If your God was going to drop down from the heavens for a stroll around your town, what form do you think he or she would choose? A turtle, perhaps?

According to Reuters:

Hundreds of poor Hindu villagers in eastern India have refused to hand over a rare turtle to authorities, saying it is an incarnation of God, officials said on Tuesday. Villagers chanting hymns and carrying garlands, bowls of rice and fruits are pouring in from remote villages to a temple in Kendrapara, a coastal district in eastern Orissa state.

Police have been trying to take the animal from the villagers since it’s actually illegal to harbor this rare turtle. (Note: That’s not a picture of the turtle to the left. The exact species isn’t clear from news reports.) The villagers are saying the turtle has holy symbols on its shell and is really an incarnation of Lord Jagannath, a popular Hindu deity.

Let us all pray to Jagannath that this doesn’t devolve into an Elian Gonzalez-type situation, with Indian authorities barging in to grab a confused reptile…

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Discoblog: No Time to Pray? No Problem! Your Computer Can Do It For You

Image: flickr / Rennett Stowe

If having your computer pray for you isn’t convenient enough, maybe the new mobile phone Sun Dial will do the trick. It won’t pray for you, but for Muslim cell users at least, it will provide daily alerts—five times a day.

The Sun Dial phone application, developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, uses imagery and audible alerts to notify users when to perform the daily prayers, known as salat. The phone will display an image of the sun lining up with a green circle as prayer time approaches; when the sun becomes in line with the circle, it’s time to pray.

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Are you religious, but find yourself with no time to pray? Then Information Age Prayer has the solution you need. For just $4.95 a month, this online service will have your prayers said for you.

The program uses text-to-speech synthesizers to say prayers in a voice designed to emulate the volume and speed of an average praying person. Choose from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and if you’re unaffiliated, no problem! They’ve got options for you as well.

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