{"id":745,"date":"2011-05-27T11:19:42","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T15:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=745"},"modified":"2011-05-27T11:19:42","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T15:19:42","slug":"fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Saint&#8217;s Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mixed news for Christian noggins this week:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The skull of St.\u00a0Vitalis of Assisi, a 14th Century Benedictine monk who led an &#8220;immoral and licentious youth&#8221; before becoming the saint to pray with to be healed from bladder or venereal disease, is expected to fetch around $1,500.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-northern-ireland-13522546\">Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale <\/a>(BBC)<\/li>\n<li>A new study (one that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2011\/05\/study-non-christians-brains-atrophy\/\">GetReligion finds fault with<\/a>), reports that mainline Protestants have bigger brains &#8211; specifically, the hippocampus region &#8212; than evangelicals and Catholics.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2011-05-25-brain24_ST_N.htm\">Study finds brain differences based on faith<\/a> (RNS)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click  here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat <\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to <\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">follow Belief  Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mixed news for Christian noggins this week: The skull of St.\u00a0Vitalis of Assisi, a 14th Century Benedictine monk who led an &#8220;immoral and licentious youth&#8221; before becoming the saint to pray with to be healed from bladder or venereal disease, is expected to fetch around $1,500.\u00a0Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[242,20,14,13,180,241,36,240],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-born-again-christians","tag-catholics","tag-christianity","tag-evangelical-christians","tag-mainline-protestants","tag-patron-saint-of-venereal-disease","tag-protestants","tag-st-vitalis-of-assisi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Saint&#039;s Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Saint&#039;s Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mixed news for Christian noggins this week: The skull of St.\u00a0Vitalis of Assisi, a 14th Century Benedictine monk who led an &#8220;immoral and licentious youth&#8221; before becoming the saint to pray with to be healed from bladder or venereal disease, is expected to fetch around $1,500.\u00a0Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-27T15:19:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Saint's Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Saint's Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study - Belief Beat","og_description":"Mixed news for Christian noggins this week: The skull of St.\u00a0Vitalis of Assisi, a 14th Century Benedictine monk who led an &#8220;immoral and licentious youth&#8221; before becoming the saint to pray with to be healed from bladder or venereal disease, is expected to fetch around $1,500.\u00a0Severed head of patron saint of genital disease on sale&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-05-27T15:19:42+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html","name":"Fun Friday: Saint's Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-27T15:19:42+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-27T15:19:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/fun-friday-saints-head-for-sale-christian-brains-for-study.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Saint&#8217;s Head for Sale, Christian Brains for Study"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. 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