Skeptical Reactions
Typical Examples
What are some worldviews, biases, and epistemology (frequently implicit and unacknowledged) that try to debunk the legitimacy of the Shroud? As examples, people with the following worldviews typically react as follows:
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Naturalism axiomatically disallows the supernatural and is eager to use the radiocarbon dating to promote the Shroud as a medieval forgery, while ignoring the plethora of other evidence.
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Rationalism discounts emotional appeal and religious dogma as myth.
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Pragmatism ignores subjects seemingly unrelated to immediate daily life.
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Islam teaches that Jesus never died, so he was never buried.
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Buddhism, Hinduism, or other Eastern worldviews discount scientific epistemology, so adherents neither desire nor are convinced by all the physical evidence herein.
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Traditional Christianity too often claims that factual evidence diminishes faith, and faith should trump scientific and logical evidence.
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Protestant Christians often simply dismiss the Shroud as yet another dubious Roman Catholic relic, many of which too often have been superstitiously treated as talismans.
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Traditional Roman Catholics might exclaim “It’s holy blood! A holy relic should never be subjected to scientific verification—especially Jesus’ blood.”
There is plenty of eagerness on the Internet to offer contrary explanations for how the images were formed on the Shroud—generally naturalistic explanations—which often just focus on trying to explain only this one aspect while ignoring the other extensive, comprehensive evidence from multiple disciplines and research. If any evidence implies an exception to a natural phenomenon, the underlying epistemology is deemed suspect.
Several appendices in Antonacci’s second book [2015] and material in his first book [2000] controvert various attempts at naturalistic or other alternative explanations.
Motives for Alternative Explanations
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legitimate: Alternative explanations should be and have been investigated by STURP researchers—at least to highlight the failure of the putative alternatives to explain all the plethora of facts.
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questionable: Nevertheless, many skeptics are motivated by a presupposed denial of any supernatural explanation or by a disdain for anything Christian. A refusal to examine the evidence herein is not a legitimate posture for an honest skeptic.