Fun with pareidolia: Mary’s got wood

You see a Virgin Mary in a tree, I see a (possibly sexually frustrated) crazy person:

A local bus rider noticed a crowd around a tree when she returned home from work yesterday around 6pm. She was heard saying she, "thought perhaps someone died because she saw the flowers and people praying." As she approached, however, she saw the likeness and began to pray.

… *coughs*

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Blessed Virgin Mary

Daily Blend: Thursday, July 07, 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

• Town of Alto, Texas forced to lay off its entire police force due to budget cuts.

• Florida police refuse to prosecute mortgage company that illegally ransacked and burglarized a man’s home while he was away.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Did Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) only get to where she is now by “being submissive to her husband”?

• Vox Day’s invaluable contribution to the ongoing “sexism in atheist movement” scandal: Atheists are all gammas!

• Holy (bird) shit.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Alto, TX • Monty Collins • Rick Perry • Brooksville, FL • 21 Mortgage Corporation • Tom Altman • Michele Bachmann • Marcus Bachmann • Christianity • misogyny • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • atheists • Rebecca Watson • Game • Salvador Pachuca • Bryan Pachuca • Virgin Mary

How to tell a real face from pareidolia

It seems that some people tend to get confused and see things where none exist. In such cases, it’s good to have a handy little guide around, like this one:

Well, I guess I have no more excuses to confuse the two any longer.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Daily Blend: Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Let’s see … no significant quakes in the last 24+ hours. Does that mean … that human activities can’t magically influence natural events and disasters? That the likes of Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh and more recently, Islamic cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi … are completely bonkers and wrong?

• Something I can get behind: May 20^th shall be “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day”, in response to that South Park censorship fiasco.
  (via The Agitator)

• “George W. Bush to admit ‘flaws and mistakes’ in memoir” *chokegagsplutter* R-really?!

• Eyjafjallajokull’s volcanic shockwaves.
  (via Fark)

• Nanny State of Britain so gung-ho over protecting the environment that they’ll take you to court for months because you left a cardboard box wedged in between two recycling bins.
  (via Fark)

• Cutest pictures of romantic owls you’ll see all week. What lovebirds.
  (via Fark)

• The Lord dwells within us all. (Sorta.)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tale of the divine naan bread

Darren Farrant is your typical Christian believer, in that he sees things where none are. But, let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment and explore this story:

IT started out as a normal night out with friends – a curry and a few beers.

But one student got a shock when he sat down to tuck into his lamb rogan josh – and discovered the face of Jesus staring back at him.

Solent University student Darren Farrant was about to take a bite out of a naan bread when he noticed the image on the underside of the classic side dish.

The 19-year-old criminology student had been enjoying a curry with friends at Poppadom Express in Oxford Street when he spotted what he claims is an image of the son of God.

[…]

Darren, originally from East Sussex, added: “I once spotted Jesus’ face in the crinkles of my mum’s bed cover.

“It’s really weird, I can’t explain it.”

I can. Three guesses on what my pseudo-expert opinion is?

Anyway, all this talk of curry and bread is making guy hungry. Now, where’s this Jesus face thingy? Can we see it?

Yeah … I don’t see Jesus, either. Guess I won’t become a born-again Christian, then. Back to my savage godless ways …

Hey, non-Jesus-face bread looks tempting … *munch*

*Spits* Eww! Is that a hair? Bad hairy fake-Jesus bread!

(via @religionnews)
Technorati tags: pareidolia · religious sighting · Jesus

Another religious sighting, another impossible delusion

A California man found a rock that he claims has the image of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe (how many versions of the poor Virgin are there?). I suppose it must be a miraculous stone indeed, considering it appears to be capable of time travel:

But David Nunez says the image is unmistakable - a bluish-black stain on the football-sized rock outlines what looks like the Holy Mother.

Nunez's father found the partially buried boulder while looking for landscaping rocks in an Oakdale, Calif., orchard. Nunez and his father, Jesus - both Catholics from Merced - insist that it's hard to dispute that the image resembles the famous image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

"Everybody thought it looked like a turtle shell, but once he brought it home, we saw a figure on it," Nunez recalled.

Friends have called it a miracle.

Never mind the fact that the rock itself is several million years old, having formed eons before Jesus was even born, and was created by entirely natural processes entirely without God’s direct (or indirect) intervention or influence – ’tis a miracle!

(I’ll post a pic of this magical, time-traveling stone if I ever find one.)

Technorati tags: pareidolia · religious sightings · weirdness · geology · Virgin Mary

See, atheists have their pareidolia, too

Difference is, we probably won't cause traffic jams whilst rushing over to dance and chant around it whilst splashing oils onto it. A pic or two is okay, though:

This was sent to PZ by Sean Murphy; apparently, you can find this 15-foot-tall "A" in Boulder Canyon up Sugarloaf Road, in Colorado. (How long before disgruntled Christians sneak up there to scrub the "A" out?)

(And is anyone else thinking that, with Jesus in toilet bowls, pitas and bird doo, that this godless sighting is a perfect, appropriate marriage of subject and medium?)

(via Pharyngula)

Technorati tags: pareidolia · geology