Guess what? Godbytes is back! That’s right, we’ll keep scouring the Internet to find those little bits of religious news and opinion that you might have missed. You missed us, I can tell.
Looks like NASA and company are auctioning off some tiny, microfilm Bibles that traveled to the moon and back. I’m assuming they used to think that moon-people were ripe for conversion, and they figured they had very, very small eyes:
“The first lunar Bible traveled to Earth’s satellite on February 5, 1971, on board Apollo 14. Lunar Module Pilot Edgar D. Mitchell brought the Bible with him to honor Apollo 1 astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee who died in a cabin fire during testing of the Apollo 1 vehicle. It had been a dream of White’s to bring a Bible to the moon’s surface. Mitchell turned that dream into a reality.
Why a compact microfilm edition? Faith is precious in space — but space is dear in space as well.”
Notoriously snarky Christian blogger Tony Jones is doing a series on marriage, arguing that there is more than one variety of matrimony in the U.S.:
“This week, in a series of posts, I’m going to try to unpack what I think is a very important point in the debate over marriage in our country right now. People say that marriage is broken, or that marriage is up-for-grabs. Neither is true. Actually, there are two marriages in America.”
NPR interviews author Tom Perrotta about his new book “The Leftovers,” which is surprisingly not about the remnants of last night’s ramen noodles:
“Earlier this year, California-based preacher Harold Camping announced that the beginning of the end of the world would take place on May 21, 2011. The date passed by with no apparent rapture, and Camping became the butt of many late-night talk show jokes.
But what if the rapture did actually occur? That’s the premise of Tom Perrotta’s latest novel, The Leftovers, which examines the aftermath of an unexplained rapture-like event in which millions of people around the globe inexplicably disappear into thin air.”
A new website aims to help Muslims and Sikhs who are catching flack in post-9/11 America by letting them tell their stories:
“The project, titled ‘Unheard Voices of 9/11,’ officially launched online Friday with a call for people to share their experiences about being discriminated, targeted and demoralized because of their spiritual and cultural beliefs.
‘We were all affected by 9/11, but the mainstream media has not always covered our stories,’ said Sapreet Kaur, executive director of The Sikh Coalition, one of the groups spearheading the effort. ‘This website is our chance to tell our stories, so that our voices are no longer unheard.'”
Oh, and another new website has is seeking to build a world directory of Christian churches – ALL of them.
And finally, we figured we’d pull today’s Tweet of the Day from a trusty source – the Tweet of God. Apparently God’s answering questions over Twitter these days:
@TweetofGod – “Why do you need so much money?” I have a kid to support.
– Jack Jenkins
