Shroud of Turin Blog

Over at Sara’s Ramblings you will find a well thought out posting on the proposition that God and science are not compatible. Sara disagree.

Science and human discovering, as far as I’m concerned, further affirms God’s character as shown in Scripture. God gave us brains for a reason. If He wanted a bunch of mindless drones worshipping Him, He wouldn’t have given us the capacity to seek, question, push, discover and then choose to believe something, to believe in Him, and love Him by our own free will.

There is a brief mention of the Shroud of Turin. She speaks of one hypothesis for the resurrection based on observations of the shroud. There are many, however. And while I think the shroud is real I don’t think the nature of resurrection can be determined from the evidence so far gathered from the shroud.

CONTRIBUTE NOW: www.er-d.org 

Episcopal Relief & Development is standing by to provide emergency relief to communities devastated by Hurricane Gustav.  The strong rains and 95 mph winds packed by Gustav have killed 16 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There has been significant damage to homes, infrastructure in the region and entire harvests of bananas, beans and vegetables are completely underwater in Haiti.

Concern remains high in the region.  Meterologists fear that Gustav will become a Category 2 hurricane before passing over Cuba and Jamaica en route to the Gulf of Mexico, threatening off-shore drilling. Hundreds of people have already been evacuated from coastal areas eastern in Cuba due to heavy rains from the Gustav storm system.

Episcopal Relief & Development is in touch with dioceses in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, ready to supply assistance when it is needed. “Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the path of Hurricane Gustav,” says Abagail Nelson, Senior Vice President of Programs at the agency.

To help people affected Hurricane Gustav, please make a donation to ERD’s “Emergency Relief Fund” online at www.er-d.org , or call 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Gifts can be mailed to: Episcopal Relief & Development “Emergency Relief Fund” P.O. Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058.

Episcopal Relief & Development is the international relief and development agency of the Episcopal Church of the United States. As an independent 501(c) (3) organization, Episcopal Relief & Development takes its mandate from Jesus’ words found in Matthew 25. Its programs work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Together with the worldwide Church and ecumenical partners, Episcopal Relief & Development strengthens communities today to meet tomorrow’s challenges. We rebuild after disasters and empower people by offering lasting solutions that fight poverty, hunger and disease, including HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Episcopal Relief & Development Standing by to

In the New York Times, Ethan Bronner reports:

JERUSALEM — In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.

Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact.

cp: One Episcopalian on Faith – Full article at Israel to Display the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Internet – NYTimes.com

Interesting: From an interview by Bernard Chapin with Dinesh D’Souza in Intellectual Conservative:

Dinesh D’Souza: I think we’re seeing something very new right now. For the first time, atheism is being presented as a serious option for young people. A generation ago atheists were represented by the likes of Madeline Murray O’Hare who was not a very attractive poster child for the movement. Today atheism comes in a stylish disguise and is defended by witty debaters. They have mounted a strong attack on religion and claim that atheism is more moral than Christianity. Atheist works have dominated the best seller list for the last two years, and so I thought the time was right to mount a serious counter attack.

From Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy

A true moralist, after years of study and thought, works out a rule of life and sticks to it. A false moralist expects everybody else to stick to it.

Source: Of course, I could be wrong…: madpriest’s thought for the day

Yes, this story is true. Now maybe they can use the face from the Shroud of Turin as a signal light.

Anyone living in Sweden or the Nordic countries will almost certainly have seen the image of a hand pointing upwards to encourage pedestrians to press the button before crossing the road.
Prisma Teknik AB, the Swedish company behind the pedestrian signals, has now admitted that the hand is meant as a hidden symbol for God. In fact, the company says it has never made any secret of the fact.

“We want to show that there is only one way to reach God and that is up and through Jesus”, CEO Jan Lund told The Local.
Though Sweden is not particularly religious, with church attendances consistently low, the country still contains some pockets of religious fervour. One of these appears to be located at Prisma Teknik, a company that supplies pedestrian signals and other technical devices to 60 markets around the world.

Prisma Teknik AB is a family-run business based in the southern Swedish county of Småland, an area with a reputation as Sweden’s bible belt. 

CEO Jan Lund told The Local that the company’s signals point the way to God in 17 countries including Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Belgium, Israel, and the US among others.

Prisma Teknik’s hand points upwards, much in the way that many religious icons or pictures of Jesus have done through the ages. Lund told The Local that this was entirely intentional.

However, Prisma Teknik’s hand of God does not go down quite so well with its Muslim clients in the Arab world, who are much more aware of the hidden Christian message than your average Swede.
Even so, the Swedish Christian company still supplies pedestrian signal signs to customers in Saudi Arabia, who promptly cover up the hand when it arrives in the Arab state.

The Local asked Jan Lund why his company does not simply manufacture a special pedestrian signal without the iconic index finger for the Arab market.

“We want to be a servant of God and we have been blessed as a company for 21 years, so we won’t change for anyone”, he said.

Swedish pedestrians receive secret message from God – The Local

A true moralist, after years of study and thought, works out a rule of life and sticks to it. A false moralist expects everybody else to stick to it.

Source: Of course, I could be wrong…: madpriest’s thought for the day