Steve Jobs – co-founder and, until this past August, CEO of Apple – passed away yesterday. Jobs, a Buddhist, made tremendous contributions to the tech world (which is, you know, something we here at Godbytes kind of dabble in), so we figured a roundup of Jobs-related religious news was in order.

Firstly, CNN has two pieces on Jobs’ personal religiosity, one recounting the Zen of Jobs and the other dealing his “spiritual side.”

Similarly, Susan Brooks Thistlewaite at the Washington Post discusses the “Theology of Steve Jobs.”

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star notes that many participants of the Arab Spring are tweeting their gratitude for Jobs, thanking him for the role his products played in the protests and uprisings that continue to rock the region (protestors reportedly use a lot of iPhones and MacBooks). Muslim tweeters also made special mention of Jobs’ estranged biological father, who was a Syrian Muslim.

Less sympathetic to his passing was often-controversial Westboro Baptist Church, which announced over twitter their intention to picket Jobs’ funeral, claiming he “gave God no glory & taught sin.” But, as both the Houston Chronicle and the Washington Post point out, the church actually used an iPhone to issue the tweet in the first place. Irony (iRony?) abounds.

Elizabeth Drescher at Religion Dispatches recounts the old “Macs are Catholic and DOS is Protestant” argument and asks “Steve Jobs (1955-2011): Death of a Human Tech God?”

And our Tweet(s)/Status Updates of the Day come(s) in the form of a short roundup. Firstly, religious jokesters @UnvirtuousAbbey actually changed their profile pic in homage to the tech mogul. Next there’s the Tweet of God, which (fictitiously) reports that the ever-industrious Jobs isn’t wasting any time in the afterlife:

@TheTweetOfGod – Steve Jobs is already making his mark up here. Opening the pearly gates to usher the righteous into heaven? Now there’s an app for that.

Meanwhile, the Gautama Buddha Facebook page issued this status update in memorial:

“I don’t know how many of you know, but Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. He went to India in search for spiritual enlightenment, and he returned wearing yellow robes and no hair : ) After a while he founded Apple and the rest we all know. May he born in the Pure Realms “

Finally, twitter account “Buddha Groove” channeled some of Jobs’ own inspirational words to mark his passing:

@buddhagroove – “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…”. http://fb.me/KVlJwYkr #SteveJobs