Evidence for God from Science

PerciFlage wrote:

bippy123 wrote:Perci, ask yourself why do most atheists back peddle in their comments on the shroud of turin when they have been called out in it? You obviously aren't an art expert and its obvious that whatever skeptic site you got this from isnt an art expert either. Because of your atheistic worldview you came in with a snide a priori opinion about the shroud matching western renaissance art , an opinion that no expert shares. The shroud exposes the atheistic worldview for what it really is. It's an e optional worldview and not an intellectual one. Even the agnostic/atheist art historian Thomas de Wessellow admits that the shroud isn't indicative of the art of western renaissance artists or for that matter any era of paintings, but because your an atheist, you made a comment based on pure ignorance and PRAYED that we were as ignorant about the shroud as you are. Your statement is one of pure blind faith.

Prior to posting in this thread, I had no idea that there was a big thing about the shroud. You're right that I made a comment out of ignorance, but that's because when I posted it was my understanding that even Christians for the main part considered it to be debunked. Clearly I was wrong.

Instead of wasting your time and ours by trying to nitpick every part of Christianity, why don't you be open minded and study Christianity from all of its aspects.

I've got no interest in nitpicking every part of Christianity. As I hinted earlier, I have every respect for people of faith. I am interested in where the subjective and objective facets of faith meet though, and the relationship between evidence, faith and knowledge.

Threads like this - ones that take what you might call an epistemological approach - interest me greatly. I've never experienced any kind of personal divine revelation, so it is hard for me to fully understand the faith of someone who has. I can't argue against or be convinced by someone whose faith is purely (or largely) based on subjective experience, so I find myself drawn to approaches such as this that are grounded more in the objective case to be made for theism.

Don't atheists call themselves free thinkers? Now correct me if I'm wrong but since when is free thinking about forming an opinion before you actually study the subject at hand?

Some atheists do, but I don't identify as an atheist. I'm an agnostic who lacks any belief in deities, but I don't take the position that no deities exist. I don't call myself an atheist and I don't frequent atheist or sceptic websites because they tend to be crewed by pompous blowhards. I'm not out to belittle, smear or insult any and all people of faith. The irony of you upbraiding me about ignorance, a priori assumptions and closed-mindedness before going on to assume that I was some kind of neo-atheist standard bearer is not lost on me.

I'm sure you understood my comment about a curfew. Please don't pretend you don't. It's referring to your sophomoric posts.

We must be wallowing in the mire of cultural differences here. As a Brit I think we have different usages for the words "curfew" and "sophomore", so I'm still none the wiser about what your comment meant.

As far as the shroud why not start reading up on it from former unbelievers who were honest enough to admit that they were wrong on the shroud.
You can start off by reading Ray Rogers peer reviewed paper about the c14 dating of the shroud published in thermochimica acta which has been graciously been made available online.
If your comfortable being an atheist then by all means stayyyyy away from the shroud.

Again, I'm not an atheist. I've seen the large thread about the shroud on this board, and I fully intend to dig in soon when I have a free afternoon or evening.