Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

The Making of Carbon 14

Our world is being constantly bombarded by tiny subatomic particles from outer space. Some of these particles come from our sun; others are from far away in our galaxy. Some even come from beyond our own galaxy, from the farthest reaches of the universe. These particles and may have travelled for millions and billions of years before entering our atmosphere where they collide with oxygen or nitrogen atoms. When they do they unleash a witch’s brew of new particles, which in turn smash into other atoms, unleashing even more particles. Some of these particles, either the ones from outer space or the ones produced in our atmosphere make it to the surface of the earth. Unless you are a speed reader, your body was struck by at least 100 of these particles by the time you finished this one sentence. Some like neutrinos may pass right through you, and then pass through the entire earth, then go off into space never to be heard from again. Some loosed particles, neutrons, interact with nitrogen atoms, specifically nitrogen 14, the most common form of nitrogen. When they do so they turn the nitrogen atom into a carbon 14 atom.

As it turns out, when carbon atoms meet oxygen atoms, and the circumstances are right, the atoms combine to form the chemical compound carbon dioxide (CO₂). The oxygen atoms are not all that fussy because they don’t care if the carbon atom is good old fashioned stable carbon or the radioactive variety. Then, because air in the atmosphere is always in motion, going sideways and up and down, the carbon dioxide with the unusual carbon 14 atom is fully mixed together with all other carbon dioxide molecules in the lower atmosphere. Plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis to create a host of organic compounds, mainly sugars; and some of those compounds have carbon 14 atoms. Animals eat plants or the eat the flesh of animals that eat plants and so those one-in-a-trillion carbon 14 atoms get spread around among all living things in very close to the same proportions found in the atmosphere. That means that one in every trillion of the trillions and trillions and trillions of carbon atoms that make up you and me, one in every trillion is a carbon 14 atom. That is true of everything inside the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich as well as the bread. Well, it is true if you eat the sandwich while it is fresh. But if you put it away and forget about it for a very long time—a very, very long time—it is not quite so true as it was when you made the sandwich. That is because carbon 14 atoms don’t stay around forever. As we said, they do destroy themselves.