Good Reason

It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.

Category: pareidolia

Pareidolia of the Daylia: God moves in eggplanty ways

5 May 2013 / / Comments Off on Pareidolia of the Daylia: God moves in eggplanty ways

It’s not just Christians and Muslims who imagine religious images in food. Now Hindus are getting in on the act.

Believers are flocking to a Leicestershire temple to pray twice a day to a vegetable that looks like a Hindu god.

The divine aubergine was discovered among a box from a wholesalers and has been worshipped by more than 80 people so far.

Hindus: Behold your god!

I’m sure that many Hindus would think this is silly, just as many Christians think that Toast Jesus is silly. But according to the article, about 80 people have come to the restaurant to pray. For every one of those people, their religion has short-circuited the part of their brain that helps them realise that it’s stupid to venerate an eggplant. And that’s a terrible thing.

The danger is that, by worshipping an eggplant, they might accidentally be paying homage to the Eggplant God, and that’d really piss Ganesha off. Tramplings would ensue. You don’t want to make Ganesha mad — he never forgets.

Talk the Talk: Really Old Art

22 May 2012 / / 2 Comments

A good Talk today — it’s always fun with Stacy G. This time we’re talking about cave art, and what it has to do with language.

So they’ve found a limestone slab dated to 37,000 years ago, it’s got a carving on it, and it’s a vulva. Here’s a pic (from this article): (SFW)

No, not the circular thing with the tail. The thing inside the circle. Or am I just seeing things? I’m not used to looking at vulval imagery.

One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here

Pareidolia of the Daylia: Mishka the Talking Dog

11 May 2012 / / 1 Comment

Mishka’s a talking dog, or so they say. She can do a passing impersonation of a person saying “I love you”, as long as the person isn’t speaking too distinctly, is chewing a lot of gum, and happens to be a dog.

It’s a funny thing about talking animals, though — it’s a lot like listening to records backwards for hidden messages. It’s just random sounds until someone tells you what you ought to be listening for, and after that, it’s as clear as can be. You have to be primed.

Here, try this: Click on these links, but keep your eyes closed to avoid the priming (usually in the title). Is there any difference between the howls?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_6X0aRDGlg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki13JIVwMdk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKFS3YUP1lo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnYt_g9GjvI

Oh, well. Nice dog. She’s happy to vocalise. I just hope people aren’t taking this too seriously. But people took Alex and Victor seriously, and they were both just similar cases of pareidolia. So you can never be too sure.

Pareidolia of the daylia: Elephant! On! Marrrrrzzz…!

11 April 2012 / / Comments Off on Pareidolia of the daylia: Elephant! On! Marrrrrzzz…!

People freaked out over the face on Mars…

Mars on a bad face day

But how will they react when they see this?

An Elephant on Mars? At Least According to This NASA Photo

NASA managed to snag this unique picture of an elephant-shaped lava flow on Mars in the Elysium Planitia sector of the planet. Located on a Martian plain known for displaying some of the planet’s youngest lava flows, this flow may have occurred within the past 100 million years – a relatively short time in the planet’s history.

Obviously it’s evidence that Ganesha is the one true god. He’s even associated with Mars for some reason. Come on, Hindus, I shouldn’t have to make this stuff up for you.

Arabic not materialising on airplanes

27 September 2011 / / 1 Comment

Is there any language scarier than Arabic? (Unless you understand it, of course.) It doesn’t go in the right direction, and it looks so… foreign! No wonder it’s caused havoc before.

And when Arabic script unexpectedly appears on airplanes, well, it’s enough to make people involuntarily micturate.

Mysterious messages that appeared to be scrawled in Arabic writing on the underbellies of several Southwest Airlines jets were being investigated Wednesday by the airline and the FBI, Los Angeles radio station KNX-1070 reported.
The graffiti, which began appearing in February on 737-model planes, has been found more often in recent weeks, according to the report.
The writing appears to have been etched using a chemical process and is visible only after an auxiliary power unit is turned on.

So how do they know it’s Arabic? Gawker comes to the rescue with photos.

Where’s the Arabic? You mean those cross-looking things that look like someone wiped some dust off the plane? That’s the Arabic? Hey, wait — it looks kind of like a sword! Yeah! That’s Arabic, right? I think they have a sword on their flags.

Well, the markings are so not Arabic that even the Daily Mail has had to admit it.

The airline had suggested the symbols, which only show up with heat and are believed to be vandalism, looked like Arabic writing.

However the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. looked at the photos for MailOnline and a spokesman concluded they are ‘not Arabic script’.

It’s kind of sad: Muslims are now the most-feared group in society, just as Jews, Freemasons, and Catholics were in times past. As such, nervous people project their fears onto them. Strange markings on airplanes? Concerns over immigration? Mosque down the road? Obviously all part of a takeover attempt by Muslims.

But now, hopefully now people who work in aviation can stop being worried about Arabic script, and worry about something else, like lesbians kissing.

Who likes Benny Lava?

31 August 2011 / / 1 Comment

Starting out with “Who likes white people?” seemed a little out there, even for Michele Bachmann.

Language Log has done a convincing job of demonstrating that she really said, “Who likes wet people?”, which you can prove to yourself by closing your eyes and listening. You know what it is — it’s those damn subtitles (or are they supertitles?). When you see the words up there, it sure sounds like “white”, even when you know it’s “wet”.

I like this as an example of the suggestibility of perception. Could this be the Benny Lava of American politics?

No, maybe not.

The Provo Tabernacle died for your sins

21 December 2010 / / 11 Comments

The Provo Tabernacle burned down. It’s a real shame. I went to church there a couple of times in my Utah days, and I remember it as a good old building. It would have made a nice library in 100 years.

One might wonder, of course, why the Mormon god would allow a church building to be destroyed by fire as he watches, pitiless and indifferent to human affairs. One might even wonder what message he intends to send. Perhaps an Old-Testament-style message of anger and vengeance! The fire and destruction symbolic of the wrath to come. A Mormon might get a sense of divine disapproval, and that would never do.

But wait! It’s a Christmas miracle!

As the four-alarm fire raged at the Provo Tabernacle, firefighters and those watching helplessly from the sidewalk observed something truly remarkable. Some are even calling it “a Christmas miracle.”

A painting of Jesus Christ burned in the fire, save for the image of the son of God [yes, that was the wording chosen by Fox News], which was left unscathed.

Yep, the church burning down isn’t the real takeaway here. It’s the painting. That’s the ticket.

This is the Argument from Incomplete Devastation, one of many ways to creatively interpret events in order to sustain a narrative that you already believe. Religious folk are quick to use this one because in the face of disaster, there are only two possible outcomes — either your faith is boosted, or your faith is boosted more. You have to admire their optimism, at least.

Here’s the scorched painting. Coming soon to a fireside near you.

Wait a minute! Forget about Jesus — that outline around it looks strangely familiar! Could it be the hunched figure of…

Nah.

Paradolia of the daylia

25 July 2008 / / 1 Comment

The workings of god are mysterious, so here’s some mystery meat.

What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi.

He was about to eat it, when he suddenly noticed the words in the gristle, the restaurant owner said.

If I were the supreme ruler of a world full of war, crime, violence, and hunger, I couldn’t think of a better way to manifest myself than by putting my name in pieces of gristle. No, wait. Actually, I’d just be dicking with you.

I like Arabic script, even though I’ve never studied it. So I wanted to find out what the name of Allah looks like. Here it is. Not a terribly complex shape, is it?
Look like a match to you? Then you’re not looking with the eye of faith. If you were, you’d see the name of god (well, one of the names of god) any place where there are parallel lines. You’d see it everywhere, from tomatoes

to fish.

I know; it’s like so obvious on the fish. How could you yet disbelieve?

There’s a whole page of this stuff here. As you might guess, it’s pretty weak tea. Finding parallel lines is even easier than finding faces in tortillas, it would seem. And isn’t it strange that everyone finds an image that serves to confirm their own beliefs and not anyone else’s? Truly amazing.

I’d love any Arabic speakers to let me know if they’ve ever seen any blasphemous words in, say, an eggplant. Keep me posted.

Meta

© 2024 Good Reason

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑