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Religious pareidolia

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There's a nun in my bun!
Or is it vice versa?

Tell me about
your mother

For our next session...

Popping into your mind

v -t -e

Or maybe it's a mamakangaroo with a lil' baby Joey in her pouch?

“”"God is trying to send us a messagethrough natural disasters."
Then why doesn't God just hire a f*cking sky writing airplane?

—Charlie Sitzes^[1]

Religious pareidolia is thepsychological phenomenon of seeing religious imagery in otherwise mundane objects. It can be compared to Rorschach ink blots or images "seen" in the shapes of clouds. Religious pareidolia is a subset ofpareidolia, which is itself a subset ofapophenia.

Strangeness[edit]

Religious pareidolia has a strangeness and dichotomy to it that is often overlooked by the otherwisenormal people experiencing it. Those experiencing religious pareidolia are quite often themselves veryreligiously faithful. The images being seen are overwhelmingly of people highly respected and/or venerated by the observer. The oddity lies in the nature of the natural item or phenomena that is the source of the pareidolia.

These natural items and phenomena have included cinnamon buns, a grilled cheesesandwich, a chihuahua's ear, the gristle on several chunks of beef,^[2] a water stain on a roadway underpass and, well, some strange places.^[3] In 2004, a toasted cheese sandwich sold for $28,000.^[4] The observers never see the strangeness of their sightings as anything more than a minor mystery. It never occurs to them that such respected icons of their religious faith would, one should expect, have more dignity than to show up where they do. It also never seems to occur to them that $28,000 could feed a lot of starving people.

To top it off, members of other religions do the same thing, seeing figures from their religions in ordinary objects: Hindus seeing Ganesh in a potato,^[5] for instance. Christians tempted to see apparitions of Jesus or Mary in ordinary objects as evidence that their religion is right should take a look at apparitions from other religions, to see how unconvincing they really are to someone who isn't already a follower of the religion making the claim.

Moon[edit]

Various cultures and religions have interpreted thefeatures of the Moon as deities or similar figures:

Woman: In ElizabethanEngland, the spots of the Moon were supposed to represent a witch carrying sticks of wood on her back, or an old man with a lantern. A more recent Western image is the profile of a coiffed woman wearing a jeweled pendant, the jewel being the crater Tycho, which at full moon is very bright and has bright radiating lines (rays). InNew Zealand Maori legend, the Moon shows a woman with a local tree, the Ngaio. However, throughout Melanesia and Polynesia, the Moon is seen to be a cook over a three-stone fire. Many lunar deities are also female, e.g.Hecate, Selene and Diana in Greek Mythology. InChinese Mythology, Chang'e (嫦娥, also known as Heng'o 姮娥) lives on the moon.
Rabbit: In Chinese culture, the rabbit in the Moon (a companion of Chang'e) is pounding medicine. Similarly, inJapan andKorea, popular culture sees a rabbit making mochi and tteok, respectively, in the Moon. The mythology of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica also featured a lunar rabbit; for example, Tecciztecatl, the Aztec Moon god, was sometimes pictured as an anthropomorphic rabbit.
Writing: ShiaMuslims believe that name of Maula Ali Ibne-Abi Talib (Muhammad's son in law) is written on the Moon. This interpretation has roots in severalhadith by Muhammad where he compares Ali to the Moon and himself to theSun. The notion is that Ali's teaching is the light that shall guide the Muslims after Muhammad has departed. There are also other esoteric interpretations of this analogy inIslamic philosophy.

The eBay factor[edit]

Of course, the most likely answer as to why observers are not bothered by the nature of the natural objects containing the pareidolia is simple: money. The more gullible, or perhaps more faithful, will often pay sums that are far in excess of what the natural item would be worth. This process works similarly to the religiousrelic industry that manufactured multipleHoly Foreskins and multiple complete sets of Jesus' baby teeth. There's asucker born every minute.