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…
Forgive them, Darwin, for they know not what they do. Former child star Kirk Cameron, known for his role on the incurably bubbly ’80s sitcom Growing Pains, has announced via Youtube a plan to subvert the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. His brilliant plan? He wants to deliver 50,000 copies of an “altered version” of the book to students at dozens of U.S. universities. In other words, he wants to commit mass vandalism.
Cameron explains that this “very special” edition of the “Origin of Species” will include an introduction explaining “Adolf Hitler’s undeniable connection” to the theory of evolution, and highlighting “Darwin’s racism” and “his disdain for women.” Cameron’s edition also exposes the “many hoaxes” of evolutionary theory, while presenting a “balanced view of Creationism.”
Watch the video here:
And for an excellent play-by-play response, watch this:
There’s no question technology is changing religious practices: You can Twitter prayers from home now, and even have them printed out and posted on Jerusalem’s Western Wall. And in the pre-computer era, it took years to decipher many ancient prayer texts. Leave it to Israeli researchers to create a computer algorithm that can read texts that were once illegible since the words have faded or been written over.
Just as forensic software deciphers fingerprints, this new algorithm pieces together written words—work usually reserved for historians and liturgists. The computer can read individual letters and identify handwriting styles in documents that have faded. Reuters reports:
The computer works with digital copies of the texts, assigning number values to each pixel of writing depending on how dark it is. It separates the writing from the background and then identifies individual lines, letters and words.
It also analyzes the handwriting and writing style, so it can “fill in the blanks” of smeared or faded characters that are otherwise indiscernible, Ben-Gurion of the University of the Negev said.
And the program only gets smarter as it begins to recognize the patterns in the writing and learns to guess what the missing words are.
Although ancient Hebrew texts are the only subjects tested so far, the researchers claim that the software is indeed multilingual.
For hundreds of years, people have flocked to Jerusalem’s Western Wall to stuff prayer-laden slips of paper into cracks in the ancient structure. But let’s face it–for most of us, it’s quite a trek to Israel. Luckily, it’s now possible to submit your prayers via Twitter, from the comfort of your own desk chair.
The service’s founder, Alon Nil, says petitioners can tweet their prayers, and they will be printed out and taken to the wall, where they will join the thousands of handwritten notes placed by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited there.
The 25-year-old economist started the Twitter page three weeks ago and has already received hundreds of prayers.
Even before the Western Wall got Twitterific, religious folk could submit prayers via fax or e-mail. But maybe there’s something special about boiling down your heart’s deepest wishes into 140 characters or less.
Religion and science may butt heads over issues like stem cell research and genetically engineered crops, but there’s one thing they agree on: how swine flu spreads.
Holy water can pass on more than just a priest’s blessing—it can also transmit the swine flu virus, a British bishop says. That’s because churchgoers dip their fingers into one container of liquid, then touch their nose or eyes, thereby giving the virus a free ticket into their body.
For this reason, the bishop is urging priests in Essex, UK, to remove holy water from their churches to prevent cases of the flu.
According to BBC, the Right Reverend John Gladwin said: “The water in stoups [which hold holy water] can easily become a source of infection and a means of rapidly spreading the virus.” Still, he added: “It is not our intention at this stage to cause panic.” (more…)
Science and religion may not have the smoothest relationship, but one thing the churchly crowd can hand to technology is its propensity for making religious texts available to the masses. Including, now, the world’s oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus, which before could only be read on leaves of animal skin, is now peruse-able in its entirety online. Reports the AP:
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin, each of which measures 15 inches by 13.5 inches (380 millimeters by 345 millimeters). It is the oldest book that contains a complete New Testament and is only missing parts of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.
The 4th-century book, written in Greek, has been digitally reunited in a project involving groups from Britain, Germany, Russia and Egypt, which each possessed parts of the 1,600-year-old manuscript.
They worked together to publish new research into the history of the Codex and transcribed 650,000 words over a four-year period.
The parchment leaves contained around half of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, all of the New Testament, and two early Christian texts not found in modern-day translations. The first part of the Old Testament, from Genesis to 1 Chronicles, has been presumed to be lost for good. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from running to their computers to read it: “There’s a high demand,” Codex Sinaiticus project manager Juan Garces told the AP. “Our Web site has crashed because people want to look at it.”
An assemblage of thinkers sat down on Saturday afternoon at The New School to talk science, faith, and religion. Befitting an event of New York City’s World Science Festival, science was decidedly not on trial. Instead, the group—three practicing scientists and a philosopher, along with one journalist—took turns defining and professing their ideas about a supernatural force and the relationship of religious faith to science.
Early on, moderator Bill Blakemore came understandably close to stumbling off the session’s lofty stated aim (a “nuanced conversation that transcends simplistic assertions”) as he introduced the panelists and tabulated how many fell into several categories on the “scientist v. religious leader” spectrum. A list of statements handed out to the audience and beamed onto a screen before the presentation (“Religion is a social reflex,” “Faith is what science and religion have in common,” etc.) also proved to be a bit unwieldy when Blakemore asked each panelist to identify problematic items from the list.
Colin McGinn dove right in, taking issue with the statement: “Atheism is a position of faith…as is religious belief,” by deploying the analogy that no one would say it’s irrational to deny the existence of Santa Claus. But the list spurred panelist Guy Consolmagno to comment that unlike the one- or two-liners on the list, “great truths don’t fit on a bumper sticker,” quipping, “I read that once on a bumper sticker.”
The panelists quickly dug deeper. Consolmagno, a Jesuit brother and astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, exhorted listeners not to foster preconceptions of what a scientific or religious person is. Fellow Roman Catholic Ken Miller burst at least a few preconceptions when he suggested that the virgin birth of Christ could be a metaphor, written to make people take notice of the importance of that birth. (more…)
Sikh policemen in England are effectively prevented from becoming firearms officers because of their religious beliefs. They are not allowed to remove their turbans, but the traditional head wraps won’t fit under standard safety helmets. So they’re asking for a technology-fueled alternative: bulletproof turbans.
Internet junkies (which includes an increasing majority of humanity these days) now have one less reason to fear death: Sites like Eternalspace.com can preserve their online lives forever.
Virtual cemeteries and online memorials are springing up around the Internet, from companies that use funeral homes as middlemen. A virtual grave site can be purchased for a loved one, followed by digital amenities and individual accessories, such as a mausoleum, flowers, and religious icons (for $5 and up).
Entrepreneurial ideas like these have sprung largely from the role that Facebook and other social networks have nabbed when a death occurs in social circles. People often use social networks to let others in the network know of a friend’s passing, or distribute details of a funeral, for example. Facebook can also declare a deceased person’s page as in a “Memorial State,” which restricts access to approved family members and friends. Facebook usually requires an official death notice or news item before making the change.
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.
Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.
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?
There’s no question technology is changing religious practices: You can 
For hundreds of years, people have flocked to Jerusalem’s Western Wall to stuff prayer-laden slips of paper into cracks in the ancient structure. But let’s face it–for most of us, it’s quite a trek to Israel. Luckily, it’s now possible to 
Religion and science may butt heads over issues like stem cell research and genetically engineered crops, but there’s one thing they agree on: how swine flu spreads.
Science and religion may not have 
An assemblage of thinkers sat down on Saturday afternoon at The New School to 
Is safety on the job so much to ask for?
Internet junkies (which includes an increasing majority of humanity these days) now have one less reason to fear death: Sites like 
If having your 
