What some people call the clash of civilizations is not a fight between Islam and the West but between science and faith. The religious rightists in America may want us to believe that they are different from the theocrats of Iran and the fundamentalist of Al Qaeda who teach their suicide bombers that they are targeting "infidel" Christians or Jews, but in fact, the dogmatically religious have more in common with each other than with non-believers.
We live in an age of intense materialism in which scientists are on the verge of understanding how the universe was formed, but we also live at a time of resurgent faith that remains as hostile to science as when Galileo was locked up for observing the centrality of the sun.
The Shroud of Turin, put back on exhibit this week in Turin after eight years, predates Galileo but is one of the most scientifically analyzed religious relics in history. It is said to have come from Jerusalem, possibly brought over by the Knights Templar, a monastic Christian fighting sect formed to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land in the twelfth century. The Shroud is the most famous of Europe's thousands of relics. No cathedral worth its arches and gargoyles was ever complete without one of these objects, delivered through great peril from the Holy Land, and ranging from the picturesque -- the Virgin Mary's four-inch-wide green onyx wedding ring in Perugia, Italy, for example -- to macabre bits of saints' bones and enough skulls of John the Baptist to populate a very large choir.
The Shroud returns to public view at a difficult time for the institution of the Catholic Church, with the Pope himself implicated in a pedophile cover-up. The Shroud's authenticity has been suspect since the fourteenth century, but not until the twentieth century did forensic science and physics create the modern tools with which to date, decode, identify, and otherwise debunk the claims behind such objects. The Church isn't vouching for the authenticity of the Shroud anymore. Rather, as the archbishop of Turin has said, people should look at the Shroud "with their hearts, not their minds."
The Shroud of Turin is only the most famous product of a thriving trade in alleged Biblical relics in the Holy Land, which today is a million-dollar business filtered and "verified" through the scientific lens of archaeology. New finds are always popping up, but despite all the available science, the forgery rate isn't much lower than it was in the Middle Ages. The most notorious recent find, a bone box declared as the first archaeological evidence of Christ's existence, is exhibit A in a trial in Jerusalem that has been going on for about five years.
In my travels around Israel and the occupied territories researching my book Unholy Business, about the alleged forgery of dozens of Biblical antiquities including the James Ossuary, I discovered the fantastically murky underworld that is the age-old antiquities trade in Israel. A collaboration of Palestinians and Israelis, scholars, illegal diggers, licensed dealers, tourists, and millionaire artifact collectors keeps the trade alive and well in the only country in the Middle East where such commerce is allowed.
The finds have enormous meaning for believers around the world. In Israel, the discovery of ancient relics also has profound political implications that can affect both the telling of Israeli history and national land claims. The James Ossuary forgery trial pits science against belief in a courtroom where dozens of archaeologists have been called to the stand and had their scientific expertise shredded by canny defense lawyers. The entire field of biblical archaeology seems to be on trial. An archaeologist at Tel Aviv University told me that when the acquittal happens, we will in short order see the sword of Muhammad and Solomon's sandals, revealed at press conferences and put on sale to a proof-hungry religious public.
In the twenty-first century, many of us have come to believe in science like we once believed in religion. There is danger in that too. I recently spent months watching the Amanda Knox trial in Italy, where material evidence against the two convicted students came down to two specks of DNA, collected and analyzed in a manner about which scientists argued for weeks. These days, a single scientist can say something about which lay people understand nothing, and the public will accept the story without question, as believers once did when priests and shamans revealed messages from the beyond.
Can there be a truce in the war between science and belief? In the end, science can tell us exactly why and how our loved ones die, but it cannot bring them back to us. The angry, fanatical worldwide religious resurgence in our supposedly enlightened generation is a reaction to this failure, this outer limit of science. The Archbishop of Turin got it right this time. As long as we keep heart and mind separate, maybe, just maybe we can all get along.
Follow Nina Burleigh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ninaburleigh
Scott Cairns: The Dormition of the Mother of God
Robert Lanza, M.D.: Why Do We Exist? Experiments Hold the Answer
Robert Eisenman: The James Ossuary: Is It Authentic? (An Update)
Also with regards to the statement that, "In the twenty-first century, many of us have come to believe in science like we once believed in religion." I don't agree at all. Science by definition demands criticism, arguement and dissent to every idea, Religion the opposite. Anyone who would listen to a scientist as they would a shaman or priest is missing the point.
This is a false comparison. The messages from beyond that priests and shamans were truly beyond ones' ability to verify because the source of the message was know only to that "holy man" and most likely made up. Whereas, even though most lay people may not understand the single scientist there are numerous other scientist that are equally capable, and willing, to challenge any thesis. I will always go with science for though there may be mistakes in the short term, the long term track record of the scientific process is unassailable.
I disagree. Acting on one's emotions without thinking about the long term consequences of the action is irrational, and precisely why we all don't get along. While it may appeal to the heart to believe in the Shroud of Turn, fostering people to believe in things that aren't true is dangerous. There are no atheist suicide bombers. Suicide bombers exist because of the irrational belief that their action will be rewarded in the afterlife.
Fanned.
Oh, really? So why is it that 48% of Americans, according to the most recent Gallup Poll, believe that global warming's effects have been exaggerated, despite the fact that virtually every climate scientist in the world agrees this is the case?
As Paul Simon says in The Boxer, "a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest." Scientists only wish people would believe them. But the reality is that people take increasing pride in their ignorance. Heck, Sarah Palin's made a career of it.
Not all folks who believe in God are pedophiles, snake handlers, and money grabbers. Just like not all scientists lie about their work to get extra funding for climate change. They do have something in common though, they stir up mistrust for the people who are actually legitimate.
The image on the shroud is supposed to be the image of Jesus, seared into the cloth as he was taken to heaven.
You can see that the image of his face is well-proportioned, as you would see in a photograph or a picture. The problem with that is your face isn't two-dimentional, and the distance from ear-to-ear is much larger if measured as a three-dimentional distance (as you would have to if you draped a cloth over your face, and transferred your image to the cloth). The face on the cloth should be much wider (and distorted) than it appears on the shroud.
Someone painted the image on the shroud, it wasn't "transferred" by Jesus going luminous (the fact that the image on the shroud covers his privates, with much too long fingers, is also a giveaway).
Knight
Does it scare you that it might not be a fake? Couldn't it be real but
not of the Christ figure that is claimed by many? Is it not possible
that such a cloth might have survived from that period? Maybe someone
applied a special oil to a body that transferred to the cloth--much as is
done today in some parts of the world. Stranger things have survived
from earlier periods--just ask any archeologist.
It certainly doesn't have his name, address, zip code or Social Security
number stamped into it but that doesn't automatically make it a "fake".
The point is, people "believe" what they want to believe, regardless
of what something is or isn't. For some reason which I haven't
fathomed yet, some want to believe that the Christ figure died on
the cross for their sins. Sins? Who "created" sins? By what standards?
What was the purpose of "sins"?
The shroud is what they want to believe it is, just as you want to believe
its a fake, but it will be what they want it to be. And that, my friend, is the
course of history.
And as I pointed out, if the the image on the shroud was actually transferred from a real face (whether by ointment or radient energy is unimportant) the image would look very different than what we see. The image of a three dimentional face transferred to cloth would be stretched out and distorted... the image on the shroud has picture-perfect, 2-dimensional geometries. This is why it's fake... not because it doesn't have a SS # attched.
As proof... look into a mirror... use a ruler to measure the distance across your face, ear-to-ear. Now take a tape measure and measure the distance over the surface of your face, ear-to-ear. Are they the same distance? Of course not... the tape measurement will be several inches longer than the rular measurement, because it takes into account the curve of your face, whereas the rular just measures the 2-dimensional distance. If you placed a cloth over your face and transferred the image, you would see your image stretched out to accomodate the full area of your face. We don't see that in the shroud.
The shroud is a fake. Belief has nothing to do with it.
The fight is between those who regularly shear their flocks and the outsiders who the sheep-shearers want to be sheep or at least be quiet.