I know, religious pareidolia is such an easy target. But seriously, people make themselves look a little, um, weird when they claim a rotten potato is a sign from God.
Now honestly, let’s say you’re God. And you want to send someone a signal, letting them know that you’re thinking of them, and that they should be better people. So, do you make a sign in the heavens, or part a sea, or heal the sick?
No. You appear in a tater. As the owners say:
Pastor Renee Brewster and her husband Bishop Winston Brewster are a very spiritual couple. But the site of their savior in a potato has reinvigorated their faith and their desire to help others.
“That’s Jesus on the Cross. Just looking at it I don’t have to convince,” said Renee.
Well, the apparition does look a little bit like Jesus, but she said Jesus is on the cross. One small problem: the arms are spread out, but there’s no cross. And it looks like he’s standing on some sort of pedestal, which I don’t think the Romans provided. But people see what they want to see, and the owner of said spud is a very religious person.
Which makes me laugh a bit: the word "pareidolia" has the word "idol" in it. I think the Bible has something to say about that.
The owners froze the section of the potato with the Savior in it, which I suppose is better than selling it on eBay. After all, the love of money is the root of all evil.
Normally, after making an awful joke like that, I’d say "You know the deal: what do you see?" but honestly, I don’t see what else this looks like (except for a hole in a potato, but what do I know). If you do see something else, leave a comment.
And remember, like the Bible says… "the tuber shall set you free."
Tip o’ the masher to Jon Voisey.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I really wanted to write, “I yam that I yam” but couldn’t figure out where to put it.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Yeah, I’ll say the hole in the spud looks a bit like a guy being crucified, especially the right half there. The very bottom of the cross looks a little flared…maybe rocket exhaust??
Great pareidolia find!
January 29th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
It looks a bit like a cross bow viewed from the top.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Actually, the first thing I thought of was the helicopter shot with Maria spinning around at the beginning of The Sound of Music.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Pickaxe?
January 29th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
(ok, let’s try this without the IMDB link to see if the spam filter accepts it.)
Actually, the first thing I thought of was the helicopter shot with Maria spinning around at the beginning of The Sound of Music.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
It looks like a wine corkscrew. Is god saying that I don’t drink enough. Darn. Oh well, no sense arguing with god (gulp, gulp.)
January 29th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Remember, Jesus also said, “I am the way, the tuber and the life.”
January 29th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
So, History Magazine has this to say – simply googled bible and potato: ‘Impact of the Potato, Jeff Chapman’
In the Russian Empire, Catherine the Great ordered her subjects to begin cultivating the tuber, but many ignored this order. They were supported in this dissension by the Orthodox Church, which argued that potatoes were suspect because they were not mentioned in the Bible.
A taters a taters a tater!
January 29th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
LOL!!! Now we’ve got rotten spuds inspiring faith. What’s next? Well, I’ve got faith (I know Phil, I know… we’ll just have to agree to disagree), but I gotta vote with Tometheus. First thing I thought was “The hills are alive…” not “My Lord!” Actually, if I’d been the one to cut into the tater, I bet my reaction would have been “ewwww…”
January 29th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
If you read the article, the Pastors wife says,
“I was hesitant about making the potato salad because Sister Frankie makes the potato salad at church and I said lord if it’s not for me to make potato salad then send me a sign.”
Words kind of escape me at this point!
January 29th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
[...] The Bad Astronomer wrote an interesting post today on Spud nutHere’s a quick excerptI know, religious pareidolia is such an easy target. But seriously, people make themselves look a little, um, weird when they claim a rotten potato is a sign from God. Now honestly, let’s say you’re God. And you want to send someone a … [...]
January 29th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Where is that huge Jesus statue with the outspread arms located?
Rio de Janeiro?
That’s what it kind of looks like to me.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Actually, that’s a pretty good one!
Normally you have to sort of squint to make them out.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
BTW, just love the Google ads next to your post, “Potato Masher”, and “Pictures of Jesus.” I sorta feel like I’m back at the old trailer park.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Maybe less “King of the Jews” and more “I’m the King of the World!” As in Leo or Kate at the bow of the Titanic. Heck it could be Rogue of the X-Men flying around wearing an evening gown and a milk stoal. In fact if you assume it’s a humanoid, it looks distinctly more female than male.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
That *is* a fairly impressive one, in a ‘freakshow’ sense, not a ‘divine tater’ sense.
I’ll second the Rio Jesus suggestion above.
Clearly God is telling us he wants us to wear more thongs.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
What if potato Jesus was wrapped in tortilla Jesus? In fact, one could have a whole Jesus menu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_pareidolia
January 29th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Looks more like female anatomy to me. It actually took a bit to realise it wasn’t a pierced vag. x.x
January 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
It looks like a… supersonic eagle…
January 29th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I see a woman getting ready to jump off a bridge.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:01 am
For some reason all I can think of now is “Do you want Jesus with that?”
January 30th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Okay, Davidlpf, that was really funny. I can totally see this one, though. It’s stupid and I’m now stupider for looking at it, but this is an interesting rotten-ing shape. And by interesting I mean kinda gross.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:53 am
I have to agree with Jamie–in the first half-second after the page loaded, my brain said “NSFW, why is that on BA?” After the half-second was up I realized it was cut-up taters. I think my initial reaction was caused partly by the colors (white-folk-skin-tone-like) in the image.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:59 am
It truly is a sign from God. He’s saying “This spud is rotten, don’t eat it”.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:01 am
The many words for potato become so funny when it’s about a divine manifestation. It does look like Jesus though, somehow. I definitely would have sold it on E-Bay!
January 30th, 2008 at 1:02 am
I’m definitely in on doiling this one as the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_Redeemer_(statue)
With enough media attention and public pressure, maybe the fine doilers of Rio will change it to Christ the Spudboy.
(DeVo fans? eh? eh?)
January 30th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Hah! The Spud of Christ predates this by a decade, ar least!
http://www.glenlachart.com/content/view/20/5/
January 30th, 2008 at 1:43 am
“..And it looks like he’s standing on some sort of pedestal, which I don’t think the Romans provided…”
On the contrary:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppedaneum
“The Suppedaneum (Latin) was in the Roman Empire a supporting foot board at the crucifixion, to prolonge the agony…”
January 30th, 2008 at 1:52 am
“I was hesitant about making the potato salad because Sister Frankie makes the potato salad at church and I said lord if it’s not for me to make potato salad then send me a sign.”
——————
Do these religious freaks make ANY decisions for themselves?
And why is it that a devoutly religious person, pleading to God to spare her life, can be brutally murdered – shot four times in the head – in front of a classroom of children* with no response from the almighty, when a nun can ask about making a potato salad and receive a response?
Why is it that religious people cannot see the logic in all this?
* Neva Rogers, Red Lake School, March 21 2005
http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Neva%20Rogers
http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2005/03/22/in_depth_us/whoswho682276_0_9_person.shtml
January 30th, 2008 at 2:59 am
My favorite part of the whole thing is that they still served a dish made from a potato they knew to be rotten.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Yes, it does resemble the stylized religious iconography of some supposed heretic in some backwater region of the Middle East people call Jesus, but then again, I see Robert Plant belting out that bit from the Immigrant Song “We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow. The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying:
Valhalla, I am coming!”
January 30th, 2008 at 3:18 am
It’s not a sign from God. It’s a sign from Kate Winslet – that we must all watch Titanic again!
(If you look very closely you can just see Leo DiCaprio standing behind her)
January 30th, 2008 at 3:21 am
So the savior has a site? in a potato?
January 30th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Y’know maybe the second coming will happen when someone takes all the Jesus-food (though I’m not sure about the Mary-food) and cooks a sumptuous meal with it. Sort of a ’smaller robots make up a big robot’ sort of thing.
Oh, and since I’ve been playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance a lot lately to me it looks just like Iron Man when he enters flying mode. It even has rocket exhaust.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Hmm dont really know what the one on the left looks like, but the section on the right looks like this depiction of Eros, Greek god of Love.
Eros but manly:
http://www.wordsources.info/planet-mars.gif
January 30th, 2008 at 4:32 am
So if Jesus is the only begotten son of god, why are there *two* potato saviours?
January 30th, 2008 at 4:42 am
I gotta say, that one is pretty darn good.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Obviously, God’s a programmer, and these are his “easter eggs”.
Personally, I think this is his best work yet.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:02 am
I think that for every ‘divine’ pareidolia, the
Bad Astronomer should also post a picture of
the ‘other’ kind of pareidolia, like vegetables that have
grown into rude and amusing shapes.
“No, I’m not posting filth ! It’s a vegetable !
What are _you_ seeing ?”
Maybe that will also limit the posting of such
news items. It’s just not very ‘astronomy’.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Oh My God! They killed Jesus! Sliced him right in half while he was incubating in a potato.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Personally, I see a rocket rising up through a cloud.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:53 am
The image looks far too precise to me to have occurred naturally. Look at the huge contrast with all the potato pieces around it.
I think this may be a case of deliberate fraud rather than pareidolia.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Gareth writes:
[[Do these religious freaks make ANY decisions for themselves?]]
No, Gareth, they’re all institutionalized quadruplegics.
[[And why is it that a devoutly religious person, pleading to God to spare her life, can be brutally murdered - shot four times in the head - in front of a classroom of children* with no response from the almighty, when a nun can ask about making a potato salad and receive a response?]]
Well, that’s the problem of pain, isn’t it? There are answers to it if you’re honestly interested in the answers. But if you just want to use it as a club to bash religion with, you don’t have to worry about that.
[[Why is it that religious people cannot see the logic in all this?]]
Maybe they’re starting from different premises than you are.
]]
January 30th, 2008 at 6:30 am
January 30th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Yawn……
PS Sorry for the double post. Somehow, no text appeared.
January 30th, 2008 at 6:36 am
I see proof of ancient astronauts.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Barton, you’re sort of right about the religious people being quadruplegics – it’s just that theire bodies work fine, but their minds stopped developing at a very young age, making them less than whole persons as they grow up. Still very dependant, see?
The problem of pain, you mean the problem of evil? The problem that you have to give up all your integrity in order to “understand” (and by “understand” I really mean to give up trying to figure it out, and just succumb to those authorities telling you that “God is gonna make everything alright in the end”)?
Ah, THAT problem.
Yeah, I would probably figure that out if I was honestly interested in an answer. Or wait… I AM honestly interested in an answer. It’s just that religion does not have it. Religion makes it’s business PRETENDING to have it, but that’s a different matter altogether.
As a fact I once or thrice prayed to “God” for some sign that could give me the strength to ignore reality and believe in “him” instead. This happened when I was very young and still somewhat innocent and naïve.
Well, “he” crapped thoroughly upon my request, and now I reserve the right to politely ask “him” and “his” minions to sod off.
If “he” does not want me to believe in “him”, that’s “his” problem, not mine. And if “his” minions decide to ignore “his wish”, and push their mind-garbage upon me, are they not in reality showing some severe disrespect for the decisions of “God”?
January 30th, 2008 at 7:00 am
How depressing this all is. There are so many more important things to deal with in this old world than a rotton potato…no offense to you Phil, you do what must be done and I commend you. My good humour would flag the first month dealing with pareidoliacs I’m sure, because this stuff never seems to go away. Some Christians would say Satan loves this tuberfied religiosity because it distracts from the real work at hand and I’d have to agree. Besides, I Love potatoes, starch and all, and now, every bite I take, every thirst I slake, could be chomping thru …. um …. something else? Then again…maybe not!
Keep doing the great job Phil
Michael in sub-zero (minus 35C) Labrador
January 30th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Jesus? No, it’s that photo of a bullet cutting through a playing card!
January 30th, 2008 at 7:10 am
When you’re the son of god, you have to make an entrance that will leave the rubes wanting more. And nothing says good entrance like appearing inside of a potato.
I understand the old vaudvillians knew this and used it to their advantage.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:57 am
There are plenty of people of faith who do not fit the bill that some of you have painted of them, including (for those of you who are familiar with Astronomycast) Pamela Gay. Alas, for those of you too narrow to grasp it, faith and science need not clash, and there are plenty of thinking people who are also believing people. And to those of you who rant about the Faithful giving up their integrity to hold onto their faith, well, I will spend the time on you that your remarks deserve. There. I’m done.
Take care, all of you, and may God bless you.
P.S. I love taters, too.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Looks like the image has a cape flying out behind them (the spread arms). To me it looks like Space Ghost.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Actually I saw a crossbow!
January 30th, 2008 at 8:10 am
@Barton:
“Well, that’s the problem of pain, isn’t it? There are answers to it if you’re honestly interested in the answers. But if you just want to use it as a club to bash religion with, you don’t have to worry about that.”
I’m genuinely interested in the phenomenon of religion, so if you can provide me with the answers, or at least where to look (and don’t give me some crap about having to look inside myself), then I would be grateful.
As far as I am concerned, I have not come across one logical answer to the point I raised which favours the idea of a deity, but a very simple logical answer which favours the idea of the non-existence of that deity.
But if you can provide me with the information with which to change my mind, I’m more than happy to do so.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Pat -
“It looks like a… supersonic eagle…”
TOO funny… and thanks for makig me spit diet soda all over my monitor.
Where’s Tom Marking to enjoy that one?
January 30th, 2008 at 8:40 am
It looks to me like a bird. Probably a bird of paradise, a family of birds with a number of species sporting obscenely long tails. I can clearly see the wings to the side, the head facing forward, and a really long tail. In my opinion It actually matches at least 5 or 6 species of bird of paradise better then it does popular images of Jesus.
Here are a few examples of possible paradise birds, courtesy of wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arfak_Astrapia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie%27s_Astrapia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huon_Astrapia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sicklebill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Sicklebill
And here is a good picture of what I think is the best candidate:
http://www.wildlife-art.nl/kunstmaand/2007/2.linden/34.jpg
January 30th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I believe it is Celine Dion after a glorious performance in Vegas.
Sing, choirs of Celine, sing in exultation;
O sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to Celine, all glory in the highest.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:57 am
@Moist Rub: You have a TWISTED MIND! I don’t wanna see THAT in my potatoes!
January 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am
It’s a pop-up turkey thermometer. And it’s done!
mmmm…. turkey…
January 30th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I still think that it looks like half of a Vitruvian Man.
Barton, you forgot PZ Myers on your list of “Evil Biologists”.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:15 am
OhMiGod, I’m seeing Dead People,,,
,,,oh, wait,,,,I’M a DEADHEAD,,,of COURSE I see Dead People,,,
GAry 7
January 30th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I see a drooping flower coming up and then drooping down toward the viewer. this is fun!
January 30th, 2008 at 9:45 am
“It’s remarkable. Even when I cut the good part off the cross ended up being shaped like a tomb from long ago.” Frakking priceless.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Yeah, I have to admit that one does look like Jesus on a Stick.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Continuing his rant, Lance posts:
[[Barton, you’re sort of right about the religious people being quadruplegics - it’s just that theire bodies work fine, but their minds stopped developing at a very young age, making them less than whole persons as they grow up. Still very dependant, see?]]
Right, Lance. No doubt you can show me a population study or a double-blind experiment that shows that theists stopped mental development at an early age compared to enlightened types like yourself. I mean, you just go with the empirical evidence, right?
[[The problem of pain, you mean the problem of evil? The problem that you have to give up all your integrity in order to “understand” (and by “understand” I really mean to give up trying to figure it out, and just succumb to those authorities telling you that “God is gonna make everything alright in the end”)? ]]
Oh yeah, he ain’t prejudging the question or anything.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I’ll admit that the image is a bit…startling(?)…at first glance.
On closer examination, though, I have to think that this picture has been digitally enhanced, if not fabricated. Take a look at the color contrast between the shirt, head and hands. I have a very hard time believing that this photo hasn’t been altered.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Gareth posts:
[[I’m genuinely interested in the phenomenon of religion, so if you can provide me with the answers, or at least where to look (and don’t give me some crap about having to look inside myself),]]
I’m a Christian, not a Buddhist.
[[ then I would be grateful.]]
The Jewish and Christian answer is given in the book of Job. Another pretty good attempt can be found in C.S. Lewis’s “The Problem of Pain.”
[[As far as I am concerned, I have not come across one logical answer to the point I raised which favours the idea of a deity, but a very simple logical answer which favours the idea of the non-existence of that deity.]]
That’s one of at least four possible ways to solve it, yes. I’m not at home right now, but the next chance I get I’ll post the problem of pain in logical calculus for you and point out the possible logical solutions. Understand, I mean logical solutions here, not emotionally satisfying solutions. For that see Job, and Lewis.
[[But if you can provide me with the information with which to change my mind, I’m more than happy to do so.]]
I’ll try.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Mena, your link didn’t say anything about P.Z. Myers except to note that he’s a biologist and list his e-mail address.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:59 am
What? No link to the explanation yet?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1061#comic
(I agree with Adam – it does actually look like ‘Christ the Redeemer’ to me.)
January 30th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I have to agree with BillSmithAZ. This image simply does not look like a natural part of a potato to me. It looks drawn.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am
The first thing I “see” is something NSFW.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:00 am
It is definitely a sign of his return. All of these images of Jesus are. Maybe we could make up a “Second Coming Salad” or something. Just keep that dog out of the kitchen. How about a new line of Potato Salad, “Blessed Redeemer Potato Salad?” Hey, here’s a party trick: Say Grace before the meal, pull out one of these tubers, “It’s a miracle!”
Personally I’d like to see more evidence. I know, the baby Jesus hatching out of my breakfast egg. Then I’d believe!
January 30th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I wanted to say I saw the “King of the World”, but Wildrideon said it first.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:04 am
*heads off to read Job*
January 30th, 2008 at 11:06 am
http://buzzingfridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/omg.html
So, where are all the fundie beleeevers trumpeting THAT one as a “sign” from Jesus?
I mean, if you’re gonna see Jebus everywhere, you can’t just pick and choose your sightings.
Oh… I forgot… if you live in MentalFundieVille, you can…
And, hey… I think the Christians who lament here that folks are painting all of you with a broad brush may have a point. Then again, Phil and others HAVE made it clear that we’re talking about the folks who let their religion SERIOUSLY cloud their view of reality, to the point of making themselves and their religion look silly.
OF COURSE there are sensible Christians… it’s just that they don’t make the news… now, do something whack, like see Jebus in a potato or find a saint in a kale patch, and then we’ve got something to talk about…
January 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
it can’t be a crucified Jesus because: (1) the body is not hanging (it looks more like a gymnast with rigid arms doing an “iron cross” on the rings); (2) Jesus was crucified naked, not robed (and as Hollywood teaches, Richard Burton won Jesus’s robe in a game of chance).
Top it all off by noting that Jesus was of relatively unremarkable physical appearance (and indeed the Gospels say nothing about what he looked like), yet this dude looks proportioned as though he might play for the Lakers.
Too bad that these supposedly religious images never include any overt helpful message (in English, Greek, Aramaic or what have you). If someone were to cut open a potato and find the words “Don’t be a superstitious dunce” written inside, then I might be impressed.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Barton, the whole blog is his.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Mena — thanks, I didn’t realize that.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Busted? Two religious con artists caught in the act? You decide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Brasil.RioDeJaneiro.Corcovado.jpg
A picture worth about a thousand somewhat damning words.
Those who believe this looks like the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio may be correct. The similarities — the gesture, the lack of a cross, even the pedestal — are there. In fact, what the ‘good’ Pastor and wife seem to have done is take a small (perhaps heated metal?) statuette of the Rio Christ and press it between two wedges of potato.
Pareidolia? No. Bearing false witness against thy neighbors? Now we’re talkin’!
And I, too, was hoping that was also rocket exhaust fumes jetting out of Jesus’ feet as he ascended to Heaven. The mental image of the Apostles working mission control with those big headsets was too funny. “Saviour 1, we have lift-off! God speed…literally.”
January 30th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“According to the Gallup millennium survey of religious views […] the number of North Americans who believe that the Bible is “the actual word of God” has fallen from 65% in 1963 to just 27% in 2001.”
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10022
Never despair. I think most people are intelligent and wise and sane enough and are not fooled by these things, and probably are not even interested by them. But sometimes I wonder why the Bas Astronomer is.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’d say a mix between a crossbow and a broomstick.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
“Bas Astronomer” is a typo, “s” and “d” are next to each other on my keyboard, sorry. By way of typos, “But the site of their savior in a potato […]” does mean that Jesus has a web site hosted in a potato ?
January 30th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I do agree that there are sane Christian people out there, and they are the majority. BUT, it is the whack jobs that are the loudest, and they are an embarrassment to their religion. Even though evangelicals comprise only one part of Christianity, and fundies, only one part of that (I would debate the fact that there is a difference between evangelical and fundamentalist – anyone that considers the Bible as the literal, inerrant word of God is a fundamentalist in my books), it is this group that makes the most noise, and draws the most scorn. Face it, when people think of Christianity, and all they can picture is Benny Hinn screaming and blowing people over, you have a problem. Some people might be offended that we joke about Jesus in tubers, or on a dog’s behind, well, STOP being so lunatic!
January 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Holy potatoes batman!
January 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Seriously, I think everybody is missing the point, particularly given the time of year. This is clearly a message from the Rio De Janeiro chamber of commerce – Come to Rio, lcome to Carnaval!
Clearly it’s not an image of Jesus, it’s an image of their statue of Jesus.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I thought it was Excalibur…
January 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Right. I read the first 18 chapters of Job before my brain started leaking out of my ears from the difficulty of having to translate it into an understandable format, but I was getting the gist of it. I turned to the wikipedia entry for it (probably not the best source, but it was a start) to see what the whole story was about.
I guess the closest answers I can get to my question from it is that:
1) God rewards the righteous eventually,
2) God destroys the wicked and the innocent together,
3) Job shares the world with other creatures which have needs which God must provide for, which sometimes can only be satisfied by taking the lives of others,
4) God does what he does – puny mortals shouldn’t ask such questions of him.
I’d be lying if I said I was wholly convinced by any of these arguments.
1) In the case of Neva Rogers I mentioned earlier, being rewarded eventually isn’t much consolation when you have begged for mercy from God and then been shot in the face.
2) In that case, the basis for morality goes out the window. Why be good if you stand just as much chance of being smote as someone who is bad?
3) I find it difficult to see who else’s needs were satisfied when Neva Rogers was killed.
4) Get out clause.
None of this appears to address why some people think they have had their prayers answered by God when they find Jesus’ face in a tortilla, but fail to see that the prayers of millions of people EVERY DAY in far more deserving circumstances go unanswered.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Based on a (non-scientific) sampling of comments to posts about religion, I have to assume a lot of people here had some really bad experieinces with church early in their lives.
So two people whose lives are deeply entwined with their religion think they see a sign from God. Such sign makes them feel better about themselves and their faith. They let other people know about what they found (perhaps to inspire similarly inclined believers?). What harm is being done? Are they forcing other people to share their belief? Are they laughing at and dengrating those who don’t share their belief?
Jeez, for a crowd that prides itself on its intellectually superiority, you guys sound like a bunch of snotty seventh-graders.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Gareth,
No, I don’t think you got it. The message of Job is that if there’s an answer to the Problem of Pain, it’s not one human beings can understand. That shouldn’t be too surprising. Who says a human brain, at this particular point in our evolution, should be able to solve any given problem? As I said earlier, it’s not an emotionally satisfying answer, but it’s a logical one.
I know, on other grounds, that God is real and that he is good. Therefore, I assume that there is an answer to the problem of pain, even if I personally never find out what it is.
It just comes down to whether you trust God or not. Most people nowadays don’t. But you should think hard about, when you were looking for the answer, what answer would have pleased you more — proof of God’s goodness, or proof that there wasn’t any God. It’s an extremely personal and highly emotional issue for many people, and I am suspicious of anyone who claims to have a glib answer.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Blinky -
Well, you miss the point on several fronts. FIRST, I would wholly disagree that “a lot of people here had some really bad experiences with the church early in their lives”. That’s always the cop-out argument of the holy righteous… if you question the validity of the Church and its tenets, then it’s only because you had a bad experience with the church and so now you hate it and are jaded.
Feh. Not at all the case with I’d say most of us here. Just a bunch of rational, critically thinking folk who prefer to think for ourselves rather than be told what to think and not question it. (And no, that does not go for all Christians… in fact there are at least a few critically thinking and rational Christians on this board… Barton for example… although he’s a bit cranky at times… hehe…)
SECOND, I would say the PROBLEM with seeing signs to make them feel better, and the reason we make such an issue of it, is because it takes critical thinking out of the equation… and when you remove critical thinking… and then you start spreading that way of thinking to others who might be easily manipulated for whatever reason… well, that becomes dangerous.
Certinaly in this case I doubt seeing Jebus in a potato will lead to the downfall of civilization as we know it… but the THOUGHT process behind blindly believing such a thing just MIGHT. See the connection? And why we continue to rail against such silly stuff?
January 30th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Yes, because of course it is simply impossible that people could be opposed to religion on purely logical or empirical grounds. There must be some event early in their lives that caused it. Yep, that must be it.
I hate to break it to you, but I am no fan of religion but I never had a bad event with a church at any point of my life (besides seeing people throw reason, evidence, and logic out the window, which I must admit I consider pretty bad).
I personally think, and suspect others here do as well, that accepting unreason and superstition is harmful to people. It leaves them less able to effectively deal with the real world, and leaves them vulnerable to deception both by charlatans (intentional or otherwise) and by themselves. People constantly lose their life savings, their health, and even their lives because they cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. There are the occasional huge cases like the Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown mass suicides, but their are constant, less publicized cases. Faith healer bilking their followers out of massive amounts of money while living on luxury, homeopaths telling their clients to use plain water instead of proven medication to prevent or treat life-threatening diseases like malaria. You are forgetting that objects like these can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
Do you actually expect this answer to be satisfying to non-religious people? Gareth actually covered this one in point number 4, and he is right that it is the ultimate cop-out, the ultimate non-answer. It can be used to explain away anything. “Because God wants it to be that way” can answer any question, and thus answers no questions.
It isn’t a question of what is pleasing to us, it is a question of what is true. I would be pleased if I could fly through the air just by thinking about it, but that doesn’t make it true. The answers we get are not always the ones we want, the question is whether you have the strength to accept them anyway.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
@Barton:
I see your point about the human brain not being able to comprehend the answers to these questions, but it’s still highly unsatisfying to me.
It’s not that I don’t *trust* God. In my opinion, there’s nothing there to actually trust. Perhaps I just don’t have the right type of brain to understand what the rest of the religious people of the world understand about God, but I just don’t see any evidence for a God and I just cannot believe in one. My sceptical view often uses Occam’s Razor in analysing arguments, and I find the idea of a man-made god takes far fewer assumptions, and seems a lot more plausible.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I think the win goes to Gareth by a TKO!
Barton, cranky? Surely you jest?
Blinky, well, no they are not harming anyone, but they are making themselves, and their message of Christianity look foolish. There is a good message within Christianity, care for others, caring for the poor and so on, but when people start seeing Jesus in potatoes and other food items, it kind if distracts from that, don’t you think? Remember, these are the same people that will turn around the next minute and try to convince you that evolution is full of nonsense.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
TheBlackCat adds some good points!
I’d also add that I have never had a bad experience in church either, and I dare say that the majority of atheists are exactly the same.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
So THAT’S where the idea for Veggie Tales came from. Before I was like, talking, indoctrinating veggies? WTF?
But it all makes sense now!
January 30th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Well, in the spirit of confession, I had a bad experience. It was the experience of being told God didn’t care how good or bad you’d been. It was the whole doctrine of faith and grace: it goes against all sensibilities of proper punishment. Born at the wrong time, damned for eternity. It was the start, really. Beyond that, it seemed more and more that the Bible was not to be taken literally, and it was actually in Ecclesiastes that I found finally something I could accept. It didn’t matter what happened after you died, at least to everyone left behind. Nobody returned, nobody knew the truth. The most you could do was not worry about it and do your best to be a good person. It’s a message that isn’t that comforting because you don’t know what’s after, but it’s based more on what we know. Everybody dies, no matter who you are. Nobody comes back, no matter who you are.
It meant that, to me, nobody had a lock on what God wanted. It even meant that we couldn’t know there was or wasn’t a God, and that living a good life was our responsibility, and our only legacy.
Beyond that, it’s fascinating to research some of Job and see references to Rahab, another rebellious angel representing the sea, and wonder if instead it represented early conflicts in a pantheon of followers. The sea-god vanquished by the god of the mountain when followers moved inland. Egypt is a good example of pantheon consolidation, and rotating power as Osiris, then Amun, then Osiris again gained domination.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:44 am
TheBlackCat writes:
[[The message of Job is that if there’s an answer to the Problem of Pain, it’s not one human beings can understand.
Do you actually expect this answer to be satisfying to non-religious people? ]]
No, and I think I said that explicitly. Nonetheless, whatever our emotional reactions to such an answer, there do exist problems that a human mind cannot comprehend. You can’t hold the whole proof of LaPlace’s theorem in your mind at once, for example. Nor can you envision four-dimensional space.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:21 am
No, and I think I said that explicitly. Nonetheless, whatever our emotional reactions to such an answer, there do exist problems that a human mind cannot comprehend. You can’t hold the whole proof of LaPlace’s theorem in your mind at once, for example. Nor can you envision four-dimensional space.
But we do have ways we can analyze those things. They are fully self-consistent and can be related to other aspects of the self-consistent mathemtical system on which they are based. They are ultimately derived from a few basic, independent axioms. What you are describing is a being that holds mutually exclusive properties, a being that is by definition not self-consistent, either lacks any basic axioms or has ones that conflict with each other, and you tell us we should just accept these inconsistencies for no reason other than your assertion that these inconsistencies are merely due to our fundamental lack of ability. In other words, you are simply defining God as a being for which any apparent inconsistencies are irrelevant and fundamentally impossible to resolve.
So on one hand we have components of a wholly self-consistent set, things we can validate in terms of a set of consistent fundamental rules, things which themselves we cannot conceptualize but which are built out of simpler rules and components that we can conceptualize. On the other hand we have something that is completely inconsistent, does not have any consistent rules we can understand, and if it has components at all are all fundamentally beyond our ability to conceptualize. I fail to see how the two concepts are at all related.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Michael L-
“Remember, these are the same people that will turn around the next minute and try to convince you that evolution is full of nonsense.”
And your proof for this broad-brush statement? Perhaps you projecting just a little?
Look, live and let live. Just because someone believes that crystals and tea leaves will help them win the lottery, let them have their security blankets, just as long as no one else gets hurt.
Do we feel so superior that we have to go around knocking down other people’s sand castles for their own good?
I agree that we need to fight non-scientific reasoning when it affects the good of the community. But dumping on folks because they are incapable of thinkning logically and clearly?- that just strikes me as cruel and spiteful.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Oh, and regarding my own broad-bursh statement about bad experiences with churches- I’m just trying to figure out the venomous attacks on others. Logical disagreements I respect, but strawmen and ad hominen attacks from an obviously educated group saddens me.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:02 am
TheBlackCat posts:
[[What you are describing is a being that holds mutually exclusive properties, a being that is by definition not self-consistent]]
What definition? Certainly not the one I’m using. What properties of God are “mutually exclusive?”
February 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Almost all modern Christian denominations, including catholicism, orthodox, and protestant denominations, follow the trinitarian canon set forth by the first council of Nicea in the fourth century. This holds that God is both one person (God) as well as three individuals (the father, the son, and the holy spirit) at the same time, and that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human at the same time. So, by the way God is defined he is both himself and not himself, both one individual and multiple separate individuals, at the same time. So God is defined as being several distinct beings simultaneously.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Maybe that wasn’t as clear as it could be. Let me put it this way. The father, the son, and the holy spirit are all fully God, one being, at the same time. However, the father is totally distinct and separate from the son and the holy spirit, the son is totally distinct and separate from the father and the holy spirit, and the holy spirit is totally distinct and separate from the father and the son. So to put it simply
The Father = God
The Son = God
The Holy Spirit = God
The Father ? The Son
The Son ? The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit ? The Father
So we have a basic violation of the transitive property. That is, A=B, and B=C, but A?C.
More fundamentally we have the law of identity, which states “A is A”, or that “something is itself”. For the trinity to be valid, you must throw out this property, instead holding that something can be both itself and not itself at the same time, or “A is A and A is not A at the same time.” Such a proposition is obviously self-contradictory, and worse yet is self-contradictory on several levels.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Those question marks should have been “not equal to” symbols. It looks like wordpress couldn’t handle the symbols for some reason.
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:02 am
Gee, I wonder how that simple identity managed to escape guys like Augustine and Aquinas. They must’ve been pretty stupid to miss something so obvious.
An electron is both a particle and a wave. The particle is an electron. The wave is an electron. But the wave is not a particle, and the particle is not a wave.
Looks like quantum mechanics is self-contradictory. We’d better stop believing in it.
February 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am
They didn’t miss it, they just decided it was how things were and ruled that it was a fundamentally unanswerable question. In other words they completely dodged the issue the same way you did with the problem of evil, they said God was beyond human understanding. That is a fairly common response to such contradictions, it seems. This has been a well-known theological difficulty from the earliest days of Christianity. It was only resolved by ruling all opposing views heresy and anyone openly holding them was executed.
No, the motion of an electron (and other very small particles) is more similar to the motion of a transverse wave on our scale, while the measurement of electrons is more similar to that of a solid object on our scale. To say it a different way, movement follows a wave equation while measure position follows the rules of particles.
There are several key differences. First, the particle is still an electron in all cases. We are not saying it is both an electron and not an electron, which is what people are saying with the trinity. Second, the two sets of rules it follows are not followed simultaneously, that is it behaves as if it were a particle in some situations and a wave in other situations. The trinity holds its different properties at the same time.
Third, there is nothing inherently self-contradictory here anyway. We are used to, on our length scale, particles following a certain motion pattern and waves following a different motion pattern. We are used to particles having certain properties when we try to measure their position while waves have different properties. In our scale those two sets of properties always appear together. But there is no a-priori reason why those particle motion and position properties have to go together. There is nothing inherently self-contradictory here since the motion and measurement are two different properties of an entity. We simply assumed they were dependent on each other. We are simply seeing in subatomic particles a combination of these two properties that we have do not see in our length scale. In other words, these two properties are more independent of each other than we had realized. In the trinity, we are talking about a being that has multiple versions of the same properties, and expresses these multiple versions simultaneously.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Plus you won’t get burned at the stake for coming up with a different theory (as long as you have evidence lol)
February 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
TheBlackCat writes:
[[It was only resolved by ruling all opposing views heresy and anyone openly holding them was executed.]]
Your history is about as good as your theology. Been reading Dan Brown?
There was never a period when non-Trinitarians were executed for denying the Trinity. Arius died an old man of natural causes. The only case I can think of that comes close was Michael Servetus in Calvin’s Geneva, and the main reason they executed him was his attitude (”I will set this land to rights,” etc.).
February 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Even if you are right, it completely misses my point which was that people where well aware of the problems with the trinity but chose to ignore them. That was what we were discussing, the fact that the Christian god is, by its very definition, self-contradictory. You are focusing on a minor historical detail and ignoring the actual point of my post.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
It’s not self-contradictory at all. I don’t think you understand what a logical self-contradiction entails. It’s not just saying these things are the same thing but are not each other.