Saturday, September 12, 2020

My aboutface on the Shroud


This article appeared a number of years (ca. 2005) before I reposted it in 2013 and again in 2020.
Vintage Anatomy LEONARDO da VINCI'S SUPERFICIAL ANATOMY OF THE SHOULDERS  AND NECK c1510 250gsm ART CARD Gloss A3 Reproduction Poster: Amazon.co.uk:  Kitchen & Home Sometimes I am wrong
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code but...
. . . I have scanned a book by the painter David Hockney, whose internet-driven survey of Renaissance and post-Renaissance art makes a strong case for a trade secret: use of a camera obscura technique for creating precision realism in paintings.

Hockney's book, Secret Knowledge: rediscovering the lost legacy of the old masters, 2001, uses numerous paintings to show that European art guilds possessed this technical ability, which was a closely guarded and prized secret. Eventually the technique, along with the related magic lantern projector, evolved into photography. It's possible the technique also included the use of lenses and mirrors, a topic familiar to Leonardo da Vinci.

Apparently the first European mention of a camera obscura is in Codex Atlanticus.

I didn't know about this when first mulling over the Shroud of Turin controversy and so was quite perplexed as to how such an image could have been formed in the 14th century, when the shroud's existence was first reported. I was mistrustful of the carbon dating, realizing that the Kremlin had a strong motive for deploying its agents to discredit the purported relic.

See my old page

Science, superstition and the Shroud of Turin
http://www.angelfire.com/az3/nuzone/shroud.html
Also,
https://needles515.blogspot.com/2020/09/science-superstition-and-shroud-of-turin.html

But Hockney's book helps to bolster a theory by fellow Brits Lynn Picknell and Clive Prince that the shroud was faked by none other than Leonardo, a scientist, "magician" and intriguer. Their book The Turin Shroud was a major source of inspiration for The Da Vinci Code, it has been reported.

The two are not professional scientists but, in the time-honored tradition of English amateurs, did an interesting sleuthing job.

As they point out, the frontal head image is way out of proportion with the image of the scourged and crucified body. They suggest the face is quite reminiscent of a self-portrait by Leonardo. Yet, two Catholic scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab who used a computer method in the 1980s to analyze the image had supposedly demonstrated that it was "three-dimensional." But a much more recent analysis, commissioned by Picknell and Prince, found that the "three-dimensionalism" did not hold up. From what I can tell, the Jet Propulsion pair proved that the image was not made by conventional brushwork but that further analysis indicates some type of projection.

Picknell and Prince suggest that Leonardo used projected images of a face and of a body -- perhaps a cadaver that had been inflicted with various crucifixion wounds -- to create a death mask type of impression. But the image collation was imperfect, leaving the head size wrong and the body that of, by Mideast standards, a giant. This is interesting, in that Hockney discovered that the camera obscura art often failed at proportion and depth of field between spliced images, just as when a collage piece is pasted onto a background.

Still the shroud's official history begins in 1358, about a hundred years prior to the presumed Da Vinci hoax. It seems plausible that either some shroud-like relic had passed to a powerful family and that its condition was poor, either because of its age or because it wasn't that convincing upon close inspection. The family then secretly enlisted Leonardo, the theory goes, in order to obtain a really top-notch relic. Remember, relics were big business in those days, being used to generate revenues and political leverage.

For if Leonardo was the forger, we must account for the fact that the highly distinctive "Vignon marks" on the shroud face have been found in Byzantine art dating to the 7th century. I can't help but wonder whether Leonardo only had the Mandylion (the face) to work with, and added the body as a bonus (I've tried scanning the internet for reports of exact descriptions of the shroud prior to da Vinci's time but haven't succeeded).

The Mandylion refers to an image not made by hands. This "image of Edessa" must have been very impressive, considering the esteem in which it was held by Byzantium. Byzantium also was rife with relics and with secret arts -- which included what we'd call technology along with mumbo-jumbo. The Byzantine tradition of iconography may have stemmed from display of the Mandylion.

Ian Wilson, a credentialed historian who seems to favor shroud authenticity, made a good case for the Mandylion having been passed to the Knights Templar -- perhaps when the crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. The shroud then showed up in the hands of a descendant of one of the Templars after the order was ruthlessly suppressed. His idea was that the shroud and the Mandylion were the same, but that in the earlier centuries it had been kept folded in four, like a map, with the head on top and had always been displayed that way.

The other possibility is that a convincing relic of only the head was held by the Templars. A discovery at Templecombe, England, in 1951 showed that regional Templar centers kept paintings of a bearded Jesus face, which may well have been copies of a relic that Templar enemies tried to find but couldn't. The Templars had been accused of worshiping a bearded idol.

Well, what made the Mandylion so convincing? A possibility: when the Templars obtained the relic they also obtained a secret book of magical arts that told how to form such an image. This of course implies that Leonardo discovered the technique when examining this manuscript, which may have contained diagrams. Or, it implies that the image was not counterfeited by Leonardo but was a much, much older counterfeit.

Obviously all this is pure speculation. But one cannot deny that the shroud images have a photographic quality but are out of kilter with each other and that the secret of camera obscura projection in Western art seems to stem from Leonardo's studios.

The other point is that the 1988 carbon analysis dated the shroud to the century before Leonardo. If one discounts possible political control of the result, then one is left to wonder how such a relic could have been so skillfully wrought in that era. Leonardo was one of those once-in-a-thousand-year geniuses who had the requisite combination of skills, talents, knowledge and impiety to pull off such a stunt.

Of course, the radiocarbon dating might easily have been off by a hundred years (but, if fairly done, is not likely to have been off by 1300 years).

All in all, I can't be sure exactly what happened, but I am strongly inclined to agree that the shroud was counterfeited by Leonardo based on a previous relic. The previous relic must have been at least "pretty good" or why all the fuss in previous centuries? But, it is hard not to suspect Leonardo's masterful hand in the Shroud of Turin.

Of course, the thing about the shroud is that there is always more to it. More mystery. I know perfectly well that, no matter how good the scientific and historical analysis, trying to nail down a proof one way or the other is a wil o' the wisp.

Science, superstition and the Shroud of Turin


This is a very old version of an article on the Shroud. Be sure to see my recantation on this blog.
Interestingly, I had to use a search engine other than Google to recover a later version, which then linked me to this version. Google came up slam dunk empty, as it does routinely with a great deal of my writing -- though I never prohibit search crawlers from my online material.

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Face of Jesus from  Shroud of Turin Stock Photo - 16439678

Science, superstition and the Shroud of Turin

Reach Paul Conant's pages
Reach yet more Conant pages
Useful synopsis of technical evidence ( pro-authenticity)
Nicholas Allen's 'primitive photography' conjecture
Microbial evidence (pro-authenticity)
Walter McCrone's 'blood stain' analysis (anti-authenticity)
The resurrection of Schrodinger's cat: oddities of perception
On spacetime curvature
The Shroud of Turin is reputed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. The seemingly photographic image couldn't possibly have simply been painted onto the cloth, say supporters of authenticity, some of whom believe that the image was, by a process unknown, burned onto the cloth at the moment of resurrection. The fellow on the cloth, however, appears to be at rest, presumably dead, though perhaps he was on the very brink of resurrection.
One shroud student, who does not favor authenticity, goes so far as to suggest that the shroud was manufactured by some primitive form of photography in the mid-14th Century. This is not an unreasonable conjecture if one is impressed by the strong evidence favoring a physically induced (photographic-like) image and yet is faced with the 1988 mass spectrometer carbon 14 analysis which put the age of the cloth sample at circa 1550.
Electron microscopy of alleged blood stains on the cloth show plainly that the 'blood' isn't blood at all but is an artist's paint pigment, according to microscopist Walter McCrone, who has also debunked the Vineland Map.
McCrone does not offer a plausible idea of how an artist could have been so skilled as to convey a photographic image, a skill that was far beyond the means of his contemporaries and, without electronic assistance, is beyond the means of 20th/21st Century artists. Also, his web site does not (at least directly) tell us the provenance of his samples; without that, we cannot be sure of their authenticity.
At this point I would like to offer some seemingly 'out there' conjectures on the carbon 14 issue:
1) The KGB or some other militantly atheist force intercepted the cloth samples en route to the labs and switched them. Remember, it was 1988, when the Soviet Union was coming unhinged.
The Soviets were well aware of the role that Christian belief played in the hearts of the Poles as they were rattling the chains of communism and threatening the continued existence of the Warsaw pact. Any publicity that threw cold water on anything smacking of Christian miracles would have been very welcome to the party chiefs.
2) The resurrection -- if that's what imposed a photographic image onto the cloth -- altered the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the cloth.
We are aware that high heat, such as from a nuclear explosion, can sear an image onto surfaces such as brick walls. So, we may suppose that the shroud image was instilled with a blast of heat, perhaps originating, by an unknown process, from the body.
Now carbon 14 has two more nucleons than carbon 12. The carbon 14 atom is unstable, meaning that every now and then the extra nucleons come loose, leaving a carbon 12 atom.
The precise moment and conditions for such an event are, by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, fundamentally unknowable. But quantum statistics can be used to say what ratio of carbon 14 atoms to carbon 12 atoms should exist. Carbon 14's half-life of about 5,000 years says that for a particular amount of carbon 14, half of it will have decayed into carbon 12 after about 5,000 years.
However, problems with the dating procedure are illustrated by the fact that carbon 12/carbon 14 ratios are out of kilter in the era of nuclear weapon explosions. These explosions have added carbon 14 into the atmosphere and hence into organic materials, such as cotton.
Similarly, space-based radiation storms -- perhaps very high energy gamma rays -- can cause high-altitude air molecules to be sufficiently agitated to yield a large number of collisions of enough force to fuse loose nucleons into a carbon 12 atom. That is, carbon 14 can be formed from carbon 12 in the presence of enough energy and ionized hydrogen. Ionized hydrogen would also tend to form through sufficient agitation of the air molecules.
In other words, under certain conditions the carbon 14/carbon 12 ratio can be altered, giving perhaps a misleading impression of a sample's age.
The carbon 14 test data might alternatively be read as an indication of the heat on hand at the time, which could have caused a percentage of cloth molecules to be transformed from carbon 12 to carbon 14.
A problem with this scenario is that the carbon 14 dating is very close to the date of the first recorded public mention of the shroud in the mid-14th Century. In other words, isn't it odd that the carbon 14/carbon 12 ratio just happens to coincide with that date? Why not the 12th century, or the 19th?
3) We also cannot exclude the possibility that time itself was bent under the force of the 'resurrection event,' if that's what it was. Although this may seem like a childish extension of Einstein's general relativity theory, there is surely a lot more to time than meets the eye.
One of the most profound discoveries about time, both in relativity theory and in quantum theory, is that it has a necessary subjectivism. In fact, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics makes one wonder how hard and fast history really is.
If the shroud event was unusual enough, we might conjecture that the shroud's timeline (technically called a 'worldline') deviated from the timelines of other artifacts of the 1st century.
However, the weakness of this scenario is that, supposedly, pollen and bacterial residues are consistent with 1st Century Palestine.
Considering that options 2) and 3) are flawed and also considering that the imprint has photographic precision and is known to date to at least the mid-14th Century, we might consider the possibility that the imprint was devised by a very clever 14th Century technician.
But the man's wounds are those consistent with scourging and crucifixion. In fact, they are reportedly so accurate that it appears that the image was made of a crucified man. So the technician apparently was also involved in a homicide.
But again, there is no serious evidence from the 14th Century that such a 'primitive' imaging technology ever occurred elsewhere in Europe or the Mediterranean.
These leaves us with option 1) as the most likely scenario.
[The hit counter is unreliable, but I decline to disable it.]


Email: prconant@yahoo.com

Pinning down pride: the angels problem


Below I post a collection of thoughts on this matter, though I have not troubled to write a formal essay.
Notes from Wikipedia:

The question "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" has been used many times as a dismissal of medieval angelology in particular, and of scholasticism in general. The phrase has been used also to criticize figures such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, who explored the intersection between the philosophical aspects of space and the qualities attributed to angels. Another variety of the question is: "How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?"
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The fact that certain renowned medieval scholars considered similar questions is clear; Aquinas's Summa Theologica, written c. 1270, includes discussion of several questions regarding angels such as, "Can several angels be in the same place?"
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Philosopher and historian Peter Harrison has suggested that the first reference to angels dancing on a needle's point occurs in an expository work by the English divine, William Sclater (1575-1626). In An exposition with notes on the first Epistle to the Thessalonians (1619), Sclater claimed that scholastic philosophers occupied themselves with such pointless questions as whether angels "did occupie a place; and so, whether many might be in one place at one time; and how many might sit on a Needles point; and six hundred such like needlesse points." Harrison proposes that the reason an English writer first introduced the "needle’s point" into a critique of medieval angelology is that it makes for a clever pun on "needless point."
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Dorothy L. Sayers argued that the question was "simply a debating exercise" and that the answer "usually adjudged correct" was stated as, "Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension." Sayers compares the question to that of how many people's thoughts can be concentrated upon a particular pin at the same time. She concludes that infinitely many angels can be located on the head of a pin, since they do not occupy any space there.
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And from the Cambridge Descartes Lexicon [ 6], we learn:
In the Third Meditation, Descartes introduces the idea of angel as an instance of an idea the human mind can form from other ideas, namely from the idea of human being and from that of God (AT VII 43, CSM II 29; AT VII 138–39, CSM II 99). In the Conversation with Burman, Descartes reportedly asserts that he cannot say anything about angels’ nature, except that like human minds they are thinking substances (AT V 157–58). However, in discussing Regius's theory that man is a substance by accident (per accidens), Descartes provides one counterfactual detail concerning angelic knowledge. The human mind is really and substantially united to the extension of his body. In consequence of this kind of union, the human mind perceives the mechanical modifications of his body as obscure sensations and passions. By contrast, if an angel were joined to a body, his mind would perceive the modifications of this body as they really are, that is, as the mechanical effects of the external bodies that cause them. Consequently, he would know the former only through clear and distinct ideas (AT III 493, CSMK 206) (see clarity and distinctness). An angel united to a body would realize the kind of union that a pilot bears to his ship, which Descartes opposes to the kind of union that holds in the case of human nature (AT VII 81, CSM II 56). To Burman, Descartes adds that he deems wholly irrelevant what views Aquinas – who had been so concerned with angels to deserve to be called “Doctor Angelicus” – held concerning the nature and mind of angels.

Despite this dismissive attitude, Descartes draws on what Aquinas and John Duns Scotus say about angels in his account of the human mind and the nature of human knowledge. For example, the following Cartesian claims on the angelic mind can be traced directly to Aquinas:

1.The mind directly knows itself; its nature consists in thinking and hence it always thinks (AT III 478, CSMK 203; AT V 193, CSMK 355 (cf. Summa Theologica, I, q.56, a.1; q.58, a.1).

2.Understanding and will, and not imagination and sensation, pertain to the nature of the mind (AT VII 73, CSM II 51) (cf. Summa Theologica I, q.54, a.5).


Blogger Conant remarks:

1. Aquinas and others are speaking of some noumenal (non-phenomenal or spirit) world "intersecting" the phenomenal world of Newtonian (or even Einsteinian) space and time. (Obviously, we have used anachronisms.)

Dorothy Sayers makes a good point that immaterial intelligences are not subject to the limits of our material world.

2. Recall how Jesus and the disciples were instantly translated across the Sea of Galilee. Space and time vanish when subjected to spiritual power. Recall that the resurrected Jesus would just show up somehow to speak with disciples. He was not an angel in the sense of never having been born of a woman, but otherwise had the attributes of an angel (in fact, a "son of God" carries the same meaning as "angel" or personal representative). So we see that non-fallen angels are not subject to earthly time and space.

Because of the fact that our fallen world is to a great extent a matter of (compelled) perception, I would say that when an angel appears, that being is projecting its spiritual essence into a person's mind. This may occur "in a dream" with such lucidness that the person takes it as having "really happened."

3. An interesting question is whether humans actually occupy positions in space and time; or is that belief an artifact of human perception mechanisms?

4. Many have heard of Enrico Fermi's famous quip about space aliens from other planets: "Where are all the tourists?" Some make the same jest about angels and other "immaterial" spirits. Yet, is it not so that such beings sometimes pass unnoticed? As the Bible says Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. -- Hebrews 13.2 (KJV/Authorized). And, if an angel projects itself into a human mind for a short time, certainly that being can limit its projection to one or a few persons.

5. For centuries, the image of counting angels on a pin head has been used by philosophers to scorn Aquinas and scholasticism. Yet, we see that the question performed a sound philosophical function of encapsulating serious questions concerning space, time and God's universe. Ridicule is an effective weapon, because it appeals to human pride in assuming one knows what is "obviously" so.

6. The logician Rudy Rucker observed that the "famous puzzle of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin can be viewed as a question about the relationship between the infinite Creator and the finite world. The crux of the problem is that, on the one hand, it would seem that since God is infinitely powerful, he should be able to bid an infinite number of angels to dance on the head of a pin; on the other hand, it was believed by medieval thinkers that no actually infinite collection could ever arise in the created world." [1]

But their "proofs that infinity is somehow a self-contradictory notion were all flawed," Rucker adds.

7. Yet the actual infinite was necessary if the mathematical notion of infinitesimal were to survive. Even if we replace infinitesimals with Weirstrasse's epsilon-delta limit points, the limit point is indistinct from the infinitesimal. Weirstrasse introduced Aristotle's potential infinity (a ridiculous term as a quantity or set is either finite or not) as a means of escaping infinitesimals. But if the limit points are only fictions, then space is discontinuous and there are no smooth curves. An object does not follow a smooth trajectory. Today, we can argue from quantum theory that this indeed holds, but it is doubtful one can get rid of all infinitesimals.

An infinitesimal implies a subspace in which tiny geometric relations can exist without being visualizable (much like quantum "phenomena").

Rucker points out that "Bishop Berkeley found it curious that mathematicians could swallow the Newton-Leibniz theory of infinitesimals, yet balk at the peculiarities of orthodox Christian doctrine." [1]

8. In fact, Amir Alexander has told of a tremendous cultural and ideological war against the infinitesimal led by the Society of Jesus and backed by some authoritarian Protestants. The concern was that if the world were composed of infinitely small bits, the conservative theological doctrines that underpinned the status quo ante would come apart [2]. Supposedly the worry was that Creation reflects a divine order, which the Jesuits interpreted as a "rational" pyramidal orderliness composed of "real" finite blocks in the earthly realm. Their society, founded by an aristocrat and backed by the aristocracy, was a rigorous hierarchical structure that aristocrats believed was natural. The Roman Catholic Church, with the Pope as the chief, should be hierarchical. But infinitely small quantities, to the Jesuits, were subversive of the spiritually proper order. Infinitesimals would raise doubts about reality and perhaps about God (and there is some truth in that fear). [3][4]

9. In his professional biography, Rudolph Carnap scorns the University of Chicago Philosophy Department for hearing a Ph.D dissertation on the ontological proof of the existence of God, saying he felt as though he had found himself back in the days when philosophers argued about how many angels could fit on a pinhead. Carnap laughed at a colleague's suggestion that one should remain open-minded [5]. Carnap spent much of his career trying to find a way to justify a scientific approach to philosophy, working to expunge metaphysics as a serious subdiscipline. Materialism (at times under another name) without Marxism was his aim. There is no consensus that he succeeded.

1. Infinity and the Mind -- the science and philosophy of the infinite by Rudy Rucker (Princeton 1995).

2. Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World (Scientific American 2014).

3. A mixed review of Alexander's Infinitesimal
http://www.historytoday.com/reviews/infinitesimal
In response to one criticism, I would say an indivisible may not be quite the same as an infinitesimal. And yet if we regard the reals as continuous points on a finite line segment, then we could regard each real as an infinitesimal. The Leibnizian type of infinitesimal which shows up in calculus is regarded as an infinitely small non-zero quantity with 0 dimension. In principle, a real number or a Leibnizian tangent point are seemingly equally goofy.


4. Stanford Encyclopedia on infinitesimal, indivisible
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/continuity/ 


5. The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap, Paul Arthur Schilpp ed. (Open Court 1963).
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6. The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon by Emanuela Scribano, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press



On Christ and Buddha


All Bible quotations are from the King James/Authorized version.
Text in red type is from the Pittsburgh Buddhist Sanghas website



Can a Buddhist become a Christian? Certainly. Can a Christian who professes Jesus as Lord be a Buddhist? The answer to the second question depends on one's definitions. But I would say that a Christian may formally, though not with his heart, "worship in the House of [the god] Rimmon" if he has a good reason for doing so. Recall that after receiving healing from Yahweh the God of Israel, Naaman the Gentile asked Elijah:
18 In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing.

19 And he said unto him, Go in peace. So he departed from him a little way.
And, a good reason might be finding common ground so as to transmit the light of Christ, as Paul did when on Mars Hill he used the image to the "unknown god" (provided by the courteous Athenians to include gods of visitors from distant places) to talk about man's alienation from God and the wondrous opportunity to get to know him via Jesus. After all, let's be honest. Isn't a sincere Buddhist really seeking salvation?

From Acts 17:22-31:
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;

26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead
So then I feel quite comfortable in identifying with Buddhists, though I continue to affirm my commitment to Jesus Christ.

An instance in which one can see parallels with Buddhist teaching concerns the need to put aside the distractions of the world and the self in order to tune in to what some in the East call "the ground of Being." Whether the "ground of Being" is the God named Brahmin or, as I believe, God the Trinity, or as some Buddhists see it, some sort of cosmic cycle.

From the Bible's Psalm 46:10, we have:
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
Those two words, "be still" may imply a lot. Notice the centuries of monkish contemplation and meditation, or the rigors of some Christians past in attempting to tame their animal spirits. They were trying to draw closer to God by somehow calming down, which, after all, is the aim of Buddhist meditation. Of course, there is a big difference between the Buddhist aim of enlightenment and that granted the Christian believer the moment he accepts Christ as Lord. The Buddhist does not receive, at least not directly so, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is light years beyond and better than what a Buddhist can attain by human effort, as the Spirit is the one great gift that turns man into God -- both all at once and by slow degrees.

A Buddhist, I daresay, can identify with the Bible's 1 Kings 19. The still small voice is not in external nature. We are left to infer that the still small voice Elijah heard came from deep within. It is noteworthy that numerous Christian ascetics of centuries past have sought to draw closer to God by quieting the chatter of the self through meditation, contemplation, prayer and religious discipline, some to the point of mortifying their bodies as they tried to tame their animal spirits (the flesh). Christ indeed admonishes us to die to self. Matthew 16:25 tells us:
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Of course, fasting (not only from food) and prayer are good forms of self-denial, but it is also important to go to the foot of the table, learn meekness and humility, and put the other person's needs ahead of one's own. And, dying to self means, to paraphrase John the Baptist, "I must decrease that he may increase." (See John 3:30.)

Here is the "still small voice" passage from 1 Kings 19:
Elijah flees Queen Jezebel
1 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time. 3And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. 4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. 5And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. 6And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. 7And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. 8And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

A still small voice
9And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? 10And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts [Yahweh Elohim]: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

11And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.

And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: 12And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? 14And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

15 And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:16And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. 17And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. 18Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

Elisha called
19 So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. 20And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee? 21And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.
From the Pittsburgh Buddhist Sanghas website, I found a useful discussion of points on which Buddhism and basic Christianity agree [my comments are within braces]:
In the “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus states many concepts that would agree with many Buddhist traditions:

Be humble
Be compassionate (a possible translation of sympathy through mourning)
Live simply (a possible translation of meek)
Be ethical (a possible translation of righteous)
Be merciful
Be pure of heart
Be a peacemaker
Do not live in fear to do what is right
Be an example to others (“the light of the world”)

[Do not hide your light under a basket.]
Do not murder (the Buddhist First Precept)
Do not commit adultery (The Buddhist Third Precept)
Sin is not only found in action but in intention (the Buddhist concept of volitional action creating karma)

[The wages of sin is death; you reap what you sow.]
Keep your promises (The Buddhist Fourth Precept)
Turn the other cheek (The Buddhist concept of compassion or karuna)

[We hear that phrase a lot. Let's recall that it means that if someone slaps your face, offer him the other one to slap also.]
Do charity because it is in your heart to do so (the concept of dana)
[God loveth a cheerful giver (see 2 Corinthians 9:7)]
Do not judge ( The Buddhist concept of the three poisons: hatred, greed and delusion)
Always be seeking and questioning ( “seek and you will find .. “)
Beware of false prophets and judge them by the fruit they bare (the sutta of the Kalamas)

In many ways, this seminal talk of Jesus encompasses almost all of the major concepts of Buddhism.


[True Christians are in the world, but not of the world. Those who persecute such Christians may be thinking they are doing God a favor.

From Luke 12:49-53, we have:

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.]

Important differences
The definitive dividing line for Christianity and Buddhism is also set out in the “Sermon on the Mount.” While Buddhism is a faith of self-realization, Christianity is a faith of God’s revelation.
[I would say by self-realization is meant something more akin to soul-realization for the Christian, though many Buddhists oppose the concept of soul. Notice that practicing Buddhists in fact do attempt to die to self, if what is meant by self is the body-controlled part of the mind. Even so, the Christian belief is that the damage of sin is like when you can't even pay the interest on your debt and if you try to pay it, you just sink deeper into debt. That debt of sin, that no sinner can possibly pay off by his own efforts, was paid by the anguish and death of Jesus. You are bankrupt; ask Jesus to cover your debt.]

In order to be Christian, you must believe that there is a God and that Jesus was his only begotten son who came to Earth. (Well for most Christians).

[Once you receive the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for you not to believe in, because you know personally, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.]

But the Buddha purposefully did not speak of a creator God. He also lived 500 years before Jesus and would not have known him (although there is speculation that Jesus would have known Buddha’s teachings). Buddha not being a theist or atheist left alone the issue of God as irrelevant to his practice.

“I teach only the understanding of suffering,” said Buddha, “and the end of suffering.”

However, if Jesus is the way to salvation, can you believe in the practices of the Buddha and still be Christian? Isn’t Jesus the only way to the end of suffering?

For those who follow a Christian Buddhist path, Jesus himself could best present the answer. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” said Jesus, “and unto God what is God’s.”

[From Matthew 22:20-22. This is a good saying. A Christian's heart should always be with Jesus, but why shouldn't he be friendly with Buddhists even to the point of showing respect to some of their practices?]
Buddhism is a faith in the practice of here and now. Christianity is a practice for the afterlife.

[My response is John 13:35: By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.]

Nirvana or heaven?
For those Buddhists who practice for an understanding of the afterlife, incorporating Christianity would be almost impossible. The concept of rebirth precludes the idea of an eternal heaven.

[Rebirth for a Christian means to be born again, this time of the Spirit so as to worship God in Spirit and in truth, rather than of the flesh of a woman. From John 3:3, we have: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God and from John 4:23-24 we have 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.]

The Christian faith requires the concept of heaven (although not historically a concept of hell [Jesus directly warns about hell on numerous occasions; I would say hell is where Jesus is not; so an interminable future without the Savior would be unpleasant indeed.]).

There is a God, a Heaven, and Jesus. So Buddhists who embrace the cosmology of certain sects of Buddhism or atheism, could never entertain the idea of Christian Buddhists: just as Christians who believe God is continually participating in every thought of their life could never believe in a happiness that is caused by their own free will. [Excellent.]

But what of God being in every aspect of the world? Effecting every action? Christians who consider adding Buddhism to their practice may find others like my family who think that no movements are made in the universe without God’s intervention. I would direct them to

Kings 19:11-13

The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

In this understanding of God, the Creator would be one that does not interfere with the world in which we live, but only touches the heart of man to let him know he is there. It is up to man to make his volitional choices using his free will, and making his own happiness.

[On the other hand, Jesus says we can do nothing without him. From John 15:5 we have

[ I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

From Matthew 28:18-20 we have

[18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen
If Jesus will never forsake us, doesn't that mean he is empowering us at all times, even in our mistakes? Even among the unsaved, no criminal act occurs without the Father.

Consider, Romans 8:28

[And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Does not this imply that he is God is working with us at all times?

Also, from Colossians 2:2-4, we have:

[2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

[3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

[4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
In other words, the non-Christian Buddhist has no access to the wonders of the mind of Christ. And the nominal Christian seeking more wisdom via a Buddhist path is going nowhere. What would be far better would be to ask God for more of his Spirit, or Wisdom, as we are advised in James 1:5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

[6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
]

[The story of Job tells of the story of a faithful man who is beset by all sorts of misfortune, but he “chooses” to keep his faith. While Jesus performs miracles and teaches his gospel, he always leaves these parables as tools so that his followers can make their own choices towards happiness.

[As Jesus says in John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. But if one worships Mammon, that is, if one is attached to the lures of the world, then one is not free to choose. Truth brings freedom. We have from [John 8:44-45

[44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

[45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
]

The Buddha does the same as Jesus, but without the need to exclude the idea of other faiths [The error here is that Jesus is not a religion. He is the Savior.] The Buddha said for us to always question and practice and see the truth by the fruits of our efforts. If a Christian can grow and develop his faith by adding the tools of the Buddha, then I see it as a good thing. [Agreed, as long as the Christian is led by the Lord; or at least, as long as the Lord does not object.]

My aboutface on the Shroud

This article appeared a number of years (ca. 2005) before I reposted it in 2013 and again in 2020. Sometimes I am wrong I haven't re...