BEEP! BEEP! IT'S ME.

"Begin at the beginning,and go on till you come to the end: then stop." (Lewis Carroll, 1832-1896)

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

"So long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"

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Location: Australia

I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe. Like Arthur Dent from "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", if you do not have a Babel Fish in your ear this blog will be completely unintelligible to you and will read something like this: "boggle, google, snoggle, slurp, slurp, dingleberry to the power of 10". Fortunately, those who have had the Babel Fish inserted in their ear, will understood this blog perfectly. If you are familiar with this technology, you will know that the Babel Fish lives on brainwave radiation. It excretes energy in the form of exactly the correct brainwaves needed by its host to understand what was just said; or in this case, what was read. The Babel Fish, thanks to scientific research, reverses the problem defined by its namesake in the Tower of Babel, where a deity was supposedly inspired to confuse the human race by making them unable to understand each other.

"DIFFICILE EST SATURAM NON SCRIBERE"

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus Appear On A Potato


This is the text which accompanied the image: ~

It has been almost one year since our Father passed away from Prostate Cancer. We all miss him very much and think about all of the wonderful times we had.

I was thinking about my Father as I was preparing dinner today. In total amazement, I looked at the stack of potatos I was about to peel and I couldn't believe my eyes. Staring back at me from the sink was the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus.

I knew this had to be a sign from my Father telling us that everything is OK and he is at peace. The feeling of joy was very overwhelming and I suddenly felt a great sense of calm. You can clearly see the Virgin Mary's face in the top of the potato and the baby Jesus in the lower right side.

I didn't have the heart to peel and eat the potato, so we have listed it for eveyone to see. GOD BLESS you for checking our auction.

~*~

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And also from EBAY


Description from EBAY:~


This is a real Folgers Coffee single that I opened and was astonished to see the face of the Virgin Mary. You can clearly see it in the center of the bag.

~*~


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And from Needled - Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Tattoo

And the history of this possibly sacred snack?

The sandwich came into being in Diana's father's frying pan at 8:30 one morning 11 years ago. Almost immediately it sustained a small bite to its bottom right corner from Diana, before she realized she was possibly nibbling on the mother of Christ and screamed, ``Oh my God!''


The sandwich came at a difficult time for Diana and her husband, Greg, who'd learned that he had emphysema, a herniated disc and a degenerating spine. They kept it in the kitchen, on a shelf with some dishes. ''We got so close to her,'' Diana said. ``Every time there was a problem we'd go in and pray to her.''

~*~

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And Virgin Mary in Water Fountain

We built this fountain a couple years ago out of a piece of scrap marble and some copper tubing. The idea was that the water would spray out in a half-circular fashion across the face of the stone. It worked pretty well, but last fall we had an early snow around Thanksgiving and never had a chance to dismantle the fountain and bring it in.

Forgot about it for 5 months, but when we started cleaning the yard up in the spring we noticed the unusual image formed by the combination of weather, mineral deposits, marble etching and copper tubing. I joked that it kind of looked like the Virgin Mary, and then the more I looked at it, I
realized it REALLY looked like the Virgin Mary.


Copper tubing forms her halo, etching her facial features plus a laurel crown, mineral deposits her gown. We're probably going to be moving out of state soon, possibly into a condo, so I need to get rid of a lot of the stuff we can't bring with us. Because of its size and weight, the fountain won't be going. It'll either stay with the house or be put away in the garden shed for the new owner.

~*~

"There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good- will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us." - David Hume

This tendency to recognise the human face in objects aparts from people is called pareidolia. Astronomer Carl Sagan claimed that the human tendency to see faces in tortillas, clouds, cinnamon buns, and the like is an evolutionary trait.

He writes:

"As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper. These days, nearly every infant is quick to identify a human face, and to respond with a goony grin." - Sagan 1995: 45

The need to recognise a human face appears to be advantageous for survival. Human beings are apparently "hard-wired" to identify the human face.

While there is no question that the majority of face perception skills developed by adults are not present in babies, there is evidence of an innate tendency to pay attention to faces from birth.

It is known that early perceptual experience is crucial to the development of visual perception and this orienting response undoubtedly encourages the rapid development of face specific skills such as the ability to identify friendly others and relatively complex pre-verbal communication.

By two months of age face perception has developed so specific areas of the brain are known to be activated by viewing faces.

LINKS: ~

Link

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love these things and am always ammused by what people think they've found in a slice of toast. I think I ate my dear departed grandmother yesterday, but I do love Vegimite so and simply couldn't resist...:)

And it never ceases to amaze me that these guys think they actually know what Mary looked like, considering no description exists. All the images they use are medieval at the earliest. How do they know it's not the face of some evil bugger? Does the catholic church have some sort of recognitian system? An identikit maybe?

5/9/06 3:18 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not see the Virgin Mary or the Baby Jesus in that Potato.

5/9/06 4:03 pm  
Blogger Daniel said...

That the world is still filled with religions of various sorts suggests that the human mind is open to all manner of fantasies and is infinitely gullible.

What amazed me about the recent slaughter in Lebanon was that some 'Christians' were celebrating it thinking it meant the Second Coming was imminent. Talk about sick!

5/9/06 5:26 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

I agree ted.

RE rose: Go to http://www.curious-auctions.com/item.asp?itemID=294 and http://cgi.ebay.com/A-WELL_W0QQitemZ150004195576#ebayphotohosting to see larger images.

5/9/06 5:37 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE daniel:
When it comes to religious prophecy, the primary thing on a religious person's mind is the hope or wish for the prophecy to be realised.

Unfortunately, some religious people are so "hell bent" on the prophecy coming true, that they give it a nudge along. We see this especially in armageddon type prophecies.

The believers will do almost anything to MAKE the prophecies come true, even if it means killing themselves or thousands of other people.

5/9/06 5:41 pm  
Blogger R J Adams said...

Aha! So I'm not alone in ridiculing these things. I guessed that would be the case - though you're in Australia, a much saner continent than North America where Walmart experiences an exact one hour dip in trade each Sunday while the churches open! Have you noticed how money, or the possibility of obtaining it, usually overcomes any desire to hang onto these "holy" objects? Shares in eBay skyrocket whenever another "find" is announced.
Thanks for your comment on my blog. Call again. I will.

6/9/06 1:40 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE rj:

Yes, the prospect of a satisfactory business transaction seem to outweigh the "spiritual need" to keep those holy objects in their possession.

6/9/06 9:57 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, it seems like a great business idea. We need to start buying a whole lot of potatoes and statistically we are bound to find a few "significant" faces here and there on them. Then we can sell them on eBay and voila. :-)

Perhaps, someone can even develop a new "Virgin Mary" species of potatoes that all will have "her image" on them... :-)

6/9/06 12:47 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE sh:

Yeah, dunno if it would work very successfully trying to sell them to australians.

Certainly there might be a bigger market for them in the US.

How about "Muhammad potatoes"? Then any spud that looked like it had a guy with a beard. could be either sold as jesus or muhammad.

Double the market by using the same image :)

6/9/06 1:31 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Muhammad potatoes" might be a little tricky though. You never know if they are going to pay you or cut your head off for one of those... :-)

Maybe we should just stick to more or less secular leaders: "Gandhi potatoes", "Einstein tomatoes", or "Dawkins onions"? :-)

6/9/06 2:12 pm  
Blogger Krystalline Apostate said...

BBIM:
A little off topic here -
Tag, you're it.

7/9/06 7:02 am  
Blogger Deb said...

"The believers will do almost anything to MAKE the prophecies come true, even if it means killing themselves or thousands of other people."

Some say that's exactly what W the Moron is doing.

Thanks for coming by my blog!

18/9/06 11:26 pm  
Blogger Alison said...

Mad Dog at What Would Jesus See? has a whole blog of these miraculous "appearances".
My favourite remains the ants who wrote the word 'peace' on the underside of a leaf. Except they mis-spelled it.
If I was a deity desperately trying to get a message out to my base, I definitely wouldn't post it on the underside of a leaf. Plus I would try to choose ants that can friggin spell.

19/9/06 9:11 am  

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