Why it is nice to not need relics to enflame faith - newsflash: the shroud is fake!

Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin | Science | Reuters:

"ROME (Reuters) - An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

'We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud,' Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday."