From the point of view of faith in the gospel, in my struggle against the teachings of my parents I went through three stages. In my childhood and adolescence I did not know that the gospels were highly problematic texts; in my twenties I discovered that they were problematic but, somehow, I was stuck in their message; and finally, I achieved full apostasy in my adulthood.
Many white nationalists are stuck in the first stage. As it is very difficult to jump from the first to the third stage, I have moved a chapter of Jesus: The evidence to my site Ex Libris, so that it can be read more comfortably there. Keep in mind that the author, Ian Wilson, a Roman Catholic, is stuck in the second stage, and will surely die stuck in it. In the late eighties I exchanged a couple of letters with Wilson discussing the Shroud of Turin. But that is another story…
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14 replies on “Three stages”
Please elaborate further on your views concerning the shroud of Turin. My research provides demonstrable evidence it is a fraud. Why? According to first century Jewish burial custom, the head of the (soon to be) corpse was wrapped separately from the body to facilitate the need for an officiating priest to verify the actual state of death on the third day. The shroud of course is a single piece of cloth.
The shroud of Turin is authentic. It’s the most fascinating object on planet earth.
Arch Stanton,
So true. It’s a fraud. In the late 1980s, still during my mental warfare against my father’s introjects (it was he who introduced me to the Shroud), I became obsessed with the subject and subscribed all the Shroud newsletters and journals, including Wilson’s, in addition to the many books and scientific papers I requested by mail: a two-year study in my life.
It’s carbon-dated 1260-1380 CE so it cannot be a 1st-century burial shroud. In fact, it has exactly the size of an altar cloth, as a Jesuit observed long before the 1988 carbon-14 test.
The “carbon dated 1260-1380” is very very old news. The piece from the shroud that was tested had been mended.
The shroud is the most studied object in history by far, and as the technology advances new unanswered questions and discoveries continue to appear about the shroud, there are many things that no one can explain, for instance how the negative image was fixed in the cloth.
It resembles nuclear radiation, just resembles, we have no equipment in any laboratory in any country that could reproduce that image in a piece of linen, let alone a coarse piece of linen of many centuries or 2 millenia that should have been consumed a long time ago.
From 1985 to about 1993 I believed most of what you said above. But then I realised that those miraculous claims were based on pseudoscience. You would have to pass through the same ‘stages’ referred to above, for example, by comparing what pro-authenticity advocates of the Shroud say with what the sceptics say. (I bet you haven’t read any book written by a Shroud sceptic.)
In fact, since I studied the Shroud full-time for a couple of years, I could even start a series why I believe that the cloth is, indeed, medieval.
You should see material from the last decade, there are many new informations, I remember just a couple.
For example, the image was somehow printed in 3D, no technology that we have can reproduce that. And it was printed in just a small fraction of the surface of the linen, it didn’t get through the cloth. Again it’s a negative image.
The only thing similar in the planet is the shadows from people who evaporated due to the heat from the Hiroshima nuclear bombing.
I am aware of those ‘advancements’ but I am sure you are not aware that a sceptic investigator, Joe Nickell (whom I’ve met personally), debunks each of those claims in Skeptical Inquirer. Or haven’t you even read a single sceptical article about the Shroud (let alone sceptical books)?
Most of my Shroud books are authored by pro-authenticity advocates. I know your arguments. Do you know ours?
I’ll take a look in the next days.. But I think it’s like the “Holocaust,” you have “experts” like Van Pelt, Hilberg, trying to refute the idea that the “Holocaust” was a bizarre scam. But for someone who studied the Holohoax their technical arguments are ludicrous.
What happened to Jews is not a good analogy. The right analogy is pseudoscientific fields such as UFOlogy and parapsychology, where ‘researchers’ have amassed tons of ‘evidence’ of the paranormal and ETs that, ultimately analysed, is no evidence at all.
If you study the Shroud subject honestly as I did, you’ll change your mind from believer to sceptic—as I did. The Shroud image is not a mystery: it’s only a mystery for those who ignore the other side of the argument, as in every single pseudoscience.
If you believe in the shroud, then you might be interested in the piece of the cross Oded Golan has for sale.
As, I wrote the shroud goes against first century Jewish burial customs. Those knowing the Jews are aware of the absolute rigidity of their observances. Jews are a people that still go around the house at Passover with a candle and a feather to chase out the last speck of Chametz, celebrating an an event that never happened for more than three thousand years! Think about this when reading the following description.
Note the separate cloth laid on the face, a description fully in keeping with Jewish burial custom. Note also the “wrapping in linen?” This means wrapped as in “linen wrapped mummy” a carryover from the manner in which Egyptians wrapped their dead. The “shroud of Turin” was clearly not wrapped in this manner.
Modern day non-Jews think, ‘we often “bend the rules,” so Jews might have bent the rules as well.’ Not so when it concerns religious observances and certain social customs like the bris. Remember were talking about “sinning” against the omnipotent, wrathful, vengeful, punishing god YHVH who repeatedly slaughters Jews for disobeying his commands.
This also explains why Jesus would have had to have been an immediate family member of Joseph of Arimathea. No Temple priest would ever consider the idea of burying a stranger in his family tomb, not even a supposed god, it would be sacrilege to do so as priest were an exalted class. Such an act would be comparable to the prohibition of royalty marrying commoners, but Jews are far more rigid in their observances of their religious customs than the hated goyim.
Even Christians once recognized the rigidity of Jewish custom. To wit, “Medieval interest in genealogy raised claims that Joseph was a relative of Jesus; specifically, Mary’s uncle, or according to some genealogies, Joseph’s uncle.” Of course, since Jesus was the son o’ god, Joseph could not have been Jesus father. So we have Joseph uncle of Joseph. There’s a whole lot of Josephs goin’ on here.
The problem with understanding these matters is not having a thorough understanding of the Jews. There is no need for radio carbon dating when one knows the Jews and their customs that clearly demonstrate it would never have happened in the manner claimed by outsiders.
Stanton couldn’t keep his mouth shut for 2 minutes to save his life all he does is talk talk talk talk talk talk talk……
Really? Because it seems to me like he is providing some rebuttals which you are too much of a coward to stomach, and instead of trying to engage him fairly, you talk like a punk.
That would be “write, write, write, write, write, write, write”
Neither of you are correct.
It is in fact “Type, type, type, type, type, type, type”