Jesus watches you pee outside and judges you

I’ve been waiting for another case of pareidolia and, by no surprise, the Daily Mail delivers Jesus appearing in the grit and crumble on the side of a take-away Chinese restaurant.

Mr Ridley, 39, immediately took a photograph of the bizarre sight outside the Mayho Chinese Takeaway.

He said: ‘We were a little drunk at the time and went to get something to eat.

‘We were waiting for our meal outside when we saw it.

‘It was Jesus looking right at us, we were shocked and couldn’t believe it. ‘It’s a miracle!

‘The best thing about it is the face is actually facing the direction of St Luke’s Church so it looks like it is supposed to be there.

‘Since I took the picture, we have shown it to loads of people and all of them can see it instantly.

‘It is amazing and they can’t believe it.’

I wonder if they tell their friends they’re looking at Jesus, or if their friends come to that (silly) conclusion without prompting. People always seem willing to believe it’s Jesus.

Side note, I was listening to a Skeptics Guide podcast a while back that mentioned something called audio paredolia. Quoting what Steven Novella wrote about it later:

Skeptics love talking about pareidolia, whether visual or audio, because it is right in the sweet spot of the skeptical skill set – understanding why people often come to dubious and even bizarre conclusions because they fail to understand the nature of the human mind. It’s also fun and easily demonstrated, and so it makes an excellent skeptical lesson – your brain can be fooled, you can be fooled, and in order to properly interpret this one needs only to understand a little bit about how our brains work. Our brain actively process sensory input, making many assmptions, and forcing fits to recognized patterns. Our brains do not give a truly objective and accurate representation of the world. It give a human one – full of pattern recognition – sometimes real, sometimes forced.

Also in there is a link to a video of a group of singers performing a gospel tune of some kind. The subtitles provided don’t match what they actually say, but what it could sound like they’re saying. What it sounds like they’re saying is nothing you’d expect…

Another final resting place for Jesus found: in a tortilla

Yep. I believe this is true more than I believe the tomb story written about earlier.

David Sandoval says he was about to chow down on Ash Wednesday dinner last week when he saw Jesus in one of his mom’s hand-baked tortillas.

“I passed it to my mom, and she said, ‘oh my god,’” said Sandoval.

What made the find even more astonishing was that it was the first day of Lent.

He went and posted the picture on Facebook, and comments started flooding in.

“Everybody has been able to see it. They agree, and they’re calling it a miracle.”

Yes, of course they would. Astonishing.

Hardly.

I’ve showed off my french toast Gandalf before. If this tortilla somehow proves Jesus was real, my french toast proves Gandalf was real. Praise J.R.R. Tolkien for revealing the truth!

Holy Crayola! Jesus in crayons

Blurred as the image is, it really could be anything.

Sadly, the Daily Mail’s always seems willing to give face time to people who think they’ve experienced a pareidolia miracle.

A woman who prayed for a sign from Jesus got a little more than she bargained for when his image emerged out of some melted crayons.

Tara Gomez and her son put a few colourful sticks in the oven as part of an arts and crafts project they wanted to try out.

After cooling the mixture in the freezer, Ms Gomez was startled to discover Jesus’s face had emerged out of the swirling pattern at her home in Blue Springs, Missouri.

The young mother told ABC7: ‘I’d been praying and praying about certain things, and I asked God for a sign and I think the crazy thing about this… what better sign to get then right in front of you.’

The thing is, when you really want a sign, a sign can be anything.

Credit to the author of the piece, though, who reminded readers that it’s possible to buy Jesus toasters and give yourself a sign every day with breakfast, lunch or dinner. But probably not in time for Christmas.

Okay, so it isn’t always Jesus in the trees

Sometimes it’s Bert, from Sesame Street.

Awesome.

Cloud footage reveals “Face of God!!1eleventy1″

It takes until 1:46 before the face appears to appear in the sky, but like any windy day cloud formation it vanishes quickly.

It’s iPhone footage taken by Denis Laforge, of Grand Falls, N.B, who started recording because he saw a pig face initially that morphed into a shape looking remarkably human. He reported to the Toronto Star, an “eerie feeling to say the least.”

“We’ve had a freaky summer for weather, that was the main reason why I bought this iPhone. I’m not a storm catcher but I’ll definitely be on the lookout.

“I can’t look at clouds the same way anymore.”

He wouldn’t admit one way or the other to thinking if God or the Devil had paid him a personal visit just because he bought an iPhone or something zany like that. He let Youtube fans have all the fun speculating.

Kudos to the Star for getting a skeptic and scientist to offer some feedback at the end:

George Isaac, a senior cloud scientist with Environment Canada, was quick to play down the significance of the faces. Although he didn’t see the clip, he said there are variety of factors that could work together, including cloud turbulence, water vapour pockets and specific lighting, that cause dramatic and changing cloud formations.

“Clouds come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, air currents can carry funny patterns,” he said.

We’ve evolved to see patterns in randomness. To seek out connections between unrelated events. We’re capable of creating meaning and messages out of anything. While it’s probably a good thing we can do it, we still wind up deluding ourselves into thinking our crazy conclusions matter more than they actually do.

It’s no Jesus in the clouds, but…

A 56 year old man dying of liver cancer claims he snapped a shot of God in the sky over his home in Picton, New Zealand recently. Terry Bowen describes the feeling:

Mr Bowen, who is suffering from terminal liver cancer, said when he saw the image in the cloud he felt a sense of hope – not just for himself but for other people.

“I always see these things drawing me out of the house, and they’re there to pick me up,” he said.

“I feel as if someone or something is looking over me and that there’s a reason why I’m still here. When I look at things like this it adds to my positive outlook.

“On Facebook a lot of people I’ve spoken to who are in a similar position to me say pictures like this really help them.” Picton Uniting Church pastor Geraldine Clarkson described the picture as “uplifting and inspirational”.

I just wonder what part of God he thought he caught on camera. Does he think it’s a guy in a dress with an arm pointing down (which I can see if I squint a bit) or something else?

This is why people still perform Rorschach tests, yes? A picture might be worth a thousand words but most of those words will be used to describe you…

I once kept a cookie crumb because it looked like a butterfly

I think I also had a piece of popcorn that resembled a rabbit once. I knew it was weird to do so, but I likely kept it around until it disintegrated. I guess that’s part of why I like finding other stories of pareidolia, like the recent announcement in the Telegraph about a chewing gum Jesus. And so close to Easter, too. Now that would be a miracle that would make me believe…

that people are never going to wise up, actually.

Nelly Noden had been chewing her gum on Good Friday but left it on the mantelpiece while she ate some crisps.

When she returned, she claimed the gum had turned into an image that resembled Christ.

“The second I put my eye on it, I could see him”, said the mother-of-two.

“I’d just got back from going the shops to buy a few things to eat when, as usual, I put my gum on the mantelpiece to have some crisps”, she said.

“I went to pick it up again and Jesus was just there, starring at me.

“We couldnt believe it especially as it was Good Friday”, she said.

Daughter Charni, 16, said: “We cant believe how much it looks like Jesus; weve been telling everyone about it.”

I’d insert an eww in the middle of this for the saving gum on a mantelpiece, but I tend to keep mine on a coaster on my desk if I’m chewing something else, so who am I to judge about that.

Mrs Noden, from Plymouth, Devon, said: “My daughters and I were jumping around the room.”

The family say they are not religious, but thought it was special that it happened at Easter time, and also on the day before Nelly’s birthday.

She said: “It was a real moment.”

The Nodens say they have kept the piece of gum as a memento.

I can’t see it, myself. I guess a human-like face could peek out of that bit of gum but it could just as easily be Abraham Lincoln.

Except you can’t get a newspaper article if you think Lincoln’s in your gum…