“There are only two ways to live your life,” Albert Einstein once said.

“One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.”

This is the essence of the ongoing argument between science and Christianity. On one side you have believers in a higher power and the supernatural.

On the other, you have believers of data, experiments and statistics, determined to prove there is an explanation behind everything.

Italian scientist Luigi Garlaschelli can be placed in this second group.

According to a Reuters article that ran Monday, Garlaschelli was able to reproduce the Shroud of Turin using techniques and materials available in the Middle Ages.

The original Shroud, a 14-by-7-foot linen, bears the image and blood stains of a crucified man. Many Christians believe it to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

The Shroud has long been a controversial relic, but scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.

Garlaschelli reproduced the shroud by placing a linen sheet flat over a volunteer, rubbing it with a pigment containing traces of acid, and artificially aging it by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it. He then added blood stains and burn holes to achieve the final effect.

Because the Shroud can be recreated, the image left on its surface is no longer a miracle, and the Christian faith should be severely tested. Right?

The situation is reminiscent of spring 2007, when “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” aired on the Discovery Channel.

Produced in part by director James Cameron, the documentary made the case that a 2,000-year-old tomb located in what is now suburban Jerusalem was actually the burial site of Jesus Christ, his mother Mary, his wife Mary Magdalene and his son Judah, among others.

The filmmakers enlisted a squadron of scientific experts, from epigraphers to archaeologists to DNA experts and statisticians, and concluded through their studies that there was a 99.998 percent probability that the tomb did in fact hold the remains of Jesus and his family.

The film was expected to shake up the Christian world as scientific proof that contradicted religious beliefs.

“This is the biggest archaeology story of the century,” Cameron told the press in 2007.

Yet what came from this discovery? Did the Christian religion, as we know it, crumble? Was the faith of millions shattered upon the rocks of scientific truth?

Nope. Christianity remains the world’s largest religion with 2.1 billion adherents. According to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of the U.S. population practices the religion.

Disproving certain facts about Jesus’ life obviously isn’t going to shatter the faith of the majority of Christians. Scientists make a major error when embarking upon quests such as this because they mistake the argument over the truth of the Bible as a matter of evidence when it’s not. It’s a matter of faith.

Scientists could provide evidence to Christians until their lab coats turned to dust, and believers still wouldn’t be convinced. And why should they need convincing? Will the world suddenly be a brighter, more enlightened place if the world’s most popular religion were no more?

People need something to believe in. They need faith that things will someday get better, faith that one’s life has a greater meaning and purpose than what little we seem able to accomplish during our short lifetimes.

Most Christians will believe what they want regardless of scientific evidence to the contrary. So it will be with the reproduced Shroud of Turin.

People don’t need artifacts to support their religious beliefs. They just need faith.

Zach’s existence has been disproven by science. Send letters to what was once his e-mail at zachary.fowle@asu.edu.