Should aged objects of veneration be subjected to the ......

[peter]

scrutiny of scientific investigation?

I have seen a number of TV shows in which objects like The shroud of Turin and the Spear of Longinus have been subjected to scientific analysis in order to verify or contest their claims to authenticity. I have always been suprised that the keepers of such artifacts would allow the proceedures to be undertaken - particularly in that they often involve inflicting [albeit minor] damage on the objects in order to carry out the tests.
I recently saw, in a Church in Brugge, a vial said to contain a scrap of material stained with the Blood of Christ, collected it was claimed by Joseph of Arimathea [I believe from the spear that had pierced Christ's side]. The vial had found it's way via Rome, Constantinople and Venice [who stole it from the former during the atrocities committed during the Fourth Crusade], to it's final resting place in the specially constructed Bloed Basilica, where records show it has remained since the early 1200's.

I was talking to a friend last night, an archaeology student, who immediately said that the icon should be subjected to DNA investigation etc to establish it's authenticity. Well yes - ok. But then I thought of the lines of people queing up to see the vial, people clearly deeply moved by the experience [which alas to my shame, was for me was rather prurient than spiritual] - and I thought "but does it really matter". Surely it is the faith expressed by worshipers, and the clear bennefits they derive from what for many of them is the mystical experience of oneness with Christ derived from the encounter, that is the important thing. What bennefit knowledge, or science in doing these tests just because you can. Leave them be I say. - they are what they are.

[Cord Hurn]

Agreed, peter.

[Avatar]

I'm of two minds really. On the one hand, scientific accuracy is important. On the other, no, I suppose it doesn't really matter. But you know...us atheists are trying to save these people from themselves...

--A

[peter]

I'm of two minds really. On the one hand, scientific accuracy is important. On the other, no, I suppose it doesn't really matter. But you know...us atheists are trying to save these people from themselves...

--A

Atheist Av? I see you as more neo-pagan steampunk ( ).

[Avatar]

Afraid not. Not into Steampunk at all in fact. And as for neo-paganism, can't take it seriously, although it amuses me.

The major drawback to atheism is not having somebody to curse at or plead with, so I compensate with some tongue-in-cheek discordianism. But I know at heart that it is a random, chaotic and uncaring universe.

--A

[peter]

Only kidding. Discordianism? Will have to check that one out, but while random and chaotic I'll accept, uncaring I question. After all we ourselves have the capacity to care (though sometimes poorly executed) and are we not of the Universe? (nb. I do however know where you are coming from.)

[Avatar]

Of perhaps, but certainly not the whole. The whole would carry on regardless should we, for example, wipe ourselves out. We're a mere microscopic dot in it, less significant and able to alter things than even the weakest of suns.

--A

[peter]

Somewhere, sometime in the 'primal soup' that was the sea of 4[?] billion years ago on earth, microscopic dots of amino acid chains and DNA helices found they could clip and unclip from eachother and use the process as a template for replication. The rest is history; if not by us, then somewhere else this same process will occur and in the end it will not just alter the Universe, it will controll it, make it, break it and build it anew in it's own image [or any other it fancies]. Life I think, is in the Universe to stay.

[Avatar]

Well, we don't know that yet, do we? Once is not enough to establish a trend.

--A

[peter]

Don't know about that Av, somebody must have been the first person to put on a kipper tie.