had abandoned him. The shroud is left in the tomb.
When word gets out that Yeshua popped out of the tomb a souvenir hunter goes to the tomb and sees the bloody shroud that Peter had seen but left behind. Now, being a collector the souvenir hunter grabs the shroud and takes it to his hovel. Time passes, about 40 years. The Romans sack Jerusalem and a Roman soldier sees the forty year-old blood rags and thinks to himself that this will make a swell gift to the folks back in Italy. So he puts it in his backpack.
When the Roman soldier finally gets back to Italy he goes home to Turin in Northern Italy and shows his buddies the bloody rags that he found in some guy's hovel in Jerusalem and brought home as his war trophy. Then around the 14th & 15th Centuries everyone and their sisters got their hands on it. In 1578 it ended up in Turin in a special chapel built to house it.
And here we are in 2017 with idiots still thinking that it's real.
Think!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin
Or a believer picked up the shroud after Jesus had risen before the Romans or Pharisees came the room and kept it as a sacred relic. Then for one reason or another (prophesy possibly) left Jerusalem and passed it down through the centuries.
It's not that unbelievable.
Dumb Ox,
Seriously?
A believer at that time should have regarded the shroud as an idol and wouldn't have kept it. Besides, how about all of the wars and other disruptions throughout the centuries?
I have a suit that Cyrus the Great wore on special occasions. I can let you have it for a special sale price this month.
@ Logic
It's not vague because the tradition says that it is the burial cloth of Jesus who claimed to be God. So if all of the data is consistent with that narrative and there are things which are unexplainable by science and history, then that points strongly to Christianity.
I will try to find a link that goes into all of the science.
"because the tradition says"
What you really mean is someone told someone that told a lot of someone else's that eventually made into a book, that has been heavily edited and translated over the last 2000 years. And of course all these people did this for truly altruistic reasons and were never motivated by proving their god is right and all the benefits that would entail for them.
I live very comfortably over here.. ======> in the world of testable evidence. You do too, in most things, with at least one exception of things related to "god."
If that were acceptable "evidence" in the court of law, I could just "say" a bunch of things present a few not well understood artifacts, play them up by "saying" more things. Maybe even point to a few books that align with what I want to "say" (never mind the books have no evidence supporting them,) and have you get the death penalty for a murdering spree you never did in this insane "no real testable evidence required," court of law, with zero "real" evidence that you did anything at all.
No Dumb Ox it doesn't prove a damn thing. You are jumping to a conclusion.
@Dumb Ox: "then that points strongly to Christianity."
Also to obfuscation, obstructionism, and downright fraud...
In reference to modern miracles I rely on Father Guido Sarducci. In discussing the required 3 miracles for Pope JP2 to become a saint he complained the Pope just waived one miracle so only 2 were required. And he said he heard one was just a card trick. But on a more serious note they have made the evil Queen of the Slums Mother Teresa into a saint. Only 2 miracles required these days. One was a woman who claimed she was cured of cancer after praying to M. Teresa. Her husband has come forward and admitted she also went into the hospital, was treated and is now in remission. Shouldn't the doctor get credit for the miracle?
these miracles can`t be proven they happened a long time ago.I don`t trust material that is biased and not up to scrutiny The bible was written by authors writing way after the supposed miracles happened.There not reliable sources. You here about miracles like at france the catholic pilgrimage of Lourdes but you never see the people affected by these miracles. I f there were followers of jesus then in ad 30 so why not the miracles continue today? this is a big hoax and should not be taken seriously my modern man.
Give me a healed amputee, Then we'll talk.
All of the biblical miracles were written to support the promise Yahweh made in Exodus 34:10 (CEV) = "The Lord said:
I promise to perform miracles for you that have never been seen anywhere on earth. Neighboring nations will stand in fear and know that I was the one who did these marvelous things."
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