Religious Controversy! OH NO!

"Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091005/sc_nm/us_italy_shroud

Certainly, this article will ignite blazes of heated debate around the world, among both religious and nonreligious people alike. As stated in the title of the article, an Italian scientist claims he has reproduced the infamous Shroud of Turin, using only materials that would have been available in the middle ages. For those of you unaware of the history of the Shroud of Turin, the sheet has been named Jesus' burial cloth since it first appeared centuries ago, but the authenticity of the cloth has long been under scrutiny. Carbon tests back in 1988 reported the shroud to be a fake, dating it back to the middle ages rather than the time of Jesus. Even so, religious devotees have long fought that either a) the cloth was contaminated or b) the lab results were misread or botched in some way.

Coming from a girl raised her entire life in the Catholic tradition, I do not see why the Shroud of Turin's apparent authenticity or lack thereof should affect someone's religious beliefs in any way. Isn't faith about believing in what you know is true, without needing any physical evidence otherwise? Sure, nobody wants to be told that something they believe in is a fake. But really, so what! If you believe that Jesus really died and rose againt to save mankind from sin, then believe it! Don't let a piece of cloth stop you! Also, maybe if the Agnostics and the Christians would stop fighting about the stupid thing for, oh, I don't know, even a millisecond, somebody might see that respecting each other's beliefs would be one more step to making this world a better place. Take that energy you spend fighting over the shroud, and fight for someone's life, fight for peace, fight for love, fight for anything good in this world. God will smile upon you. (And if you're Agnostic, the world will smile upon you). But please, don't fight for an inanimate object.