TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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UK Hospital banned hot cross buns to avoid offending non-Christians
Hospital staff claim they were banned from handing out hot cross buns this Easter in case they upset non-Christians.

The decision disappointed patients at Poole Hospital in Dorset and angered catering staff.

In an email to their local paper, sent on Good Friday, catering staff said: ‘We the kitchen staff of Poole Hospital were disgusted to find that the patients were not getting hot cross buns this morning.

“The manager of the catering department said he was worried about the ethnic minorities that work here.”

The workers, who did not want to be named, said they had been inundated with calls from nurses on the wards asking why there were no buns this year.
FOR THE FULL STORY (UK’S DAILY MAIL) CLICK HERE

AND IN RELATED NEWS: The tale of the 186-year-old hot cross bun
A proud pensioner believes she has the world’s oldest hot cross bun – baked on Good Friday in 1821.

Nancy Titman, 88, became custodian of the 186-year-old bun when her mum died and has treasured the unusual family heirloom ever since.

Amazingly the bun, which shows no traces of mould, was made the same year as Napolean died, George IV was crowned king and poet John Keats passed away.
FOR THE REST OF THIS WACKY STORY (ALSO FROM THE DAILY MAIL) CLICK HERE

OOOPS: Study Says People Who Recall Past Lives, Alien Abduction Prone to Memory Errors
People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study.

The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to implausible reincarnation claims in the first place.

Researchers recruited people who, after undergoing hypnotic therapy, had come to believe that they had past lives.

Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of names: non-famous names they had already seen (from the earlier list), famous names and names of non-famous people that they had not previously seen.

Their task was to identify which names were famous.

The researchers found that, compared to control subjects who dismissed the idea of reincarnation, past-life believers were almost twice as likely to misidentify names.
FOR THE FULL STORY (FOXNEWS) CLICK HERE

Russian religious news website blocked
One of the more prominent Russian-language religious news websites, Portal-credo.ru, is blocked in Uzbekistan, Forum 18 News Service has found. Tests in the Uzbek capital Tashkent showed that the religious news website was inaccessible. Blocking is done at the instigation of the National Security Service (NSS) secret police. Internet service providers (ISPs) in Uzbekistan blame the blocking of sites on Uznet, owned by the state provider Uzbektelecom and through which all ISPs have to connect to the internet. Uznet insists that sites are already blocked by the NSS. “We don’t block websites – this is done by the NSS secret police. The NSS open the connections for us – they have all the equipment there,” an Uznet employee told Forum 18. Uzbekistan has long barred access to more websites than any other Central Asian country, including websites such as Centrasia.ru, Ferghana.ru and Uznews.net. All these websites carry some coverage of religious affairs.

In addition to the growing number of political, opposition and regional news websites and weblogs blocked to internet users in Uzbekistan, the authorities have now added one of Russia’s more prominent religious news websites, Forum 18 News Service has found. Tests in several locations in the capital Tashkent during March showed that the Russian-language religious news website http://www.portal-credo.ru was inaccessible on every occasion. Blocking is done at the instigation of the National Security Service (NSS) secret police.

“We didn’t know our site was blocked in Uzbekistan,” Aleksandr Soldatov, chief editor of Portal-credo.ru, told Forum 18 on 10 April. “It’s quite possible that this has been done for political reasons – the government might view our site as dangerous.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (VIA FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE) CLICK HERE

Pope Says Science Too Narrow to Explain Creation
PARIS – Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life’s origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book “Schoepfung und Evolution” (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or “intelligent design” views about life’s origins.

Those arguments, proposed mostly by conservative Protestants and derided by scientists, have stoked recurring battles over the teaching of evolution in the United States. Some European Christians and Turkish Muslims have recently echoed these views.

“Science has opened up large dimensions of reason … and thus brought us new insights,” Benedict, a former theology professor, said at the closed-door seminar with his former doctoral students last September that the book documents.

“But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need. Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it,” he said.
FOR THE FULL STORY (REUTERS VIA NYTIMES) CLICK HERE

Thailand hopes holy sour candy will stop road accidents
BANGKOK — Thai police on Monday started distributing “super sour” sweets blessed by a Buddhist abbot in the hope of curbing road accidents by keeping motorists awake with the lip-puckering treats.

Police began distributing 140,000 of the hard sweets ahead of the Buddhist New Year celebrations that run over five days starting Friday.

It’s the most important holiday and biggest party time in Thailand, but also a time of carnage on the highways due to the heavy incidence of drunk driving.

An abbot in the southern province of Prachaup Khiri Khan donated 200,000 baht (5,700 dollars) to make 140,000 packets of sweets to give to drivers nationwide.

On Saturday, 2,999 monks gathered at a temple to bless the confectionery, known as “super sours,” police said.

“Given the high rate of traffic accidents during the New Year holidays, I tried to figure out how to possibly help to minimise the number” of crashes, regional highway police chief Colonel Panya Pinsuk told AFP.

“The major cause of the accidents is that people get very tired from driving after days of celebration,” he said.

“The taste is very sour, which can keep you awake. The candy was also blessed by the monks, which makes people more comfortable and confident when driving,” said Panya.

The government hopes to cut the number of road deaths by 15 percent from the nearly 500 who were killed last year.
THE ABOVE FROM AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE VIA THE RAW STORY