Imagine that, still a fake

The "Shroud of Turin" has now been reproduced using medieval techniques. I guess this was required because the 1988 carbon dating tests produced an age that put the shroud as coming from the late 1200s to early 1300s, not over 2000 years ago (Honestly, would there have been any arguments if the pre-determined conclusion had actually been arrived at?). Lots of lame excuses were brought up in regards to that test, one being that no one could possibly have made this miraculous piece of dirty cloth. Well, it looks like it wasn't that hard after all, we just hadn't set anyone to the task really that had the requisite knowledge and skills. Much like a master mason can build a beautiful structure that would be impossible for someone without the skills to make.

The believers won't be disuaded though... That's the thing about kooks and rubes, all that pesky verifiable evidence means nothing to them. They'd rather live with their delusions than subscribe to reality. The funny thing is that from the start, even the church thought it was a fake (and the current church still doesn't call it a relic, although a proclamation by the pope a dope could make it so, much like the virgin ascending to heaven wasn't official doctrine until 1950). And the fact that the carbon dating lines up well with when the shroud first turned up isn't at all damning to these folks.

The Shroud first showed up around 1355 to 1357 under suspicious circumstances and was being used as part of a faith-healing scam. We know this from a later Bishop's report dated 1389 to Pope Clement. The Bishop says that people were being hired to pretend they were sick, and when the Shroud was revealed to them, they would pretend they were cured. So as he put it "they cunningly robbed the pockets of the unsuspecting," and eventually the matter was hushed up, and eventually the Shroud surfaced again. The Bishop tried to put an end to it; people wouldn't listen to him. He appeals to Pope Clement; Pope Clement hears the matter and adjudicates it; he determines the Shroud is just a representation and not the True Shroud. The fact of the matter is that the Bishop's predecessor had actually found the artist and he had confessed. Now, they don't give his name, and of course the pro-Shroud people like to just dismiss this as hearsay, but the fact of its artistry is supported, as we will see, on many fronts. Not only by the lack of history up to that time [the mid-13th century].

Heck, there is even a whole book on it.

I only post this, because it amuses me to think of how many people really are deluded in this and have yet one more item chipped away by reality. Eventually, they may come to realize that pretty much the entire idea of gods, religions, worship, etc. are silly fakes meant to rob them of their money, intellect, and self-determination. Although I think that may be hoping for too much. If it's not religion, it's some other equally ludirous idea that will plant itself into their heads. I guess humans still have quite a ways to go before we can be considered truly intelligent beings.