Bishop: Heaven a Place on Earth

Drew Barrymore, converting to Judaism, is the latest

(NEWSER) - Drew Barrymore is getting married , but first she's—reportedly—converting to Judaism, the religion fiance Will Kopelman practices. She follows the tradition of these seven other celebrity spouses (or not-quite-spouses) who did the same thing, notes The Frisky :

• Isla Fisher: Converted to Judaism for Sacha Baron Cohen.
• Jesus Luz: Started following Kabbalah for Madonna.

And so did the fourth-quarter television ratings

(NEWSER) - This might just be a weird coincidence, or Tim Tebow's dramatic defeat of the Steelers last night may have been a miracle in more ways than one. The polarizing Denver quarterback wound up throwing for 316 yards, which, if you toss in a colon in the right spot, mirrors the call number of a famous bible verse, John 3:16. That's a verse Tebow occasionally wrote on his face while playing at the University of Florida, Fox News reports. More»

Believers join Missionary Church of Kopimism

(NEWSER) - Sweden may not condone file-sharing—it's still illegal—but the country is officially OK with belief in the practice. Some 3,000 passionate file-sharers have gotten their beliefs recognized as an official religion. The Missionary Church of Kopimism—as in, "copy-me-ism"—has sought official status in Sweden since 2010, and it's finally won the battle, TorrentFreak reports. The decision follows a pair of rejections; authorities wanted Kopimism to define its prayer practices. More»

'It was the BEST feeling,' Ben Breedlove says of near-death experience

(NEWSER) - A Texas teen reveals his near-death experiences with a beneficent "big, bright light" in a crushingly poignant double video he made just days before his death on Christmas Day. Ben Breedlove, 18, recounts years of battling his progressively worsening hypertrophic cardiomyopathy heart illness and his three near-death experiences in a series of hand-written messages he shows on note cards to the haunting strains of "Mad World," appearing sad, then sublimely happy in the wordless films. He nearly died at the age of 4 and remembers seeing a "big, bright light" in the hospital that filled him with "peace." Just weeks ago he had a similar experience when his heart stopped beating for three minutes, reports the Los Angeles Times . He was dressed in a white suit, alongside his favorite rap star, Kid Cudi, he recalls. More»

Researchers think you'd need lasers to reproduce it

(NEWSER) - The Shroud of Turin must be real rather than a medieval forgery, an Italian study has concluded, because the markings on it could not possibly have been created with medieval technology. Scientists tried to recreate the sepia image of a crucified man that graces the shroud, and found its physical and chemical characteristics “impossible to obtain in a laboratory,” they wrote, according to the Telegraph . More»