Has God left us a photograph of Christ's resurrection?

[loco]

Jesus H Christ...! Where is my long overdue apology Loco?

It shouldn't take too long to apologise for questioning my amazing depth of knowledge considering the amount of times I've produced end-of-thread posts on this board alone.


The Luke

The long video that you posted is only 1/6.  I'm on 3/6 and I have yet to see or hear any evidence that Leonardo Da Vinci faked the Shroud.  They better start talking about the evidence soon or I'm giving up and you'll be apologizing to me.  I don't have time for this nonsense.  You should be thanking me for taking you seriously and actually watching this long, boring video that has no substance.  I'll get back to you.  I'm a long way from video 6/6.

[The Luke]

Let me get this straight... if YOU don't bother watching the evidence that YOU demanded I provide then I should apologise to YOU?

Want me to proclaim that the Shroud is genuine too?


The Luke

[loco]

Let me get this straight... if YOU don't bother watching the evidence that YOU demanded I provide then I should apologise to YOU?

Want me to proclaim that the Shroud is genuine too?


The Luke

Can you read English?  I just told you that I'm on video 3/6.   Why do you say I don't bother watching?

[The Luke]

Can you read English?  I just told you that I'm on video 3/6.   Why do you say I don't bother watching?

...I can answer that with a quote:

They better start talking about the evidence soon or I'm giving up and you'll be apologizing to me.  I don't have time for this nonsense.

...actually, being more serious, that's from a National Geographic documentary called "Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud", it's pretty long winded and far too inclusive of the shittier theories regarding the manufacture of the crowd. All that bullshit regarding "bas reliefs" and bacterial staining of cloth etc is totally pointless.

What you need to see is the BBC documentary "Double Exposure".

That goes very in-depth into the proto-photograph technique, even making a copy of the Shroud.


I've also seen a really damning documentary (although translated into Irish as part of the "Fiorsceal" ["true story"] series), in which a chemist produced dozens of versions of the Shroud using only technology and materials available in the 11th century. But I can't find either that or the BBC documentary online.

I'll see if I can dig up any of the old Equinox or Horizon documentaries, some of them are pretty convincing.


The Luke

[MCWAY]

Religious people are delusional morons...

You mean just like the guy that JUST GOT ELECTED PRESIDENT.....Oh wait!! You're going to bring up your ridiculous tirade about Obama being a closet atheist again. 

For example, you Loco, would dismiss out of hand belief in every other god other than Jebus.

You wouldn't take seriously a belief in Horus; Mithras; Dionysus; Hercules or Attis... how dumb is that when the Jesus story is copied from these religions?

What are the odds that the Jesus is historical when every other version of the same story is recognized as astrological metaphor?

Come on Loco, you're an atheist too... at least with regard to the vast majority of gods. You've just got Jebus left to strike off the list. Millions down, just one to go.


The Luke

First, your claim about the "Jesus story" being copied from those figures is just as WRONG now as it was, the last 15 times you brought it up. Or do I have to dismantle that mess for you, one more time.

Furthermore, An atheist believed that THERE IS NO GOD. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many deities Loco dismisses "out of hand". As long as he believes in just ONE (which he does), he's not an atheist.

[The Luke]

MCWAY,

You are the only person here who thinks you can disprove FACTS by shouting down your opponent.

Even the early Church Fathers admitted the Jesus story was plagiarised from the Mystery Religion. Among Bible scholars this isn't even debated any longer, it's so obvious and so well documented only fundies disagree.

You only managed to prove your own poor reading comprehension with your "insights"... but if you want to quote the FOLKLORE associated with the many proto-Jesus-gods I mentioned somehow thinking that has some bearing on the MYSTERY RELIGION version of those same gods, then feel free to do so.

So long as you realise it's tantamount to denying history.


The Luke

[MCWAY]

MCWAY,

You are the only person here who thinks you can disprove FACTS by shouting down your opponent.

What you didn't post was facts. You posted gibberish, which I easily refuted by posting reference after reference and link after link, dissecting your claims line by line. If you call that "shouting down your opponent", then I'm guilty as charged. 

Even the early Church Fathers admitted the Jesus story was plagiarised from the Mystery Religion. Among Bible scholars this isn't even debated any longer, it's so obvious and so well documented only fundies disagree.

Which Bible scholars would those be?

Dr. D. James Kennedy
Dr. Gary Habermas
Dr. Sam Lamerson
Dr. Paul Meier
Dr. Bruce Metzger
Dr. N.T. Wright
Dr. D.A. Carson

Oops, they all carve that "Mystery Religion" canard to pieces (and that's just the short list).

You only managed to prove your own poor reading comprehension with your "insights"... but if you want to quote the FOLKLORE associated with the many proto-Jesus-gods I mentioned somehow thinking that has some bearing on the MYSTERY RELIGION version of those same gods, then feel free to do so.

So long as you realise it's tantamount to denying history.


The Luke

None the "Mystery Religion" versions match, either. What part of that don't you get? Of course, you keep flip-flopping between the two, when shown that your claims didn't add up. So, if anyone needs to brush up on his "Hooked on Phonics", it's you. Necrophillac bestiality and self-castration, driven by incestuous lust (how we got Horus and Attis, respecitively) have no bearing on the account of Jesus Christ.

[loco]

MCWAY,

You are the only person here who thinks you can disprove FACTS by shouting down your opponent.

Even the early Church Fathers admitted the Jesus story was plagiarised from the Mystery Religion. Among Bible scholars this isn't even debated any longer, it's so obvious and so well documented only fundies disagree.

You only managed to prove your own poor reading comprehension with your "insights"... but if you want to quote the FOLKLORE associated with the many proto-Jesus-gods I mentioned somehow thinking that has some bearing on the MYSTERY RELIGION version of those same gods, then feel free to do so.

So long as you realise it's tantamount to denying history.


The Luke

Scholarly response to the Jesus Myth Hypothesis:
 
"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more."
Burridge, R & Gould, G, Jesus Now and Then, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004, p.34.
 
The classical historian Michael Grant writes:
"To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." 
 
Michael Grant does not see the similarities between Christianity and pagan religions to be significant. Grant states that "Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths, of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit."
Grant, Michael (1995). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scribner, 199. ISBN 978-0684818672 .

 
R.T. France points out that Christianity was actively opposed by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish authorities, and would have been utterly discredited if Jesus had been shown as a non-historical figure. He argues that there is evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.
 
In response to Jesus-myth proponents who argue the lack of early non-Christian sources, or question their authenticity, R. T. France counters that "even the great histories of Tacitus have survived in only two manuscripts, which together contain scarcely half of what he is believed to have written, the rest is lost" and that the life of Jesus, from a Roman point of view, was not a major
event.
 
R.T France disagrees with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. He argues that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references to historical facts about Jesus's life in Paul's letters, such as that Jesus "who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David" (Romans 1:3, TNIV).
France, RT (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing, 19-20. ISBN 0340381728.   
 
Supporting a historical Jesus
Bovon, François (2006). The Last Days of Jesus, trans. Kristin Hennessy; Louisville: Westminster, John Knox. ISBN 0664230075.
   
Burridge, Richard A. (2006). Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading, 2nd edn., Grand Rapids:Eerdmans. ISBN 0802829805 .
 
Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) (2006). Jesus and Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 080284880X. 
 
Grant, Michael [1977] (1999). Jesus. London: Phoenix. ISBN 0-75380-899-4.   

Komoszewski, J. Ed ; et al (2006). Reinventing Jesus. Kregel Publications. ISBN 082542982X.   

Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 3 vols., New York: Doubleday.   
(1991) The Roots of the Problem and the Person. ISBN 0-385-26425-9 .
 
(1994) Mentor, Message, and Miracles. ISBN 0-385-46992-6 . 

(2001) Companions and Competitors. ISBN 0-385-46993-4 . 

Sanders, E. P. (1993). The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9059-7.   

Theissen, Gerd; and Annette Merz (1998). The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide , trans. John Bowden, Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3123-4.   

Wright, NT (1996). The New Testament and the People of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0800626818.   

[loco]

Josephus on Jesus - Current state of the debate

Judging from Alice Whealey's 2003 survey of the historiography, it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus, but that the text that has reached us is corrupt to a perhaps quite substantial extent. In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Flavius Josephus, "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." There has been no consensus on which portions are corrupt, or to what degree.
Alice Whealey writes:

Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text's authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.

Alice Whealey: Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (Studies in Biblical Literature, Vol. 36). Peter Lang Publishing (February 2003) ISBN-10: 0820452416

[The Luke]

Dudes,


Every single detail in the Jesus story is an astrological metaphor lifted from one of the previous Mystery Religions. Every single one.

Just because you moron-believers find a few tidbits in these Mystery Religions that don't match backwards to the Jesus story doesn't discount the above statement. That's just Logic 101.

Sure you can find a few religious true-believer Bible scholars who disagree... but that is just the same filtered wishful thinking that has people still arguing over Da Vinci's Shroud (the original subject of this thread). Only Jebus-freaks like you two continue to buy into the bullshit agenda-driven research published by Evangelical think-tanks.


The Luke

[loco]

Dudes,


Every single detail in the Jesus story is an astrological metaphor lifted from one of the previous Mystery Religions. Every single one.

Just because you moron-believers find a few tidbits in these Mystery Religions that don't match backwards to the Jesus story doesn't discount the above statement. That's just Logic 101.

Sure you can find a few religious true-believer Bible scholars who disagree... but that is just the same filtered wishful thinking that has people still arguing over Da Vinci's Shroud (the original subject of this thread). Only Jebus-freaks like you two continue to buy into the bullshit agenda-driven research published by Evangelical think-tanks.


The Luke

You are the one ignoring what I just posted, some of it from secular scholars.

And please don't compare Jesus Christ to the Shroud of Turin.  We don't believe that the Shroud is authentic.  I only created this thread because I find the mystery of it interesting, but I'm aware that it could be a hoax.

[boonasty]

Dudes,


Every single detail in the Jesus story is an astrological metaphor lifted from one of the previous Mystery Religions. Every single one.

Just because you moron-believers find a few tidbits in these Mystery Religions that don't match backwards to the Jesus story doesn't discount the above statement. That's just Logic 101.

Sure you can find a few religious true-believer Bible scholars who disagree... but that is just the same filtered wishful thinking that has people still arguing over Da Vinci's Shroud (the original subject of this thread). Only Jebus-freaks like you two continue to buy into the bullshit agenda-driven research published by Evangelical think-tanks.


The Luke

The Luke please speak on this important matter

[The Luke]

If Jesus was a historical person, then why was his life recorded only as a series of astrological metaphors?


Among the scrolls recovered in the last century (can't remember if it was the Nag Hamaddi Library; Dead Sea Scrolls or Quumran collection) was a copy of "The Wisdom of Plato"; a popular ancient manuscript listing assorted pronunciations by the great philosopher.

However, this particular version was titled "The Wisdom of Jesus" and each and every Plato quote was prefaced with the words: "Jesus said:". Had no other copies of Plato's works been retrieved, this obvious plagiarism would never have been exposed.

Similarly, why should we take the gospels at their word when each and every detail is lifted from the various Middle Eastern Mystery Religions?

Granted, no one Mystery Religion is identical to the Jesus story in every detail... but the fact remains that there is not one single significant detail in the Jesus story that isn't lifted from a previous Mystery Religion dying/resurrecting godman story.

AGAIN, I am referring to the astrological MYSTERY RELIGION VERSION of Mithras; Dionysus; Bacchus; Tammuz; Attis; Hercules etc etc... NOT the standard classical folklore versions of these stories. (before MCWAY makes a fool of himself again quoting them).


If you guys want to start a new thread I can easily explain these metaphors...?


The Luke

[spotter]

The Shroud of Turin (or Turin Shroud) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

The shroud is the subject of intense debate among some scientists, people of faith, historians, and writers regarding where, when, and how the shroud and its images were created. Many believe it is the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth when he was placed in his tomb and that his image was recorded on its fibers at the time of his proclaimed resurrection, probably by a powerful flash of light irradiating from his body. Skeptics contend the shroud is a medieval hoax, forgery, or the result of natural processes that are not yet understood.  As of today, no scientist can explain how the image was recorded unto the shroud or what method or technology was used. And, though some skeptics have tried, nobody as of today has been able to replicate it using any method or technology.



The image on the cloth has many peculiar and closely studied characteristics, for example, it is entirely superficial, not penetrating into the cloth fibers under the surface, so that the flax and cotton fibers are not colored; the image yarn is composed of discolored fibers placed side by side with non-discolored fibers so many striations appear. Thus the cloth is not simply dyed, though many other explanations, natural and otherwise, have been suggested for the image formation.
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/doclist.pdf

Many believers have hypothesized that the image on the shroud was produced by a side effect of the Resurrection of Jesus, purposely left intact as a rare physical aid to understanding and believing in Jesus' dual nature as man and God.  Some have asserted that the shroud collapsed through the glorified body of Jesus, pointing to certain X-ray-like impressions of the teeth and the finger bones. Others assert that radiation streaming from every point of the revivifying body struck and discolored every opposite point of the cloth, forming the complete image through a kind of supernatural pointillism using inverted shades of blue-gray rather than primary colors.

From http://www.shroud2000.com/FastFacts.html :

1353: The Shroud's fully documented history began in Western Europe when it was revealed by Geoffrey DeCharney in Lirey, France.

1532: The burial linen was severely damaged by fire in Chambery, France.

1534: The Shroud was repaired by the Poor Claire Nuns who were skilled in making textile repairs. The holes from the fire were patched and the entire cloth was attached to a backing cloth for support.

1898: The Shroud was photographed for the first time by Secondo Pia. These first pictures led to the discovery that the image on the cloth is actually a negative. In other words, the image becomes positive only when the light values are reversed in a photographic negative. This discovery startled the scientific community and stimulated worldwide interest.



1975: Air Force scientists John Jackson and Eric Jumper, using a sophisticated image enhancement analyzer (VP-8) designed for the space program, discovered the Shroud image contained encoded 3-D data not found in ordinary reflected light photographs. This discovery indicated that the cloth must have wrapped a real human figure at the time the image was formed.



1978: The Shroud was on public exhibit for the first time since 1933 and was displayed for six weeks. Over 3 million people passed through the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist to view it behind bullet proof glass. At the close of the exhibition, 40 scientists comprising the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), mostly from the United States, analyzed the Shroud for five continuous days (122 hours) working in shifts around the clock. 

Tests performed in 1978 include:
Particle analysis
Chemical analysis
Blood analysis
Photo microscopy
Spectroscopy
X-ray radiography
Infra-red thermography
X-ray fluorescence spectrometry
Scanning photography from infra-red to ultra violet
And others 

1980: This same year, microscopist Walter McCrone who was not part of the Shroud Project was given several fibers to analyze. After finding iron oxide particles and a single particle of vermillion paint, he broke ranks with the Shroud scientists who had agreed to make all findings public the following year. McCrone proposed that the Shroud was a painting of red ochre paint created from iron oxide particles suspended in a thin binder solution. However McCrone's findings in no way agreed with any of the highly sophisticated tests conducted by two dozen other scientists. McCrone jumped the gun for the sake of getting his own publicity. His claims have all been dismissed.

1981: After three years analyzing the data The Shroud of Turn Research Project (STURP) made their findings public at an international conference in New London, CT. All the scientists agreed upon the following statement: "We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and give a positive test for serum albumin."

1988: The Shroud was carbon dated by three laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona. They indcated a date range from between 1260 to 1390 making the cloth only about 700 years old. This earth shattering news seemed to contradict the conclusions of STURP which gave support to the Shroud's possible authenticity. This new data posed a great dilemma for proponents of the Shroud and further complicates an explanation for the Shroud's existence.

The Shroud cannot be explained in a medieval context because it demonstrates medical knowledge and artistic expertise unknown until centuries later. If it was not made by an artist then what is it? Was it a custom crucifixion performed to mimic that of Jesus? Knowledge of Roman crucifixion practices was totally unknown in the Middle Ages. There are dozens of reasons why a medieval date doesn't fit the evidence.

1997: Noted Israeli Botanist and a professor at Hebrew University, Avinoam Danin confirmed Dr. Alan Whanger's discovery of flower images on the Shroud. He also verified that several pollen were from plants that grow only around Jerusalem.

Sci/Tech - Plants shed light on Turin Shroud
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/411366.stm

2004: Discovery of the Shroud's double face image. Italian scientists, Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolio of Padova University were able to analyze scans of the backside of the Shroud after it was removed from the backing cloth. This had never been done before. The previous backing cloth had been attached since 1534 as part of the restoration following the fire of 1532. Examining the scans revealed faint superficial images of the face and hands. The image occurs only on the top surface of the fibers, similar to the front side of the Shroud but there is no coloring of the threads in between. This enhances the mystery of image formation and makes it that much more difficult to ascribe the Shroud to the work of an artist.

2005: Thermal Chemist, Dr. Raymond Rogers, retired Fellow with the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory proves using samples from the area cut for carbon 14 dating and samples from the main body of the Shroud that the sample cut in 1988 for C-14 dating was in fact a medieval reweave confirming Marino and Benford's hypothesis presented in 2000. Rogers also determined the evidence of a madder root dye used to blend in the color of newer threads with the more yellowed threads of the original Shroud. He also found cotton in the C-14 sample but not from the main body of the Shroud indicating both cotton and flax were used in the repair. Lastly and most importantly, he found that 37% of the vanillin remained intact in the lignon from the C-14 fibers whereas the vanillin content from the main body of the Shroud had decayed to 0%, similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not only does this new evidence show that the carbon dating tests were severely flawed by dating an erroneous sample, but that the evidence also shows the main body of the Shroud is much older as indicated by the lack of vanillin. This critical research is precisely the kind of micro-chemical analysis the carbon dating labs were supposed to do in 1988, prior to taking the sample according to the original protocol, but failed to follow.

The carbon dating tests of 1988 have been thoroughly and completely invalidated by good science rather than the shoddy and arrogant effort demonstrated by the carbon labs in 1988. The cloud has been lifted.

Turin shroud 'older than thought'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm

2007: "The Fabric of Time" is released on DVD
Product Description
We live in a world where science and religion have often been on opposing sides. But is all that changing? For the first time, science and religion have come together to uncover an age-old mystery. Who was Jesus Christ? What did he actually look like? And can the story of his death and resurrection now be proven as true? Viewers around the world are in the jury box as newly found scientific discoveries are presented by scholars, scientists, and historians in an unflinching search for evidence -- nothing has been held back. Could it be that actual documentation of this amazing story is still available today? See the evidence and decide for yourself in THE FABRIC OF TIME.
http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Time-Shroud-Turin/dp/B000MTEFNM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1199330994&sr=8-1

What skeptics say:

"The debate over the origin and authenticity of the shroud steadily increased over the years. Many scientific investigations were carried out to get to the heart of the matter. Moreover, many scientific papers were written on the subject relating to the different theories concerning the structural make-up and image on the shroud. Most scientists took one of three prominent views; they either believed that the shroud was a "divine" creation or that the image was man made or that it was a natural phenomenon. The Shroud of Turin was without a doubt a mystery that challenged faith, science and understanding, one that rekindled man's inquisitive nature in a search for an explanation."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/shroud_of_turin/5.html

"Interestingly, Barbet also noticed that some of the blood stains flowed in unusual, almost unnatural directions on the arms. However, he realized that the stains were consistent with one's arms being outstretched and than lowered, much like someone's arms who had been crucified and then let down. If the blood flow was an artist's representation, it was masterfully conceived and skillfully carried out."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/shroud_of_turin/6.html

"Amazingly, no one has yet been able to successfully explain how the unique 3-D negative-like image on the shroud was constructed. In actuality that remains the biggest mystery."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/shroud_of_turin/9.html



"Rogers was further quoted in the article saying, "The chemistry says it was a real shroud, the blood spots on it are real blood, and the technology that was used to make that piece of cloth was exactly what Pliny the Elder reported fort his time." Pliny the Elder was an ancient Roman scientist and author who lived between 23 and 79 AD. Based on Rogers' research and historical data, the shroud has been accurately dated to around the time of Christ. The discovery rekindled the age-old debate of whether the shroud was or was not the actual burial cloth used to wrap Jesus' body. Chances are we will never know."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/shroud_of_turin/10.html

What Loco says:

Christianity rests on Faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again.  Christianity does not rest on relics.  If you already have faith in Jesus, then you do not need the shroud.  If you do not have faith, then you probably will not believe even if presented with proof that the shroud is authentic.  However, the Shroud of Turin is real, scientists have studied it, and scientists have no other explanation. 

Nobody witnessed the actual resurrection.  Jesus' followers witnessed the empty tomb, the angels at the tomb, and later the risen Jesus himself.  Since nobody witnessed the resurrection itself, could God have left us a photograph of the event itself?  Maybe so.  The evidence is there.  Is the Shroud of Turin the the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth or is it the greatest forgery ever made, during the middle ages, using technology unknown to us even today?  You decide.

More:

http://factsplusfacts.com/theed.htm

http://www.shroudstory.com/

http://www.shroud.com/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0409_040409_TVJesusshroud.html

http://e-forensicmedicine.net/Washed.htm

Its not an old enough material, it was dated 13th century....

[The Luke]

Its not an old enough material, it was dated 13th century....

...epic contribution.

I retract my previous assertion, the above post is "end-of-thread".


The Luke

[spotter]

...epic contribution.

I retract my previous assertion, the above post is "end-of-thread".


The Luke

Thank you Luke....."Sometimes less is More!!!   

[The Luke]

...epic contribution.

I retract my previous assertion, the above post is "end-of-thread".


The Luke

...sarcasm much?


The Luke

[loco]

Its not an old enough material, it was dated 13th century....

2005: Thermal Chemist, Dr. Raymond Rogers, retired Fellow with the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory proves using samples from the area cut for carbon 14 dating and samples from the main body of the Shroud that the sample cut in 1988 for C-14 dating was in fact a medieval reweave confirming Marino and Benford's hypothesis presented in 2000. Rogers also determined the evidence of a madder root dye used to blend in the color of newer threads with the more yellowed threads of the original Shroud. He also found cotton in the C-14 sample but not from the main body of the Shroud indicating both cotton and flax were used in the repair. Lastly and most importantly, he found that 37% of the vanillin remained intact in the lignon from the C-14 fibers whereas the vanillin content from the main body of the Shroud had decayed to 0%, similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not only does this new evidence show that the carbon dating tests were severely flawed by dating an erroneous sample, but that the evidence also shows the main body of the Shroud is much older as indicated by the lack of vanillin. This critical research is precisely the kind of micro-chemical analysis the carbon dating labs were supposed to do in 1988, prior to taking the sample according to the original protocol, but failed to follow.

The carbon dating tests of 1988 have been thoroughly and completely invalidated by good science rather than the shoddy and arrogant effort demonstrated by the carbon labs in 1988. The cloud has been lifted.

Rogers found that the sample used in the 1988 investigation did indeed date to medieval times but the threads examined were from a patch, likely sewed on by nuns sometime around 1260 to 1390, in an effort to restore the shroud after it was damaged by fire. In fact, the rest of the shroud proved to be much older. According to a January 2005 Associated Press article, Rogers said he analyzed "the amount of vanillin, a chemical compound that is present in linen from the flax fibers used to weave it, " which is known to "slowly disappear from the fiber over time at a calculated rate." The samples he studied had hardly any vanillin on them, indicating that the shroud was between 1,300-3,000 years old rather than around 700 years old as previously purported.

"Rogers was further quoted in the article saying, "The chemistry says it was a real shroud, the blood spots on it are real blood, and the technology that was used to make that piece of cloth was exactly what Pliny the Elder reported fort his time." Pliny the Elder was an ancient Roman scientist and author who lived between 23 and 79 AD. Based on Rogers' research and historical data, the shroud has been accurately dated to around the time of Christ. The discovery rekindled the age-old debate of whether the shroud was or was not the actual burial cloth used to wrap Jesus' body. Chances are we will never know."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/shroud_of_turin/10.html

BBC News
Turin shroud 'older than thought'

31 January, 2005

"The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal.

A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm

[Deicide]

Indirectly related, an oldy but goody by Ancient Historian Richard Carrier...lending further credence to the liklihood that Jebus never existed.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html

Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997)
 

Richard Carrier
 

We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers. Thus, this essay is not about whether Jesus was real or how much of what we are told about him is true. It is not even about Jesus. Rather, this essay is a warning and a standard, by which we can assess how likely or easily what we are told about Jesus may be false or exaggerated, and how little we can trust anyone who claims to be a witness of what he said and did. For if all of these other stories below could be told and believed, even by Christians themselves, it follows that the Gospels, being of entirely the same kind, can all too easily be inaccurate, tainted by the gullibility, credulity, or fondness for the spectacular which characterized most people of the time.

The Minor Evidence: Messiahs and Miracles Galore
Even in Acts, we get an idea of just how gullible people could be. Surviving a snake bite was evidently enough for the inhabitants of Malta to believe that Paul himself was a god (28:6). And Paul and his comrade Barnabas had to go to some lengths to convince the Lycaonians of Lystra that they were not deities. For the locals immediately sought to sacrifice to them as manifestations of Hermes and Zeus, simply because a man with bad feet stood up (14:8-18). These stories show how ready people were to believe that gods can take on human form and walk among them, and that a simple show was sufficient to convince them that mere men were such divine beings. And this evidence is in the bible itself.

Beyond the bible, the historian Josephus supplies some insights. Writing toward the end of the first century, himself an eye-witness of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D, he tells us that the region was filled with "cheats and deceivers claiming divine inspiration" (Jewish War, 2.259-60; Jewish Antiquities, 20.167), entrancing the masses and leading them like sheep, usually to their doom. The most successful of these "tricksters" appears to be "the Egyptian" who led a flock of 30,000 believers around Palestine (Jewish War, 2.261-2; Paul is mistaken for him by a Roman officer in Acts 21:38). This fellow even claimed he could topple the walls of Jerusalem with a single word (Jewish Antiquities, 20.170), yet it took a massacre at the hands of Roman troops to finally instill doubt in his followers.

Twenty years later, a common weaver named Jonathan would attract a mob of the poor and needy, promising to show them many signs and portents (Jewish War, 7.437-8). Again, it took military intervention to disband the movement. Josephus also names a certain Theudas, another "trickster" who gathered an impressive following in Cyrene around 46 A.D., claiming he was a prophet and could part the river Jordan (Jewish Antiquities, 20.97). This could be the same Theudas mentioned in Acts 5:36. Stories like these also remind us of the faithful following that Simon was reported to have had in Acts 8:9-11, again showing how easy it was to make people believe you had "the power of god" at your disposal. Jesus was not unique in that respect.

Miracles were also a dime a dozen in this era. The biographer Plutarch, a contemporary of Josephus, engages in a lengthy digression to prove that a statue of Tyche did not really speak in the early Republic (Life of Coriolanus 37.3). He claims it must have been a hallucination inspired by the deep religious faith of the onlookers, since there were, he says, too many reliable witnesses to dismiss the story as an invention (38.1-3). He even digresses further to explain why other miracles such as weeping or bleeding--even moaning--statues could be explained as natural phenomena, showing a modest but refreshing degree of skeptical reasoning that would make the Amazing Randi proud. What is notable is not that Plutarch proves himself to have some good sense, but that he felt it was necessary to make such an argument at all. Clearly, such miracles were still reported and believed in his own time. I find this to be a particularly interesting passage, since we have thousands of believers flocking to weeping and bleeding statues even today. Certainly the pagan gods must also exist if they could make their statues weep and bleed as well!

Miraculous healings were also commonplace. Suetonius, another biographer writing a generation after Plutarch, reports that even the emperor Vespasian once cured the blind and lame (Life of Vespasian 7.13; this "power" being attributed to the god Serapis--incidentally the Egyptian counterpart to Asclepius; cf. also Tacitus, Histories 4.81). Likewise, statues with healing powers were common attractions for sick people of this era. Lucian mentions the famous healing powers of a statue of Polydamas, an athlete, at Olympia, as well as the statue of Theagenes at Thasos (Council of the Gods 12). Both are again mentioned by Pausanias, in his "tour guide" of the Roman world (6.5.4-9, 11.2-9). Lucian also mentions the curative powers of the statue of a certain General Pellichos (Philopseudes 18-20). And Athenagoras, in his Legatio pro Christianis (26), polemicizes against the commonplace belief in the healing powers of statues, mentioning, in addition to the statue of a certain Neryllinus, the statues of Proteus and Alexander, the same two men I discuss in detail below.

But above all these, the "pagans" had Asclepius, their own healing savior, centuries before, and after, the ministry of Christ. Surviving testimonies to his influence and healing power throughout the classical age are common enough to fill a two-volume book (Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, in two volumes, 1945--entries 423-450 contain the most vivid testimonials). Of greatest interest are the inscriptions set up for those healed at his temples. These give us almost first hand testimony, more reliable evidence than anything we have for the miracles of Jesus, of the blind, the lame, the mute, even the victims of kidney stones, paralytics, and one fellow with a spearhead stuck in his jaw (see the work cited above, p. 232), all being cured by this pagan "savior." And this testimony goes on for centuries. Inscriptions span from the 4th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. and later, all over the Roman Empire. Clearly, the people of this time were quite ready to believe such tales. They were not remarkable tales at all.

This more general evidence of credulity in the Roman Empire shows the prevalence of belief in divine miracle working of all kinds. I will now present you with three historical individuals who truly flesh out the picture.

The Major Evidence: Apollonius, Peregrinus, and Alexander
Apollonius, Peregrinus, and Alexander are three rather interesting religious founders about whom we know even more than we do of Jesus. The first, Apollonius of Tyana, is often called the "pagan Christ," since he also lived during the first century, and performed a similar ministry of miracle-working, preaching his own brand of ascetic Pythagoreanism--he was also viewed as the son of a god, resurrected the dead, ascended to heaven, performed various miracles, and criticized the authorities with pithy wisdom much like Jesus did.

Naturally, his story is one that no doubt grew into more and more fantastic legends over time, until he becomes an even more impressive miracle-worker than Jesus in the largest surviving work on him, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus around 220 A.D. This work is available today in two volumes as part of the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press, a set that also includes the surviving fragments of Apollonius' own writings (if only Jesus had bothered to write something!) as well as the Treatise against him by the Christian historian Eusebius. There were other books written about him immediately after his death, but none survive.

Even Eusebius, in his Treatise against Apollonius, does not question his existence, or the reality of many of his miracles--rather, he usually tries to attribute them to trickery or demons. This shows the credulity of the times, even among educated defenders of the Christian faith, but it also shows how easy it was to deceive. Since they readily believed in demons and magical powers, it should not surprise us that they believed in resurrections and transmutations of water to wine.

We also know that the cult that grew up around Apollonius survived for many centuries after his death. An inscription from as late as the 3rd century names him as a sort of pagan "absolver of sins," sent from heaven (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1996). The emperor Caracalla erected a shrine to him in Tyana around 215 A.D (Dio Cassius, 78.18; for a miraculous display of clairvoyance on the part of Apollonius, see 67.18). According to one account, the ghost of Apollonius even appeared to the emperor Aurelian to convince him to stop his siege of Tyana, whereupon he also erected a shrine to him around 274 A.D. (Historia Augusta: Vita Aureliani 24.2-6).

Later Arabic sources even discuss the fame and potency of certain relics associated with him, which remained in use well into the sixth and seventh centuries, the last of them apparently destroyed by crusaders in 1204 A.D. So popular was the belief in the power of these "talismans" that the Church was forced to accept their use, even while condemning Apollonius and his shrines as demonic (see sources below). And so, we see here an independent confirmation that blind belief in the divine status and miraculous powers of mere mortals easily captivated the people of this time, a fact that even modern Christians must admit.

An even more colorful story is that of a crazy fellow called Peregrinus, nicknamed "Proteus," who set himself on fire during the Olympic games in 165 A.D. to prove his faith in reincarnation. The notion of suicide as a proof of such faith was not new. Indian Brahmans had immolated themselves before Western audiences on several occasions before, the most famous being Calanus, at Susa, in front of Alexander the Great, and Zarmarus, at Athens, in front of Augustus (Plutarch, Alexander 69.. What is most relevant, however, is the fascinating story told about him by the skeptic Lucian in his satirical work, "The Death of Peregrinus." Lucian knew Proteus personally, and he gives us a look at what the story of Jesus might have been had a skeptic been around to give us a different account.

While Aulus Gellius had also met this man in Athens, and was impressed enough to call him a man of "dignity and fortitude" (Attic Nights 11.1-7), Lucian had another point of view. He describes the vainglorious motivations of Proteus, and the duped mobs clamoring for a miracle. He also mentions the gullibility of Christians, who, he says, were easily duped by scam artists (13). Indeed, after the death of Peregrinus, people reported that he was, like Jesus, risen from the dead, wearing white raiment, and that he ascended to heaven in the form of a vulture (40). The punch line is that this latter story may have been a deliberate invention of Lucian himself (39), told to gullible followers, and later recounted to him as if it were fact, showing the effects of the rumor mill at work. Indeed, even people who were in the same city at the time were ready to believe that an earthquake accompanied his death, reminding us of the absurd miracles surrounding the death of Jesus recounted without a blush in Matthew 27:51-54. How easy it was for such stories to be believed! Even if this tale is filled with rhetoric on the part of Lucian, his criticism of gullibility would have no weight if it did not ring true.

Peregrinus also had a small cult following after his death. His staff was treated as a religious relic (Lucian, The Ignorant Book Collector 14), his disciples preached his doctrine (Lucian, Runaways), and his statue healed the sick and gave oracles (Athenagoras, cited above). But his bid for religious glory was not as successful as another man, Alexander of Abonuteichos. Lucian dedicates an even longer and more vicious account of his personal contacts with this man, whom he calls "the quack prophet." The account alone is detailed and entertaining, but for our present purpose it illustrates how easy it was to invent a god and watch the masses scurry to worship it. His scam began around 150 A.D. and lasted well beyond his death in 170 A.D., drawing the patronage of emperors and provincial governors as well as the commons. His cult may have even lasted into the 4th century, although the evidence is unclear.

The official story was that a snake-god with a human head was born as an incarnation of Asclepius, and Alexander was his keeper and intermediary. With this arrangement Alexander gave oracles, offered intercessory prayers, and even began his own mystery religion. Lucian tells us the inside story. Glycon was in fact a trained snake with a puppet head, and all the miracles surrounding him were either tall tales or the ingenious tricks of Alexander himself. But what might we think had there been no Lucian to tell us this? So credulous was the public as well as the government, that a petition to change the name of the town where the god lived, and to strike a special coin in his honor (Lucian, Alexander 58), was heeded, and we have direct confirmation of both facts: such coins have been found, dating from the reign of Antoninus Pius and continuing up into the 3rd century, bearing the unique image of a human-headed snake god. Likewise, the town of Abonuteichos was petitioned to be renamed Ionopolis, and the town is today known as Ineboli, a clear derivation. Even statues, inscriptions, and other carvings survive, attesting to this Alexander and his god Glycon and their ensuing cult (Culture and Society in Lucian, pp. 138, 143).

As for his influence, Lucian tells us that Severianus, the governor of Cappadocia, was killed in Armenia because he believed an oracle of Alexander's (27), and Rutilianus, the governor of Moesia and Asia, was also a devout follower, and even married Alexander's daughter. Indeed, Alexander's "god" was so popular that people rushed all the way from Rome to consult him (30), and even the emperor Marcus Aurelius sought his prophecy (48). From this it is all the more apparent that religious crazes were a dime a dozen in the time and place of the Gospels, helping to explain why a new and strange religion like Christianity could become so popular, and its claims--which to us sound absurd--could be so readily believed.

The final lesson from the case of Alexander and Peregrinus is that Lucian's skeptical debunking never persuaded any believers, showing that even the rare skeptic, no matter how convincing his arguments and evidence, could have no practical effect on the credulous. The vast majority would never read or hear anything he wrote, and most of those who did would dismiss it. Indeed, believers were hostile to critical thought and would shout the skeptics down and drive off even suspected doubters in their midst, as actually happened in the case of Alexander: before every ceremony, the congregation would cry "Away with the Epicureans! Away with the Christians!" (and atheists and unbelievers in general: 38) since these two groups had a reputation for trying to debunk popular religion (this hostility could even come to slander and violence: 25). In effect, this was like clamping their hands over their ears and humming, deliberately refusing even to hear reasonable arguments, much less to consider their force.

Conclusion
From all of this one thing should be apparent: the age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection and remarkable religious acumen. It was an era filled with con artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety. In light of this picture, the tales of the Gospels do not seem very remarkable. Even if they were false in every detail, there is no evidence that they would have been disbelieved or rejected as absurd by many people, who at the time had little in the way of education or critical thinking skills. They had no newspapers, telephones, photographs, or public documents to consult to check a story. If they were not a witness, all they had was a man's word. And even if they were a witness, the tales above tell us that even then their skills of critical reflection were lacking. Certainly, this age did not lack keen and educated skeptics--it is not that there were no skilled and skeptical observers. There were. Rather, the shouts of the credulous rabble overpowered their voice and seized the world from them, boldly leading them all into the darkness of a thousand years of chaos. Perhaps we should not repeat the same mistake. After all, the wise learn from history. The fool ignores it.

Glenn Miller has written a rebuttal to this essay ("Were the Miracles of Jesus invented by the Disciples/Evangelists?" 2002), in response to which I changed some of the language above so as not to give a mistaken impression of my meaning. Miller's title has little to do with my essay, since I am not arguing here (even if I do elsewhere) that anyone in particular "invented" the miracles of Jesus. Rather, I am merely presenting a survey of the social and intellectual context in which those miracles came to be believed.

As to the remainder of Miller's criticism of this essay specifically, I plan to respond in a future rebuttal (which will be announced here). But one simple point must be made even now: almost all of Miller's relevant evidence comes from the educated or even scholarly elite (like Lucian), and thus in no way represents the average man or woman in antiquity, who by their very circumstance wrote nothing for Miller to examine. I would guess that skilled skeptics and skeptical viewpoints like those Miller finds probably could not be found in much more than 10% of the population of the time, if even that--but whose existence I acknowledged even in the original draft of this essay.

[The Luke]

Where is my apology...?

Come on Loco, give it up already.



The Luke

[loco]

Where is my apology...?

Come on Loco, give it up already.



The Luke

I accept your apology!   

BBC News
Turin shroud 'older than thought'

31 January, 2005

"The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal.

A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm

[The Luke]

I accept your apology!   

BBC News
Turin shroud 'older than thought'

31 January, 2005

"The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal.

A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm

...I'd be very suspicious of that research.

The continuous refusal by the Catholic Church to allow testing for the presence of silver along with continuous attempts to sponsor/promote agenda science aimed at re-mystifying the Shroud means the source of new evidence must be considered in conjunction with the actual science.

A few years ago (after the Shroud was exposed as a silver/urea-fixed proto-photograph) the Church attempted to denigrate the radiocarbon dating date by claiming (fraudulently) that the area of cloth sampled might have been the same area handled during balcony showings of the Shroud during the Middle Ages and the bacteria transferred to the cloth by human contact might have skewed the carbon dating result.

Now they've moved on to the "reweave" tactic.

Just grasping at straws...



The Luke

[MCWAY]

Dudes,


Every single detail in the Jesus story is an astrological metaphor lifted from one of the previous Mystery Religions. Every single one.

Just because you moron-believers find a few tidbits in these Mystery Religions that don't match backwards to the Jesus story doesn't discount the above statement. That's just Logic 101.

Sure you can find a few religious true-believer Bible scholars who disagree... but that is just the same filtered wishful thinking that has people still arguing over Da Vinci's Shroud (the original subject of this thread). Only Jebus-freaks like you two continue to buy into the bullshit agenda-driven research published by Evangelical think-tanks.


The Luke

Boy, are you shooting yourself in the foot!!!

First, you claim that " single detail in the Jesus story is an astrological metaphor.....".

Then, you say "because you moron-believers find a few tidbits in these Mystery Religions that don't match backwards ...."

Which is it, Luke? Does every single detail match or not (BTW, we've found WAY more than just a "few tidbits". There's plenty of that foolishness you posted that DOES NOT MATCH the Jesus account).

And for more toe-removal via firearm on your part, we have this:

1) "Sure you can find a few religious true-believer Bible scholars who disagree... "

That, of course, flies dead in the face of what you said earlier, "Among Bible scholars this isn't even debated any longer..."

And, as I said beforehand (that list of Bible scholars, as well as the one Loco listed, is HARDLY EXHAUSTIVE).

So which it is, Luke, is the alleged claim of the Jesus story being lifted from these other figures not even debated or it is still debated to this day?

If Jesus was a historical person, then why was his life recorded only as a series of astrological metaphors?


Among the scrolls recovered in the last century (can't remember if it was the Nag Hamaddi Library; Dead Sea Scrolls or Quumran collection) was a copy of "The Wisdom of Plato"; a popular ancient manuscript listing assorted pronunciations by the great philosopher.

However, this particular version was titled "The Wisdom of Jesus" and each and every Plato quote was prefaced with the words: "Jesus said:". Had no other copies of Plato's works been retrieved, this obvious plagiarism would never have been exposed.

Similarly, why should we take the gospels at their word when each and every detail is lifted from the various Middle Eastern Mystery Religions?

Granted, no one Mystery Religion is identical to the Jesus story in every detail... but the fact remains that there is not one single significant detail in the Jesus story that isn't lifted from a previous Mystery Religion dying/resurrecting godman story.

AGAIN, I am referring to the astrological MYSTERY RELIGION VERSION of Mithras; Dionysus; Bacchus; Tammuz; Attis; Hercules etc etc... NOT the standard classical folklore versions of these stories. (before MCWAY makes a fool of himself again quoting them).


If you guys want to start a new thread I can easily explain these metaphors...?


The Luke

I'm sorry! What astrological metaphors did Josephus and Tacitus use again?

And what are these "significant" details again that are supposedly identical, between the account of Jesus and the sefl-castrating Attis and the rest of these figures again?

[The Luke]

I'm going to explain this the way I would explain it to a child...

The Jesus story is a lot like a spoof movie: "Not Another Teen movie"; "Meet the Spartans"; "Superhero Movie"; "Scary Movie"; "Epic Movie"... etc etc. None of these movies is a remake... and you couldn't find the writers of these movies guilty of blatant plagiarism.

But if you watched every popular Hollywood movie as they were released you would immediately know that these movies are rip-offs of other movies (I'm sure the directors/writers would prefer the term "homage" or "send-up").


Every single detail of the Jesus story is lifted from some other astrological Mystery Religion story.

Just because there isn't an exactly identical precursor version of the Jesus story doesn't invalidate this charge. Especially when early Church Fathers openly admitted this crude plagiarism (Google: "the doctrine of diabolical mimicry").


McWay's argument is:
"Epic Movie" is a completely original work without precedence because there was no previous movie which featured both the "The Hulk" and Captain Jack Sparrow, hence both the Hulk and Captain Jack Sparrow originated with "Epic Movie". Similarly, "Scary Movie" is completely original and without precedence because the videotape from "The Ring" movies was never before featured alongside the masked villain from the "Scream" movies. Hence, both the haunted videotape and masked knife wielder originate with "Scary Movie".

This of course means Roland Emmerich's 1998 "Godzilla" movie is completely original and totally unprecedented in human history as never before did a movie feature a monster named Godzilla trampling through New York pursued by Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno.

The raft of Japanese Godzilla movies released previous to Emmerich's completely original opus are in no way related. Roland Emmerich invented Godzilla, even if he denies this himself.



Rather than hijack this previously interesting thread, why don't some of you chronically ignorant Christian literalists start a new thread wherein you politely ask me to educate you regarding the symbolism of the Bible. If you can help me quote the relevant passages/verses and keep the discussion both civil and logical, I'm sure you would all come around to the truth eventually.


The Luke

[loco]

Every single detail of the Jesus story is lifted from some other astrological Mystery Religion story.

Just because there isn't an exactly identical precursor version of the Jesus story doesn't invalidate this charge.

Contradiction.

Rather than hijack this previously interesting thread, why don't some of you chronically ignorant Christian  literalists start a new thread wherein you politely ask me to educate you regarding the symbolism of the Bible. If you can help me quote the relevant passages/verses and keep the discussion both civil and logical, I'm sure you would all come around to the truth eventually.

Contradiction.


Oh, you actually watched those movies?  Dang!