Evidence for God from Science

RickD wrote:

Storyteller wrote:

The resurrection was a natural event for the supernatural.

Care to elaborate?

Storyteller wrote:

RickD wrote:

Storyteller wrote:

The resurrection was a natural event for the supernatural.

Care to elaborate?

I understand what you're saying. But besides K's redefining, supernatural is something that is beyond the natural.

Christ's death from his beatings, and hanging on the cross, is natural.

Christ's resurrection from the dead is supernatural.

At least those are true if we hold to the basic, simple definitions of the terms, in this context.

Well, I did say I was still figuringit out...

Agree with what you're saying but the resurrection wasn't supernatural to God, just to us.

And what has all this got to do with the Shroud, then, eh? Authentic, medieval; "natural causes", a miracle - does the invocation of the supernatural help? Well, no, as I'm about to propose.

In about 1350, some painter managed a crude portrait of Jesus on a cloth intended as a liturgical prop for the Easter ceremony of Quem Quaeritis. It wasn't very good, but it was he best he could do, and people commended him for his effort rather than his success. Humbly he decided to wash off his painting and try again, so he plunged the whole cloth into a boiling cauldron and pounded it with a washing dolly till the water turned brown. Then he pulled it out and hung it on a line to dry. Returning in the morning, he was staggered to observe the miraculous imprint of the holy figure, nothing like his clumsy daubs, just as if it had truly wrapped the body of Jesus in the tomb.

No wonder no modern scientist has managed to reproduce the image perfectly. No wonder about the unique negative and 3D qualities. No wonder the 'artist' seemed to know anatomical features and historical detail unknown since the time of the Romans. No wonder bishops and Popes were confused about its authenticity. How obvious. If only we'd thought about it before! It explains the radiocarbon date and the fact that no naked, double image of Jesus had been known previous to the mid-14th century.

Anything wrong with that?

hughfarey wrote:And what has all this got to do with the Shroud, then, eh? Authentic, medieval; "natural causes", a miracle - does the invocation of the supernatural help? Well, no, as I'm about to propose.

In about 1350, some painter managed a crude portrait of Jesus on a cloth intended as a liturgical prop for the Easter ceremony of Quem Quaeritis. It wasn't very good, but it was he best he could do, and people commended him for his effort rather than his success. Humbly he decided to wash off his painting and try again, so he plunged the whole cloth into a boiling cauldron and pounded it with a washing dolly till the water turned brown. Then he pulled it out and hung it on a line to dry. Returning in the morning, he was staggered to observe the miraculous imprint of the holy figure, nothing like his clumsy daubs, just as if it had truly wrapped the body of Jesus in the tomb.

No wonder no modern scientist has managed to reproduce the image perfectly. No wonder about the unique negative and 3D qualities. No wonder the 'artist' seemed to know anatomical features and historical detail unknown since the time of the Romans. No wonder bishops and Popes were confused about its authenticity. How obvious. If only we'd thought about it before! It explains the radiocarbon date and the fact that no naked, double image of Jesus had been known previous to the mid-14th century.

Anything wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that Hugh . Now go into a lab and make the replica and you can settle this once and for all and make history .
Very simple and might also get a million pounds and your own science department at Oxford

bippy123 wrote:

hughfarey wrote:And what has all this got to do with the Shroud, then, eh? Authentic, medieval; "natural causes", a miracle - does the invocation of the supernatural help? Well, no, as I'm about to propose.

In about 1350, some painter managed a crude portrait of Jesus on a cloth intended as a liturgical prop for the Easter ceremony of Quem Quaeritis. It wasn't very good, but it was he best he could do, and people commended him for his effort rather than his success. Humbly he decided to wash off his painting and try again, so he plunged the whole cloth into a boiling cauldron and pounded it with a washing dolly till the water turned brown. Then he pulled it out and hung it on a line to dry. Returning in the morning, he was staggered to observe the miraculous imprint of the holy figure, nothing like his clumsy daubs, just as if it had truly wrapped the body of Jesus in the tomb.

No wonder no modern scientist has managed to reproduce the image perfectly. No wonder about the unique negative and 3D qualities. No wonder the 'artist' seemed to know anatomical features and historical detail unknown since the time of the Romans. No wonder bishops and Popes were confused about its authenticity. How obvious. If only we'd thought about it before! It explains the radiocarbon date and the fact that no naked, double image of Jesus had been known previous to the mid-14th century.

Anything wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with that Hugh . Now go into a lab and make the replica and you can settle this once and for all and make history .
Very simple and might also get a million pounds and your own science department at Oxford

Bip, I think you missed his point. Hugh (I believe) is saying the event he is describing having occurred in the 14th century is also miraculous so that there is virtually no distinction between what would have occurred had the cloth been authentic vs what did occur (albeit miraculously) in the 14th century. And with that I would hardly disagree. I just don't see the point of having a miracle done in the 14th century and make it look much older. It's like YECers claiming the speed of light was created mid-stream to make it appear billions of years old. Pointless.

Straws, meet grasping.

Hugh: In about 1350, some painter managed a crude portrait of Jesus on a cloth intended as a liturgical prop for the Easter ceremony of Quem Quaeritis. It wasn't very good, but it was he best he could do, and people commended him for his effort rather than his success. Humbly he decided to wash off his painting and try again, so he plunged the whole cloth into a boiling cauldron and pounded it with a washing dolly till the water turned brown. Then he pulled it out and hung it on a line to dry. Returning in the morning, he was staggered to observe the miraculous imprint of the holy figure, nothing like his clumsy daubs, just as if it had truly wrapped the body of Jesus in the tomb.

Anything wrong with that?

Yes, it's delusional on several levels!

- Some painter paints a "crude" portrait of Jesus and it just happens to having stunning anatomical accuracy.

- It just HAPPENS to perfectly match the wounds of Christ, from Scripture.

- It just HAPPENS to have a REAL blood type on it.

- It just HAPPENS to have on it the correct, microscopic pollens narrowly unique to those found in the Jerusalem area.

- NO flat painting would have 3D spatial imagery on it!

- And no painter would paint a NEGATIVE image, if what he was doing was to be a "crude portrait."

- It just HAPPENS to match up BEYOND the legally accepted parameters for matching points of correlation.

Actually, Hugh, anyone whom would write your statement would appear to not have studied the Shroud evidences/analysis at all. And it smacks of one intent upon not dealing honestly with the evidences. And while I'm not sure, you seem to dismiss even the POSSIBILITIES of the supernatural. It's the idea that, "Yes, God miraculously created a universe from nothing, but He can't or doesn't do much smaller miracles." HUH???!!! Did God's power or ability ever CHANGE? Have His Divine aspects EVER changed? To believe in God is to believe in the Supernatural!

IF people only correctly understood, the universe, earth, and the extraordinary array of life here, the hundreds of complicated processes that ALL had to come together, and CONSISTENTLY so, for all of that to even exist, IS, by all measures, a long chain of interactive and cross-functioning miracles. HOWEVER, all of that is what people deem as "normative/the way things typically work" because, from our view, they always have. Even though we know of all of these "normatives," at one point in time, they did not exist. So, the truth is, our view of supernatural becomes highly selective. We and all that exists is one string of ongoing physical miracles created by a God who is NOT physical, but Whom is now ALSO and STILL physical, as He has forever taken on bodily form in Jesus. So, the everyday and continuing miracles of life and the universe's functions, whenever momentarily/instantly interrupted, would simply be a much smaller miracle, yet astonishingly surprising and unique to us, as we are USED TO the everyday miraculous aspects of our universe as they TYPICALLY operate.

A friend of mine is a physicist and a hard-core "naturalist" ( in the nature is all we have and not the clothes-optional way).
He teaches at the University here in Toronto.
We discussed the "supernatural" awhile back and he gave me most honest answer that he could about it:
I don't believe in the supernatural, simply because I don't believe that anything exists outside of the natural world.

When I asked how he addresses things that can't be explain by nature he said:

I simply say, "I don't know", BUT what I don't do is make up some far-fetched view the straddles impossibility and improbability like a fat kid on a fence. That is just intellectual dishonesty and grasping at straws.
It's better to be honest and say that you don't know and that you don't accept that the answer can be "supernatural".
Sure it's closed minded, but it is also honest.

No, no, no, no, no, Bippy and Philip, you miss the point entirely. You haven't read my post at all! The painter washes off his painting, which looks nothing like the image on the Shroud. The image appears miraculously, together with its pollens and limestone, during the night! What's wrong with that? If you want to invoke miracles to defend authenticity, why shouldn't I invoke them to support a medieval provenance? Byblos at least gets the point, but wonders why God should make a miracle look older than it is. Me too...

PaulSacramento wrote:When I asked how he addresses things that can't be explain by nature he said: I simply say, "I don't know", BUT what I don't do is make up some far-fetched view the straddles impossibility and improbability like a fat kid on a fence. That is just intellectual dishonesty and grasping at straws.

Good for him. Just like me, in fact. Time and again I have said that I don't know the exact nature of the Resurrection, and that it is not particularly important for Christianity. Like your friend, I don't believe in the supernatural, simply because I don't believe that anything exists outside of the natural world. Although I do think he may be a little narrow in his definition of 'the natural world'. I wonder what sort of physicist he is.

It's better to be honest and say that you don't know and that you don't accept that the answer can be "supernatural".
Sure it's closed minded, but it is also honest.

That's not quite me, and not quite good science. It's better to be honest and say that you don't know, but that you believe that the answer is more likely to be explained by natural than supernatural causes. That's open minded, and honest.

hughfarey wrote:
Good for him. Just like me, in fact. Time and again I have said that I don't know the exact nature of the Resurrection, and that it is not particularly important for Christianity. Like your friend, I don't believe in the supernatural, simply because I don't believe that anything exists outside of the natural world. Although I do think he may be a little narrow in his definition of 'the natural world'. I wonder what sort of physicist he is.

If you don't believe anything exists outside the natural world, how do you explain God?
He isn't outside nature? Do you believe He created the natural world?

hughfarey wrote: I don't know the exact nature of the Resurrection

The nature of the resurrection was of a "super nature". The resurrection still requires the laws of physics, chemistry and mathematics to accomplish but it is of such a supremely advanced level that humans have yet to comprehend how it worked. The over a million hours of study on the Shroud have barely scratched the surface of the science behind it.

hughfarey wrote:and that it is not particularly important for Christianity.

What???

If Jesus' resurrection did not happen Christianity is a false belief system. If Jesus' resurrection did happen, Jesus is God and all other belief systems are false. Those are the only two scenarios. There are no if's and's or but's.

That is how important the resurrection of Jesus is.

Why am I seeing a whole lot of assuming that Hugh is saying things that he's not actually saying?
Is it because he's not being clear?

Just ask him to explain instead of assuming what he means.

Hugh didn't say the resurrection isn't particularly important for Christianity.

Katabole wrote:

hughfarey wrote: I don't know the exact nature of the Resurrection

The nature of the resurrection was of a "super nature". The resurrection still requires the laws of physics, chemistry and mathematics to accomplish but it is of such a supremely advanced level that humans have yet to comprehend how it worked. The over a million hours of study on the Shroud have barely scratched the surface of the science behind it.

hughfarey wrote:and that it is not particularly important for Christianity.

What???

If Jesus' resurrection did not happen Christianity is a false belief system. If Jesus' resurrection did happen, Jesus is God and all other belief systems are false. Those are the only two scenarios. There are no if's and's or but's.

That is how important the resurrection of Jesus is.

If God created the laws of physics why can't he also break them ?
This is what I don't get about people saying that God must work a certain way . He can work a certain way within science and outside of science .

When I say science I'm talking about the modern way many define it which is a purely materialistic way .

If you want to use science on the way the ancient Greeks use it which means to gain knowledge then I agree. God is the source of all knowledge and if we define science the way the ancient Greeks do then God is science itself .

When we say that God can only work in a purely modern scientific way we limit him and to me that is no longer God .

Hugh I don't think that the pope means what you think he means when he said that God isn't a magician waving his magic wand .sure the pipe wants people to look first for a natural explanation for alleged miracles but as the Catholic Church dies when it investigates these things , when natural causes have been exhausted they will use a supernatural explanation .

This is done with many approved miracles