The Coming of the Quantum Christ: The Shroud of Turin and the Apocalypse of Selfishness

By John C. Klotz

“If the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ, it is the most important object on the face of the earth with the possible exception of nuclear weapons. This book explains why.

Quantum Christ is about the confluence of religion and science in the study of the Shroud which assumes cosmic importance as humanity faces extinction in an Apocalypse of Selfishness. Selfishness which was one of the driving forces of evolution is now, through the selfish abuse of the environment, driving humanity to an inevitable extinction. Christ is the crucified martyr of unselfish love. Only prodigious, unselfish conduct by humanity can save it from extinction.

Read some of the reviews:
Barrie Schwortz
Editor, shroud.com
Documenting Photographer, 1978 Scientific Examination of the Shroud

"Meticulously researched, thoughtfully written and handcrafted with love and respect for the subject matter, this book is a must read for anyone fascinated by the Shroud of Turin and what it might mean to the world."

Daniel Porter
Editor, shroudstory.com

"It is the best book ever written about the Shroud. Actually, it is not just about the Shroud. The Coming of the Quantum Christ is about what the Shroud is about. It is about the confluence of streams of human understanding that meet in the study of the Shroud. Religion converging with science is one. Our history meeting our future is another. This book makes us think."

David Rolfe
Independent Movie Producer
Winner, BAFTA Award for The Silent Witness

"John Klotz brings a lawyer’s mind to an analysis of the Shroud and what, if genuine, it might mean for us. His assembly of the evidence for authenticity is meticulous and he relays it in an unfolding chronicle which also reveals the twists, turns and human frailties that have bedeviled the Shroud’s reputation and left it in limbo to anyone who has never taken the time and trouble to dig a little deeper. It is far reaching in its scope and conclusions. Hold on to your hats.”

Joe Marino
Author, Wrapped Up in the Shroud

"John Klotz has made a most impressive case for the argument that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Jesus. He thoroughly summarizes the history of the Shroud, including the politics involved in the controversial 1988 C-14 dating, as well as the scientific evidence that has been gathered since the late 19th century, including how the latest cutting-edge theory of quantum mechanics applies to the cloth. Heavily footnoted and lavishly illustrated with both color and black & white photos, this book should be in the collection of anyone interested in the Shroud, whether a novice or a trained scientist."

Annette Cloutiér
Author, Praey to God: A Tasteful Trip Through Faith

"Rarely does a book centered on one specific subject, in this case the Shroud of Turin, mirror a true integration of life. John Klotz’s genius in writing The Coming of the Quantum Christ is that he carefully and freely managed to integrate the whole of our current society and wrap it around the Shroud of Turin. The result of which The Coming of the Quantum Christ is the most exhilarating book ever written thus far on the investigations and the implications of the Shroud of Turin vis à visthe human condition. It is a clear and concise literary masterpiece, a must read for everyone interested or even just curious about the Shroud of Turin, Christ, and Life itself."

• Language: English
• Publisher: John C. Klotz
• Release date: Jan 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9780578151878

John C. Klotz

John C. Klotz is a former Contributing Editor of the Eastside Express in Manhattan. In 1977, he received an award from the New York Press Association for an in-depth investigation of judicial corruption. It was a significant factor in the censure of four judges and led to important reforms in the dispensation of judicial patronage. In 1972, he received a Masters Degree in International Law from the NYU Law School. His paper "Are Ocean Polluters Subject to Universal Jurisdiction" was published in the International Lawyer and was one of the first academic works to advance the concept that ocean polluters were subject to prosecution as international criminals. That article and other published articles may be found at http://www.johnklotz.com/publish.htm. He has two blogs: Quantum Christ: http://quantumchrist-jck.blogspot.com/ and Living Free: http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/

Book preview

The Coming of the Quantum Christ

The Shroud of Turin and the Apocalypse of Selfishness

by John C. Klotz

Michael R. Lanzarone, Editor

Copyright © 2014 John C. Klotz, New York City

John C. Klotz, Publisher

Smashwords Edition

4555 Henry Hudson Parkway 

Suite 709 

Riverdale, NY 10471-3839 

Cover Image: Christ Emerging from Cosmic Chaos

©1978 Barrie Schwortz enhanced by Daniel Porter

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Disclaimer

This book has been three plus years in the making. From the outset, I have been deeply gratified by the assistance of many individuals some of whom have become fast electronic friends. They span the globe from Hong Kong to Italy and points in between.

Because this book may appear to push the envelope in some regards, it must be noted that my acknowledgement of debt and gratitude does not mean that any individual endorses every argument or theory I have advanced. Two examples are my definition of God as the primordial consciousness which birthed our Universe at the micro-instant of the Big Bang and my adoption of the argument of that original sin was the selfishness which was a prerequisite to the evolution of the human species.

Original Inspiration

That concept of original selfishness first came to my attention when in researching original sin and the Garden of Eden as metaphor; I came across two articles published in 2001 in America, the Jesuit magazine. Chronologically, the first that I read was by the late Sr. Joan Acker.¹ Acker’s article was a critique of the then newly adopted catechism which continued to teach Genesis as history. She argued that the catechism ignored biblical exegesis (interpretation) that recognized Genesis as metaphor and dated in modern times to Pius XII.

It is one of my regrets that by the time I had discovered Acker’s article she had passed away, but the author of an earlier article in America that year is, as of this writing, still a lively presence: Professor Daryl P. Domning, PhD. of Howard University.² Prof. Domning argued that original sin was in fact selfishness, one of the driving forces of evolution.

Parts of the solution

In the sixties, Eldrige Cleaver challenged American society: If you are not part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. There are five people who have been a part of the story of the Shroud but also its solution: Barrie Schwortz, David Rolfe, Ian Wilson, Joseph Marino, and William Meacham. They all provided invaluable assistance to me in preparing this book.

David Rolfe was the producer of the 1978 award winning film on the Shroud, Silent Witness. Ian Wilson is the dean of Shroud historians. My first serious interest in the Shroud was peaked by his first book published in 1978. What I did not realize until researching this book is that it was a proposal by Ian to David Rolfe circa 1975 that caught Rolfe’s interest and started him on the path that led to Silent Witness. When carbon dating of the Shroud was first proposed, William Meacham, a professor of Archaeology, constantly pleaded for appropriate protocols. He was shoved aside by the greed of the carbon labs.

Joseph Marino and his wife, the late Sue Benford, were the first to actually verify that the carbon sample was in fact an invisible inter weaving of new cotton and linen. It was their work that sparked first ire, and then the support, of chemist Ray Rogers. Joe Marino has been a constant source of advice and hard to get reference materials. His latest contribution to Shroud research has been as an organizer of the 2014 Shroud Conference in St. Louis. It was amazingly international in both presentations and attendance.

Barrie Schwortz has become a leading voice and asset of the Shroud community. He is one of the handful of surviving STURP team members. Barrie was the documenting photographer of the STURP’s 1978 120 hours in Turin. He is in heavy demand as a speaker on the Shroud but his most valuable contribution was the creation of shroud.com, an incomparable source for anyone interested in the Shroud.³ If you are interested in the Shroud and wish more information, Start there. More than estimated 13 million visitors have.

Compared to the first five, Dan Porter, Editor of the Shroud of Turin Blog, who became interested in the Shroud circa 2000, is a late comer, but he has made himself another invaluable source through his blog http://Shroudstory.com. As of December 23, 2014 it has had 2,737,118 views. Dan has provided me essential advice and assistance and the eclectic and lively debate on the blog can’t completely mask the informative and valuable nature of the information the blog provides.

Barrie directed me to Carlos Evaristo, author of The Untold Story of the Holy Shroud. It is a ground breaking work and Carlos generously consented to the use of an illustration from his book of three bishops displaying the Shroud that dated to the 16th century. The Untold Story tells quite a story and documents the frequency with which the Shroud was repaired and snippets sent to those on whom the favor of the House of Savoy fell.

I have footnoted and referenced several publications by Professor Emanuela Marinelli who began studying the Shroud in 1977 and has written many more publications about the Shroud than those I cited. She was kind enough to review and comment on my reporting of her extensive presentation at the 2012 Valencia Conference.

Intrepid Volunteers

From the very beginning of my project, I have been assisted by Michael Lanzarone, Fordham Law School Professor Emeritus. I first met Mike in 1957 ROTC summer training encampment at Fort Bragg, NC. We forged a friendship that has lasted 57 years. Mike has given me hours of advice and reviewed each chapter as it emerged from my computer. His advice has been invaluable. He has been, as we say in law, both de facto and de jure editor.

Two other individuals who have provided editorial assistance and religious insight were Annette Cloutiér and David Belz of New Zealand. Annette is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and the author of Praey to God: A Tasteful Trip Through Faith.⁴ In addition to providing valuable insight into the religious issues addressed by this book Annette, along with David Belz of New Zealand, provided additional editorial assistance and reviewed the manuscript as it was being formed.

From the outset of my work, I discerned the need for a qualified physicist with whom I could consult. It took a while, but a light bulb went-off and I remembered that there was physicist I had known for some sixty years but had lost contact with: Dr. Peter Zory, Professor Emeritus in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Dept at the University of Florida located in Gainesville Fl. Peter and I were high school classmates. He received his doctorate in physics at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh. Peter made an immediate contribution when he referred me to a video by Stuart Hameroff, Director of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson.⁵ Peter’s professional expertise includes the nature of light, a subject key to unlocking the mystery of the Shroud image.

Russ Breault, the author of the Shroud Encounter web site provided first person testimony to the development of the Shroudie community and was present at a dinner party arranged by the Reverend Albert Kim Dreisbach at which Georgia Tech scientist John Brown unveiled remarkable microphotographs of linen fibers from Shroud at as much as 3400X magnification by scanning electron microscope.

Throughout the development of the manuscript I had several friends and associates who provided a test audience for the book and gave excellent feedback where appropriate. In addition to those already acknowledged were retired Administrative Judge, and friend of more than four decades, Martin Linsky; Kelly Kearse, PhD; Dan Klotz; Irene (Rene) S. Klotz, Lisa Klotz; Sara Jorgensen, PhD; Louis C. de Figueiredo; and Meg Maher.

Rene, my wife of some 50 plus years, is a Licensed Social Worker and medical counselor in private practice. After 19 years of recruiting and advising doctors and participants in a family study of the genetics of epilepsy. She now counsels individuals with health medical issues and offers Life Coaching.

Lisa and Dan K. are my surviving children. Meg Maher is Dan’s wife. Sara, who has a Ph.D. in History from Princeton, is the wife of my late son Michael. She remains in our hearts as our daughter in law. While they may differ with some of my conclusions, they have remained a source of support and have contributed valuable insights to the manuscript as it progressed. Dan is a media consultant and has been active on a great number of environmental issues, particularly climate change. He is a contributor to the National Geographic blog. Lisa is an environmental and education specialist and community activist.

Until his untimely death in 2007 from kidney disease, my late son Michael Klotz, M.S. in Bioinformatics, was a constant source of intellectual challenge and support. A month before he passed away, he said to me You have to start a blog; you have told me things I have never heard from anyone else. I started the blog, but this manuscript is the final product of that advice.

1. Acker, Sr. Joan, Creationism and the Catechism. America," December 16. 2001 (http://americamagazine.org/issue/392/article/creationism-and-catechism).

2. Domning, Daryl, "Evolution, Evil, and Original Sin, America, November 12, 2001 (http://americamagazine.org/issue/350/article/evolution-evil-and-original-sin)

3. https://www.shroud.com/

4. http://www.amazon.com/Praey-God-Tasteful-Through-Multilingual/dp/1450042384/ref=la_B006SHX6QY_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411006543&sr=1-1

5. Klotz, John C., Michael Redux: Quantum Mechanics, Consciousness and Love, http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2012/08/michael-redux-quantum-mechanics.html.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Rules of the Road: Distinguishing Among Fact, Inference, Theory, Law and Speculation 7

Chapter 2: The Story as Told

Chapter 3: Invitation to an Inquest

Chapter 4: The Birth of Shroud Science

Chapter 5: Maelstrom

Chapter 6: The Resurrection of the Shroud

Chapter 7: Game Change: Science goes deep

Chapter 8: 120 Hours of Turin

Chapter 8: Illustrations

Chapter 9: The Blood of the Lamb

Chapter 10: The Carbon Dating Fiasco

Chapter 11: Return of Ray Rogers

Chapter 12: Things Fall Apart

Chapter 13: Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise

Chapter 14: Provenance of the Shroud

Chapter 15: Consciousness, Evolution and the Genesis of Good and Evil

Chapter 16: Love Triumphant

Chapter 17: The Apocalypse of Selfishness

Chapter 18: The Challenge of the Shroud

STERA Inc.

Dresibach: The Ecumenical Implications of The Shroud of Turin

Research References

Introduction

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach¹

We do not order our lives by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Every day we make decisions after weighing the available facts. But almost always we have doubts. Fear the person who has no doubt. Witness George Armstrong Custer.² If we only acted in the absence of doubt, we might seldom act at all. Even Mother Theresa, who devoted her life to caring for the most desperate of the residents of the Calcutta slums, confessed to moments of black doubt.

Unfortunately, one of the hallmarks of the current era are people who profess freedom from doubt under circumstances where doubt would seem to be a reasonable proposition. For example, newly militant atheists are crusading against any form of religion and express no doubt about the absence of any God of any kind. They claim to arrive at their conclusions by the dispassionate application of the scientific method. Foremost among the militant atheists is Oxford Don Richard Dawkins whose literary rant against religion, The God Delusion, has sold more than two million copies since it was published in 2005. The cover jacket for Delusion, modestly describes Dawkins has the world’s most prominent atheist (the atheist pope so to speak).³

Opposed to the atheistic militants are, among others, young earthers be they Christian, Islamic or Jewish. To the young earthers, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, the world is a scant 6,000 years old and men walked with dinosaurs. Indeed, to some, the Grand Canyon is but an artifact of Noah’s flood. They are but cat’s paw for the atheistic militants who delight in demonstrating their absurdities. Nonetheless, the most potent weapon of the militant atheists, aside from acerbic wit, is their scientific credentials.

But putting aside the historically suspect tenets of the young earthers, Dawkins perhaps unknowingly exposes the limited nature of his analysis when he uses evolution to refute the existence of God. Although Dawkins is dealing with the most elemental questions of existence in his claim that God does not exist, he concedes that the most elemental level existence – existence at the quantum level – is inexplicable and beyond the comprehension of our minds.⁴ He states:

Perhaps there are some genuinely profound and meaningful questions that are forever beyond the reach of science. Maybe quantum theory is already knocking on the door of the unfathomable. But if science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can?⁵

Dawkins’ God is Darwin, and he finds in the process of evolution all the answers to the fundamental questions of existence including the nature of love. Everything evolved and there was no need for the intervention or existence of any God. Yet, there is a gap in his theory, he cannot offer a definitive, irrefutable explanation as to what process actually drove evolution:

Biologists often make a distinction between the fact of evolution (all living things are cousins), and the theory of what drives it (they usually mean natural selection, and they may contrast it with rival theories such as Lamarck’s theory of ‘use and disuse’ and the ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics’). But Darwin himself thought of both as theories in the tentative, hypothetical, conjectural sense. This was because, in those days, the available evidence was less compelling and it was still possible for reputable scientists to dispute both evolution and natural selection. Nowadays it is no longer possible to dispute the fact of evolution itself – it has graduated to become a theorem or obviously supported fact – but it could still (just) be doubted that natural selection is its major driving force.⁶

Thus when it comes to the fundamental issues of existence, Dawkins concedes that he doesn’t understand it and thatit may be beyond understanding. And when he advances his theory of evolution as the fundamental engine of progress, he admits that he cannot definitively prove how it happens, it just does. Somehow!

So intent is Dawkins on denying the existence of God that he dispatches in one disparaging sentence Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man, a painstaking presentation of a convergence of religion and evolutionary science. Dawkins keeps his readers in ignorance of Teilhard’s arguments and conclusions even though they relate directly to Dawkins anti-God thesis. Out of the clear blue sky, in reference to other theologians’ attempts to define God, he states his belief that they are sincere but mistaken. He then trashes Teilhard:

"Nevertheless, I was irresistibly reminded of Peter Medawar’s comment on Father Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man, in the course of what is possibly the greatest negative book review of all time: ‘its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive him-self’."⁷

That is his sole reference to Teilhard. It neither rebuts Teilhard nor proves Dawkins’s point. What it demonstrates is a Dawkins rhetorical device to monopolize the reader’s intellect by excluding contrary analysis.

Another example of Dawkins’ rhetoric, starts by casting doubt on the existence of Jesus and concludes by refusing to find any validity in the New Testament at all:

"It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, among others, Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist?

Although Jesus probably existed, reputable biblical scholars do not in general regard the New Testament (and obviously not the Old Testament) as a reliable record of what actually happened in history, and I shall not consider the Bible further as evidence for any kind of deity.⁸ (Emphasis added)

Nevertheless, both Dawkins and Teilhard actually concur on the importance of science to religion. It’s their perspectives that differ. Dawkins is confident that the existence of God could never be proven scientifically. Thus, he demands scientific proof before he will accepts God’s existence.⁹ Teilhard, to the contrary, anticipated a convergence of science and religion leading to a scientific analysis of the actions and direction of God in creating the existence that we know.¹⁰

However, this book, and numerous other works, demonstrates that the same scientific method, to which Dawkins has pledged his fealty, demonstrates not only that Jesus existed but that he was crucified, died and was buried. Shroud science also supports the fact of His Resurrection.

Skeptical?

There exists in Turin, Italy a religious relic known as the Shroud of Turin, the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It has been subjected to the most rigorous scientific investigation of any religious relic in history. Since it was first photographed in 1898, it is estimated that substantially more than a quarter-million hours have been spent on scientific research into its bona fides. That research substantiates the Shroud’s identity as the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, and offers some evidence of his resurrection. Those are not conclusions that determinedly scientific militant atheists, like Dawkins, can accept.

The crucifixion and purported resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are the central events in the religion of two billion Christians. Another one billion Muslims honor Jesus as a great prophet.

In this book, we shall explore the extent to which the scientific evidence concerning the Shroud of Turin establishes sufficient facts to resolve these mysteries. There are two important parts of the Shroud of Turin analysis. First, there is a multitude of physical items including the nature of the shroud linen and its weaving, stains from blood and other human excretions, plant pollen, dust from the Middle East and other miscellaneous items. Second, there is the evidence supplied by the Shroud’s mysterious image of a crucified man. The image concurs with the Gospel stories but science has thus far been  unable to explain how it was created. Some explain the image by reference to a process originating at the quantum level of existence, the level of existence that Dawkins dodged.

We shall also explore the history of the Shroud (its provenance) although some of it has been clouded by the passage of time. However, the best evidence of the Shroud’s authenticity is the Shroud itself and it is only with advance of the science in the last century that the dramatic proof of its authenticity has emerged. Could that not be provenance but providence?

The Coming of the Quantum Christ

And there is more. Something’s coming; something big. That something, as described by Teilhard, is a convergence of science and religion that is now inescapable. There has been for centuries a wary truce between science and religion. Scientists ducked the religious implications of their work by saying they were not involved in theology and theologians insisted on a division of labor which excluded the scientists from theology. No more.

Science is now dealing with two interrelated phenomena: the existence of human consciousness and the nature of existence of all matter at the quantum level. One scientific quandary: the nature and form of material existence is not determined until it is perceived at the quantum level by an observer. Some scientists believe they have demonstrated that human consciousness can operate beyond the limits of time and space.¹¹

The issue is the soul. Science attempting to explain human consciousness is science attempting to define what the religious call the soul. Does our consciousness operate independent of time and space? Is there any scientific basis for eternal life? Is the Resurrection real?

The question of the soul and its survival beyond death has become a scientific issue. It has always been a religious one.

In the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe wrote:

‘In the beauty of the Lily Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.’

In Doctor Zhivago, the subtext of author Boris Pasternak was the transfiguring nature of the Christian myth whereby all of the acts of life including conception, birth, eating and drinking were transfigured because of the birth of the divine Christ: God became man. He writes of Zhivago’s contemplation of his wife’s pregnancy:

The mother of God is asked to ‘pray zealously to her son and her God,’ and the words of the Psalm are put into her mouth: ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold from henceforth all generation shall call me blessed.’ It is because of her child that she says this, He will magnify her (‘For he that is mighty hath done to me great things’): He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men it isn’t their fault if life disappoints them later.¹²

Teilhard described the step of evolution of the human species that separated it from the other animal species as that point when human consciousness developed the power of reflection, an awareness of self that describes the essential characteristic of the soul. The relevance of the biblical Genesis is that it reflects the earliest literate human attempts to explain that moment. While the Vatican prohibited Teilhard from publishing during his lifetime, Pope Benedict XVI cited him and his vision.¹³

There may even be a synthesis between Dawkins and developing Christian theology in one respect. Dawkins coined the phrase selfish gene to describe one driving force of evolution.¹⁴ Orthodox Christianity has long looked to Genesis for an explanation of evil, calling Adam and Eve’s disobedience of God the Original Sin which has scarred all humanity. Catholic scientist Dr. Daryl P. Domning, of Howard University, has defined original sin as original selfishness – one of, if not the driving force(s) of evolution.¹⁵

Opposed to selfishness is love.

My best definition of love comes from a remark in a 1958 television interview by Tennessee Williams: The most important moments of life are those when we break out of our egotistical shell and really sense the presence of another person. In October 2007, reflecting on the death of my adult son Michael, I wrote a piece that explored the implications of that proposition using scientific metaphors.¹⁶ Seven years later, in 2012, after exploring the relationship of human consciousness and quantum mechanics, what I wrote as metaphor in 2007, actually partakes of reality.¹⁷

In the musical version of Les Miserables the lesson is sung: To love another person is to see the face of God.

There may very well be a scientific explanation for love. Some scientists hypothesize that human consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. What Williams was describing may very well be defined as the phenomenon of quantum entanglement: the fact that two quantum objects even if separated by light years react to each other instantaneously because of a unique relationship. That interaction is instantaneous beyond space and time. Einstein called such interactions spooky action at a distance¹⁸

There are other voices demanding our attention in addition to atheism and religious fundamentalism. Others seek to offer a vision of a love-filled humanity without the intrusion of two millennia of organized religion. In The Third Jesus, new age guru Deepak Chopra calls for a rethinking of the Christ’s message as a Third Jesus who is beyond creed or denomination and draws all into universal consciousness.¹⁹

Robert Wright, an evolutionary sociologist, traces in The Evolution of God,²⁰ the development of humanity’s understanding of God from earliest times to the present. Although he appears to be perched somewhere between agnosticism and atheism, he ultimately limns a philosophical direction for humanity that may not be so different, from Chopra, or Teilhard, or Benedict or St. Paul.

It was St. Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians on love who concluded, that love never fails but will endure forever. Whether one believes that Christ is a historic personality, or just an empowering myth, the words of John the Evangelist define the Christian faith: God is love. It also defines where both Chopra and Wright are heading, whatever their words.

The Apocalypse of Selfishness

We live in a calamitous time. Science has concluded that humanity’s selfish abuse of the environment has changed the Earth’s climate and threatens an eventual mass extinction of life. Already in places as diverse as Bangladesh, Australia and Chesapeake Bay the effects of climate change have caused dramatic, dangerous changes to the environment.

Is science with its ability to advance humanity and its ability to also destroy, a metaphor for both Christ and anti-Christ? Does the scientific study of the Shroud of Turin open a door to quantum existence and the future, not just of science, but humanity?

Is this the coming of a quantum Christ?

1. Michael Ruse, author of the Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard Press, Cambridge 2005) cited Dover Beach in the Prologue of his book. Its aptness to the struggle between Militant Atheists and religious faithful beyond evolution causes me to borrow it for this book.

2. For those unfamiliar with the history of United States’ westward expansion, George Armstrong Custer was a commander who led the men of his Seventh Cavalry Regiment into a bloody massacre in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. He challenged an estimated 4,000 Native American warriors who in many cases were armed with repeating rifles while his troopers had only breech loading single shot weapons. As he set out for the raid on the warrior encampment, he declined to take along two ponderous Gatling machine guns which might have changed the outcome of the battle. Such was his confidence that he thought the heavy Gatlings would slow down in his ride to glory.

3. Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, (Houghton-Mifflin, New York 2005).

4. Quantum mechanics a theory of matter that is based on the concept of the possession of wave properties by elementary particles, that affords a mathematical interpretation of the structure and interactions of matter on the basis of these properties, and that incorporates within it quantum theory and the uncertainty principle—called also wave mechanics (http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/quantum%20mechanics). The duality of the most elementary objects of material existence as both wave and particles, and the fact that they are not defined until observed banishes common sense from the equation. Nonetheless, calculations applying quantum mechanics are at the heart of modern physics and were essential to the development of nuclear weapons. Nonetheless Dawkins was correct when he wrote in Delusion that:

[O]ur imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighbourhood of the quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves in the way matter—as we are evolved to think—ought to behave. Nor can we cope with the behaviour of objects that move at some appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Common sense lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large. At the end of a famous essay on 'Possible Worlds', the great biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote, 'Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose ... I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.'… The God Delusion (pp. 407-408). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

5. God Delusion (p. 80). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

6. Dawkins, Richard, The Greatest Show on Earth, Free Press. Kindle Edition (2009-09-18), 17

7. The God Delusion (pp. 183-184). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

8. The God Delusion (pp. 122-123). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

9. The God Delusion (p. 82). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition

10. Teilhard, Pierre de Chardin; Huxley, Julian; Wall, Bernard (2011-06-21). The Phenomenon Of Man (Kindle Locations 5193-5200). Evergreen Books. Kindle Edition (cited hereinafter as Teilhard, Phenomenon):

To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti-religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient and reason supplanting belief. Our generation and the two that preceded it have heard little but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed it seemed at one moment a foregone conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter. But, as the tension is prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to need to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium — not in elimination, nor duality, but in synthesis. After close on two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary. On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other. And the reason is simple: the same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith.

11. Mitchell, Edgar, et ano, The Quantum Hologram And the Nature of Consciousness, http://journalofcosmology.com/Consciousness149.html; Clarke, Chris; Kragh, Helge; Chopra, Deepak; Penrose, Roger; Joseph, R.; King, Chris; Kafatos, Menas; Mensky, Michael (2011-09-27). Cosmology of Consciousness: Quantum Physics & Neuroscience of Mind (Kindle Location 13). Cosmology Science Publishers. Kindle Edition.

12. Pasternak, Boris, Doctor Zhivago, (English Edition, Pantheon Books, New York, 1958) 281

13. http://ncronline.org/news/ecology/pope-cites-teilhardian-vision-cosmos-living-host

14. Dawkins, Richard (2006-03-16). The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

15. Domning, Daryl and Hellwig, Monika K., Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution (Ashgate, 2006)Cited as Domning); See also Domning, Daryl, Evolution, Evil and Original Sin America, Vol. 185 No. 15 (November 12, 2001) http://americamagazine.org/issue/350/article/evolution-evil-and-original-sin

16. Klotz, John C., Reflections on Mourning: Coping with the Ultimate Event Horizon, http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

17. Klotz, John C., Michael Redux: Quantum Mechanics, Consciousness and Love, http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2012/08/michael-redux-quantum-mechanics.html

18. In correspondence with a colleague, Einstein referred to quantum entanglement as "spukhafte Fernwirkung."

19. Deepak Chopra, The Third Jesus (Harmony Books, 2008 New York)

20. Robert Wright, The Evolution of God (Little, Brown, 2009 New York)

Chapter 1

Rules of the Road: Distinguishing Among Fact, Inference, Theory, Law and Speculation

A. Sorting fact from fiction

There have been more than 1,000 books written about the Shroud of Turin from many different perspectives. Some claim to have determined that the Shroud of Turin is a fake. Many of those insist that it was painted, the usual suspect being Leonardo da Vinci. It has even been claimed that the Shroud is a photograph created by da Vinci who managed to insert his own face onto the cloth.¹ That is fiction. Da Vinci was born approximately 100 years after the first documented exhibition of the Shroud in Lirey France. Although the clearly documented history of the Shroud dates to 1350 CE and its exposition at Lirey, there are various accounts which would indicate its existence at much earlier times.

However, any inquiry into the authenticity of the Shroud must begin with the undisputed facts: the existence of an object in Turin Italy called the Shroud of Turin and its physical attributes to which more than a quarter of a million hours of scientific study have been devoted in the last 114 years. The results of those studies can be classified as facts. The meaning of those facts are the inferences to be drawn from the facts. Some of those inferences are beyond serious dispute.

Sorting fact from fiction from theory or inference is not a unique endeavor. It is something that happens every day in judicial proceedings throughout the world. Evidence can be classified in many different ways. Some evidence like the physical aspects of the Shroud is real. But real evidence seldom answers all the questions. Very often the real evidence is circumstantial. A single element of the real evidence may point in a direction and allow the drawing of an inference. But a single fact is normally not enough to solve an ultimate issue. However, a collection of real evidence and the inferences drawn from the collection may point to a resolution of an issue. As a matter of fact, that is the preferred methodology of Richard Dawkins.

B. Dawkins’ methods are so good – if only he would follow them.

In the Introduction, we noted that the dust jacket of The God Delusion describes Richard Dawkins as the world’s leading atheist. In a later book, The Greatest Show on Earth, Dawkins explains his view of evolution. In that book’s introduction, he sets forth his method of evaluating evidence in order to reach conclusions about facts. The method, as he explains it, is pretty good and deserves examination. The problem is when it comes to the Shroud, he simply ignores his own method and his reasoning is shoddy. That we will discuss in more detail later. For now, let’s look at his method as he explains it.

Key to Dawkins’ process of analysis is an experiment and observation from a test designed by a college professor. A group of students were asked to observe a film of people passing a basketball around and count how many times the basketball is passed. The film lasts less than 27 seconds. At the conclusion of the film the professor asked: How many of you saw the gorilla? Most of the students were stunned. Few of them saw any gorilla. Yet, when the film is replayed, a gorilla walks in the middle of the group passing the ball, stays there some nine seconds, and then walks off. Dawkins’ point is that observation by a witness is not necessarily reliable.

As a result, Dawkins finds more reliable are inferences drawn from facts; in contrast to the dictionary, he places little weight in eyewitness testimony.

The dictionary definition of a fact mentions ‘actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to what is merely inferred’ (emphasis added). The implied pejorative of that ‘merely’ is a bit of a cheek. Careful inference can be more reliable than ‘actual observation’, however strongly our intuition protests at admitting it. Dawkins, Richard (2009-09-18). The Greatest Show on Earth (p. 15). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

Given the fact that in his study of evolution, Dawkins most often deals with ancient artifacts, and there is a paucity of other evidence available other than the artifacts, it makes sense.

Obviously, the vast majority of evolutionary change is invisible to direct eye-witness observation. Most of it happened before we were born, and in any case it is usually too slow to be seen during an individual’s lifetime. The same is true of the relentless pulling apart of Africa and South America, which occurs, as we shall see in Chapter 9, too slowly for us to notice. With evolution, as with continental drift, inference after the event is all that is available to us, for the obvious reason that we don’t exist until after the event.²

Then, Dawkins goes on to make an intriguing analogy:

We are like detectives who come on the scene after a crime has been committed. The murderer’s actions have vanished into the past. The detective has no hope of witnessing the actual crime with his own eyes. In any case, the gorilla-suit experiment and others of its kind have taught us to mistrust our own eyes. What the detective does have is traces that remain, and there is a great deal to trust there. There are footprints, fingerprints (and nowadays DNA fingerprints too), bloodstains, letters, diaries. The world is the way the world should be if this and this history, but not that and that history, led up to the present.

How ironically apt is it, that Dawkins’ methodology is applicable to the study of the Shroud of Turin, and as we shall see, how ironically intransigent is Dawkins to applying his methodology to the study of the Shroud? His dedication to atheism seems to get in the way of his purported search for truth.

C. The Dawkins and the Shroud

In the Greatest Show, Dawkins wrote ambiguously about the carbon dating of the Shroud. He noted that the three laboratories that did the carbon dating had dated the Shroud to between 1200 and 1304. He recognized that there were indications that the carbon dating could be flawed:

These dates are all – within normal margins of error – compatible with each other and with the date in the 1350s at which the shroud is first mentioned in history. The dating of the shroud remains controversial, but not for reasons that cast doubt on the carbon-dating technique itself. For example, the carbon in the shroud might have been contaminated by a fire, which is known to have occurred in 1532. I won’t pursue the matter further, because the shroud is of historical, not evolutionary, interest.³

However two years later, on his foundation’s web site, he seemed quite self-assured that the Shroud is a fake. In attempting to rebut the finding of Italian scientists’ new evidence that demonstrated that image of a crucified man on the Shroud could not be faked, he wrote:

"The new ‘evidence’ amounts to yet another ‘Argument from Personal Incredulity’: the Italian scientists cannot understand how it could have been faked. By contrast, the carbon-14 evidence that the shroud’s linen is much too young to be the shroud of Jesus is rock solid. Three independent labs, in Arizona, Zurich and Oxford, were each given four samples, making 12 dating in all"⁴ (Emphasis added)

We will discuss the procedures used by the carbon dating labs and the large body of evidence indicating that the reported results are incorrect later.

Dawkins’ Argument from Personal Incredulity

Why does Dawkins refuse to accept the results of more than a quarter of million hours of scientific research on the Shroud that indicates beyond serious doubt, that the Shroud is in fact the burial cloth of a man crucified in the first century and that the image was created within 48 hours of his death? Could it be that proof of the authenticity is something he cannot live with because it is ultimately incompatible with his determination that God is a delusion?

Is he not incredulous about the Shroud because he can not accept its authenticity under any circumstance? However, let us apply the Dawkins’ method as he explains it to the issue of the Shroud’s authenticity and see where it leads us.

D. Test case: Joseph Kennedy and Ira Gershwin

I want to illustrate how Dawkins (and my) methodology works with a slightly frivolous but nonetheless pointed example of how circumstances demonstrated by real evidence can lead to an ultimate conclusion of fact that may be indisputable. Some time ago, a verse in the song I Can’t Get Started by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin caught my fancy. The third verse, as usually sung today and as I heard it begins:

"In 1929 I sold short

In England I’m presented at court"

The copyright usually appears as I Can’t Get Started Duke/Gershwin 1936

What intrigued me, and I must admit amused me, is that in that verse, lyricist Ira Gershwin was twitting Joseph Kennedy, the father of President John F. Kennedy.

Joe Kennedy was famous for having sold short before the stock market crash in 1929; it was one of the sources of his great wealth. That meant that in the months prior to the crash, he agreed to sell a large number of shares at prices of the then going rate and deliver the stock at the future date. It was a bet that the market would go down and when the time came to cover his short sale he could buy the stock for delivery at a lower price. The market crashed; the stock prices went down; he covered his obligations cheaply; and made a fortune.

I imagine there were other short sellers in 1929 although the most notorious one was Joe Kennedy. On that fact alone, you might conclude that the verse was about Joe Kennedy.

But there is a second fact in the verse. In England I’m presented at court. There may have been other less celebrated short sellers in the fall of 1929, but I will make a safe bet that none of them were ever presented at court in England. Kennedy was. After a stint as chairman of the fledging Securities Exchange Commission, President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, the English court.

Only two facts, but if it was a money or your life bet, you’d be pretty safe betting that Joe Kennedy was the subject of Gershwin’s verse.

Not so fast, a skeptic might interject, "the song was copyrighted in 1936 and Kennedy did not become Ambassador to England until 1938.