Since the Shadow Shroud story broke, the responses in the blogosphere and elsewhere have fallen into four basic categories
1. Uninformed dismissal: this would be the “they didn’t have plate glass in the Middle Ages, you retard” approach. And as every third grader knows, a nuh uh argument is always answered with an uh huh argument.
2. Informed caution: this was the take of Raymond Rogers, one of the world’s leading researchers on the Shroud. Before his tragic death on March 8, he had agreed to work together with Nathan on the next round of Shroud experiments using the shadow technique.
3. Acceptance of the theory: this response has ranged from cautious acceptance (among responsible literary and scientific types) to enthusiastic acceptance in the freethinker quadrant. Enthusiastic acceptance in the world of atheistic materialism has certainly been understandable. Miracles don’t fit very well in the atheist framework, and with the Shroud now gone, the only miracle that atheists have to be bothered over is that of Darwinian evolution.
4. All-purpose hostility: this has been the approach of some of our local intoleristas. Anything we do, they do the opposite. Anything we say, they say the opposite. They kind of can’t help it.