Seeing God

8 Comments

My daughter reminded me that one further aspect that stood out at the Red Mill Museum in Clinton was the persistence of pareidolia. Pareidolia, or matrixing, is the tendency to interpret “random” data as meaningful. More specifically, it is often used to refer to seeing a person (or entity) where it is not. As I wrote in an earlier entry, it has been suggested that pareidolia is the ultimate origin of religion.

For my purposes here, however, I wonder if the sheer amount of false faces we encountered while at the Red Mill might have some connection with the idea that the property is haunted. Somewhat of a skeptic, I am somewhat swayed by ghost accounts since they are so plentiful and since many of those who report them are reputable persons with good observation skills. Ghosts are, however, impossible to separate from some form of religious thought since they are the ultimate examples of the intangible, unmeasurable phenomenon. If there are ghosts in the laboratory, they haven’t been quantified yet.

Old buildings, which abound at sites like the Red Mill, are full of knotholes or other apertures whose original hardware has long since disappeared. Round holes, or spots, as many insects and fish “know” are easily interpreted as eyes. Add a horizontal line beneath your “eyes” and you have a basic face.

Perhaps my favorite example of pareidolia at Red Mill is an old sycamore tree. A large burl on the trunk bears a striking resemblance to a human profile. This is more easily seen in real life where the mind more easily filters out the distracting coloration and focuses on the shape. Since pareidolia is such a fascinating aspect of the human experience of the world, and since it might, conveniently, be tied to religion, this seemed to be as appropriate a venue as any other to share some great examples.

Bibles and Freedom

Leave a comment

Visiting the Red Mill in Clinton, New Jersey is always a worthwhile experience. Yesterday, a gloomy, gray September postcard, was perfect for such a visit. In addition to the many buildings on the museum grounds that retain an atmospheric feel year-round, the Mill is supposedly haunted and is frequented by a number of ghost hunting teams. With its long (for America) history and its picturesque beauty, the museum is a popular spot with tourists as well as ghost hunters.

One of the buildings on the grounds is an old one-room schoolhouse. As a family we have visited a number of these, although none of us qualify as having been actual pupils at one. A frequent blandishment at such institutions is the rules by which school teachers had to live in the nineteenth century, usually posted on the wall. Yesterday as we read the obligatory list, one “commandment” stuck out from the 1872 code of conduct: “After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or any other good books.” While many of the rules were condescending in their moralizations, this one carried a perfect example of how a nation, naively short-sighted, was already giving preferential treatment to one religion, Protestant Christianity.

As a nation founded as a haven for religious freedom, the colonists and settlers simply had narrow exposure to religions of the world. Freedom seemed an ideal worth dying for, but usually it meant freedom to be whatever (Protestant) denomination you wished to be. Catholicism was associated with the old powers of Europe, and the religions of the east were barely known. The Protestants were the ones who promoted Bible reading in those days, and while the rules allowed for other good books, there is an unstated superiority given to the Good Book in its pride of place. Once the colonials became nationals, it was still fair to taunt Quakers, Unitarians, and others who didn’t seem to fit the mold. We didn’t see any ghosts at the Red Mill yesterday, but it did seem that a haunting memory of true religious liberty hung about the place.

Clinton's Red Mill sews freedom

God of the Gaps = Poof!

2 Comments

In Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design, according to MSNBC, he declares that God is not necessary, physically speaking, to get the universe going. The only people who should be surprised here are those who took Hawking’s final lines from A Brief History of Time too literally: “However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.” I remember being a bit surprised when I read that the first time.

Whose eyes are watching you?

At some level, it seems, many people took comfort in knowing that one of the greatest scientific minds alive had left a door open for God. The great cosmologist looking through a theoretical telescope and seeing God on the other end looking back. There was a symmetry here, a sense of rightness. Some, to gauge by the reactions reported, feel that Dr. Hawking has betrayed us in stating the obvious. God was never to be found in the petri dish or under the electron microscope. According to the theorists of a theological stripe, God has no quantifiable qualities that might be measured. As the article states, the only God to disappear here was the God-of-the-gaps.

As a young, undergraduate religion major, when I first heard that God-of-the-gaps was bad philosophy/theology, I was a bit surprised. (I spend a lot of time being surprised.) If God has no explanatory value in the real world, whence deity at all? If religious folks behaved better, there might well be cause to suggest that the evidence for God comes in human kindness and charity. Unfortunately, religious folk quite often instigate the hatred and suffering that scars much of human society. No, Stephen Hawking has not killed God, just as Friedrich Nietzsche did not commit deicide in the nineteenth century. If the God-of-the-gaps is gone, nothing of value has been lost. The minds of theological thinkers will only have to be stretched just a bit farther.

Star Trek Paradise

Leave a comment

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Trekkie. I did watch the reruns of the original series after school on our black-and-white television, but I have never owned “Spock ears” nor does my cell phone look like a communicator. To the best of my recollection, I haven’t even seen all the episodes. I’ve mentioned before that some generous in-laws purchased the first season of the series for a gift last year. Since then my wife (a convenient excuse) has been interested in watching the remaining two seasons. We found a reasonably priced second season set and have been working our way through over the weekends of the summer.

Paradise-busters?

This weekend we watched the episode entitled “The Apple.” Even a fair-weather Star Trek watcher such as myself can’t help but notice that the series as a whole is biblically literate. Biblically literate, however, only in a popularist way. This became clear once again in “The Apple.” Stranded on a planet modeled after a troubled Garden of Eden, Captain Kirk and his landing party soon must destroy a serpentine “god” that keeps the luau-ready inhabitants in a state of perpetual ignorance. Diametrically opposed to Eden where it is the serpent who tempts with knowledge, this is a serpent that tempts with ignorance. Long, pleasant life without intellectual development and the “god” receives daily sacrifices. A world of status quo.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk points out that the only one on the ship that bears resemblance to the Devil is, by implication, Spock. This is where the popularist interpretation grates most heavily. The Genesis version of Eden has no Devil, no Satan in it. Only a much later, revisionist re-reading, (certainly post-Zoroastrian) equates the snake with Satan. Genesis does not condemn the acquisition of knowledge. It comes with pain, true, but that is simply the way life is. Perhaps it would be easier for us all if some great Kirk might vanquish the inhibiting serpents of our apotheosis, but that’s simply not the way life works. In this instance, the Bible trumps Star Trek.

Hoax Folks

Leave a comment

The internet bores me sometimes. I can’t keep up with the pace of blogs that chug away like a neverending newsfeed. Information comes at me so fast I want to cower in a corner and start constructing my own printing press from scraps of lumber and bits of broken screws and bent nails. Slow things down a bit. Write something of substance. Of course, electronic information has its advantages – I frequent online dictionaries and thesauri where looking up words is much quicker than flipping countless pages. While hovering on the thesaurus.com page this morning, I noticed one of the blog entries entitled “Relax, Bill Cosby isn’t dead — it was a hoax. Is it true that the origin of ‘hoax’ mocks Christianity?” I’m glad for Bill Cosby’s sake, but what really caught my attention was the subtitle. We are all subjected to hoaxes almost as regularly as we are fed real news. Was this blurb suggesting that Christianity originated hoaxes or had given us the word “hoax”? Okay, too much information, but I had to find out.

The blog post states, in part, “The Eucharist, a central Christian prayer, contains the Latin ‘hoc est enim corpus meum,’ meaning ‘for this is my body.’ Jesus is said to have spoken these words at the Last Supper. The British clergy John Tillotson speculates in 1694 that hocus pocus is not only a corruption of this key Latin phrase, but a parody in keeping with the occasionally vulgar humor of prestidigitators.” Having taught for more than a decade at the avowed queen of “Anglo-Catholic” seminaries, I’d heard the gist of this before. For a blog on a website supporting grammar, however, I winced at “a central Christian prayer” and “The British clergy John…” phrasing. The Eucharist is not a prayer, but a sacrament, part of which is the Eucharistic prayer. Clergy is a collective, not an individual. Not to mention that if one was speculating in 1694 it ought to have been in the past tense.

In any case, the story as I received it was that Protestants coined the phrase “hocus pocus” to abjure the idea that anything “magical” was happening at the Eucharist. Protestants generally held communion to have been symbolic rather than a literal act of changing bread to flesh and wine to blood. So it seems that from a Protestant point of view the Eucharistic prayer was a hoax, but from a Catholic viewpoint it was salvation. As with most things religious, it is a matter of perspective. The word “hoax,” it turns out, likely derives from “hocus.” Having found this gem nestled in among so many grammatical errors, however, shakes my confidence a bit. That, however, is just my perspective.

A hoax or Dagon's sister?

Everything but a Name

6 Comments

As we once again near the Ugaritic session of Ancient Near Eastern religions, I ponder the strange wonder that the city has all but completely escaped modern notice. As far as ancient city-states go, Ugarit had it all: drama, sex, violence, everything but a memorable name. Many ancient sites capture the imagination by their names alone: Nag Hammadi sounds exotic, the Dead Sea Scrolls bespeak a hidden mystery. Even Nineveh and Mari suggest hidden riches, but Ugarit? How short-sighted our ancient founders of civilization could be!

To begin with, nobody knows how to pronounce a word that begins with “u.” Vowels are notoriously amorphous, but never more so than when initiating a word. Is it “Yu-” or “Oo-”? The name then launches into the morass of uncertain syllabification. We moderns like to stress the first syllable of a word. Ancient Semitic language speakers tended to throw the emphasis back a syllable or two. How to say “Ugarit” with emphasis on the last syllable without sounding utterly pretentious and affected? Many of my colleagues pronounce the word with an emphasis on the penultimate syllable, “Harvard style.” To me this smacks of a pointy-nosed fish.

In a society that prefers the quick and superficial, stopping to think about pronunciation before barreling ahead into the substance of the matter is a decided detriment. If that ancient society provided us with our earliest complete alphabet and the nearest analog to stories from the Bible, well, it would gain some notoriety if it had a recognizable name. The Israelites forever changed the world that followed their appearance in the Levant. They borrowed concepts, characters, and ideas from their neighbors. Their associates to the north, gone by the time the first Israelite appeared, had chosen a forgettable name and have quietly fallen by the wayside until somebody unafraid of initial “u”s might come along and resurrect them.

Paranormal Prophets

1 Comment

At the suggestion of a friend, I watched The Mothman Prophecies last night. Very loosely an updated version of the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, the movie both satisfied my monster movie habit and my interest in things biblical. As a monster flick, it was satisfying in maintaining tension, never clearly showing the creature. As a representation of prophecy, it falls into the camp of Nostradamus.

Reports of the “mothman” began in 1966 and continued over the next year. It was reputedly seen near the Silver Bridge, the artery that connects Point Pleasant with Gallipolis, Ohio. After the tragic collapse of the bridge, resulting in nearly 50 deaths, the paranormal prophet was never seen in the area again. While in West Virginia last year, a friend introduced me to a couple from Point Pleasant who stopped into her store. They looked a little embarrassed when the mothman came up in conversation.

Point Pleasant's mothman statue from WikiCommons

Prophecy, in the vernacular, refers to predicting the future. Although some biblical prophets correctly intimate future happenings, mostly the image of prophets in the Bible is that of effective speakers. Prophets are individuals who participate in the reality of the world by adding their powerful words to the mix. If their words regard a future event – fairly rare in the Bible – they affect the outcome because their words have influence in the world. It is a supernatural view of the spoken (or written) word, to be sure, but it is a long cry from predictive ability. It is a matter of perspective.

Interestingly in the movie, Alexander Leek, the specialist on mothmen (apparently there are many), suggests that they see farther because they are higher in the sky than humans. In other words, it is indeed a matter of perspective. Certainly the mothman must go down as one of the oddest cryptids sighted. I give them no credence as prophets, but I will think twice before driving over bridges from now on.

Jesus Friends Me

1 Comment

From Jesus' Facebook profile


Jesus has a Facebook page. Given the circumstances it is highly doubtful that he set it up without some help from his friends. I went to the page to check out his friend list, but apparently he’s not accepting invites. Over 125,000 like the page, however. I wondered if it might be a stunt, since when I found Facebook they insisted that you could only sign up with your real name. While there is no doubt that this is a stunt, it turns out that it is considered an evangelistic tool wielded by a John 3:16er. On his info page, Jesus writes, “Please invite your friends to ‘Like’ (love) Jesus Christ,” an upgraded “honk if you love Jesus” if ever I read one. If you read the comments on his wall, it is clear that some people believe Jesus himself really reads his own page. It doesn’t mention the car accident.

A Rutgers student once told me about the “six clicks of separation” phenomenon on Wikipedia. Apparently, no matter how obscure a page you’re on, just six link clicks can get you to the page on Jesus. Don’t get me wrong: with his impact and importance Jesus certainly should have a Wikipedia article. There can be little doubt that anyone else can claim his level of influence in both the Dark Ages and Twentieth Century America, now creeping into the Twenty-First. The sad part is, those who constantly link to Jesus have latched onto a chimera grafted together from disparate sources. And they are his followers on Facebook.

I wonder who has the audacity to speak (type) for Jesus. Who is it that believes they have the deep insight into who Jesus was – deep enough to speak for him? WWJT? Technology speeds along and fans of Jesus fear he may be left behind. By making your Facebook admiration for Jesus public, I suppose, a kind of “witnessing” is going on. It would seem to me that a better way to show support for Jesus would be to care for others, the poor, the disadvantaged, the lonely. Feed the hungry, provide healthcare to the sick, offer justice to those who have been treated unfairly. If a friend invitation came from this faux Jesus, who would be inclined to accept it?

Random Faces

2 Comments

A friend recently sent me an issue of the Annals of Improbable Research that featured an instance of pareidolia on the back cover. Pareidolia, or the brain’s tendency to read patterns in random input – especially faces or human forms, has been a subject addressed on this blog before. Nevertheless, the phenomenon has continued to find wider exposure on the internet, and its implications continue to grow. The Cheezburger folks who brought us LOL Cats now have a site dedicated to pareidolia entitled “Happy Chair is Happy.” The question is not so much why we see faces everywhere, but what do we do about it.

Photo credit: C. Vittore, K. Tribble and D. Savala, Ann. Improbable Research

Perhaps the most prevalent uses of pareidolia in natural phenomena (human-made objects are often funny or uncanny, but the faces may be there by intentional design) revolve around the supernatural. Would-be ghost hunters find what looks like a face in a window or shadowy corner and interpret it as a disembodied spirit. Religious believers of various faiths find the faces of their founders or leaders in natural noise. A tract I saw as a child told the heart-wrenching story of a woman who’d given up hope. She randomly took a photograph of her garden and when she developed it (this was back when film was actually still in use), she found the face of Jesus in among the leaves. Her angst alleviated, she went on to face life with a fresh sense of possibilities.

We often see what is not really there. On a visit to my niece last year, while waiting in the car outside her dorm, I saw a shadow on the wall that looked exactly like the recently deceased Michael Jackson. The shadow was cast by security lights through a bush, but the face was unmistakable. To test my observation, I asked my niece – who knew nothing of the fleeting rock star on the side of her building – if she could see it. Immediately it became obvious to her. An epiphany of Michael Jackson may be a religious event, or at least a supernatural one, to some. In reality it was a temporary arrangement of leaves aligned just right to catch a security light to form a public icon. Putting faith in pareidolia is a very haphazard source of security. However, if it helps someone deal with the stresses and strains of life, what harm is there in seeing Jesus (or Michael Jackson) where he really isn’t present?

iPriest

1 Comment

I don’t own an iPad or an iPhone. I even have to confess to being bored with the internet on occasion. Perhaps my interests are too antiquated for the electronic age. So when I saw that an Italian priest had developed an application to allow priests to celebrate Mass I knew that the brave, new world had attained a heretofore unfathomable high. Instead of laying a missal on the altar, priests can now “double click” to the appropriate rubric with an iPad next to the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Of course, the temptation to surf the net during Mass must be overwhelming at times. When I look out over my university classes and see a sea of laptops, knowing that university wi-fi is everywhere, I am sure they are somewhere far, far away from Numbers or 2 Chronicles. Perhaps they are checking out what is going on in Mass? A couple years back iBreviary came out for those who need the daily offices on the fly. Convenience and worship, however, were never intended to go together.

I spent this morning in a used bookstore. Some of my favorite places are among old books. The knowledge they hold doesn’t freeze up on you or crash. And often it is easier to find since you don’t have to search for exact terms in an ocean of information so vast that even intellectual whales couldn’t navigate it. Upgrades on iMass are expected to be available soon. The content, however, will remain the same as that rolling off the press in hardcopy after Vatican II. How long will it be before virtual communion is available so that commuters can partake without ever taking their hands off the wheel?

In the name of the unix, linux, and holy mac

Joltin’ Jesus

1 Comment

Jesus has been having a hard time lately. Just last month he was hit by a car, and on Monday night lightning struck a second time. Literal lightning. A touchdown-style Jesus in Monroe, Ohio, formerly six stories tall, received the paragon of divine punishments in a Midwest thunderstorm. Struck by lightning, the fiberglass and plastic foam savior melted leaving only an eerie, Lovecraftian idol of a steel frame behind. The statue had adorned the Solid Rock Church in Monroe since 2004. According to MSNBC many motorists said that America needs more symbols like this; God apparently disagrees.

Former Touchdown/Quicksand Jesus

Obtrusive religious symbols dot many high hills and adorn many quotidian highways as signs of the donors’ faith. Lawrence Bishop, horse-trader-cum-pastor, and his wife Darlene made a substantial investment in this eviscerated Touchdown Jesus sculpture. As a camp counselor in my youth, I slept in the shadow of the great steel cross of Jumonville in southwestern Pennsylvania. The 60-foot tall cross is lit at night and is visible in three states. The monolithic cross always seemed incongruous with the blackened roasted weenies and gooey banana-boats we managed to choke down. Staring at its gleaming whiteness by night was an epiphany to many.

With the rainbow seal of approval

When my wife and I lived in Scotland some years ago, a terrific wind-storm blew through. In itself that was nothing uncommon, as any Scot will tell you. Wind gusts in this storm reached about 140 knots (160 mph), causing widespread damage. In an interview on the BBC, the sexton at one of Scotland’s cathedrals (time has robbed me of the details) recorded seeing the wind topple a statue of Jesus atop the building. He quipped, “I looked up, saw Jesus coming down, and ran for my life!” Although the exact location escapes me, the words have taken on an unexpected significance as icons crash down all around me. The demise of “Quicksand Jesus” is simply one further reason to avoid trusting in anything less than solid rock.

Mystery of Mystic

3 Comments

Ever since my school days at Boston University, even before a movie made the town famous, I wanted to visit Mystic, Connecticut. Perhaps it was the draw of the name that evoked foggy harbors and suggested the possibility of some kind of enlightenment. Perhaps it was because Mystic is near the gray waters of the north Atlantic that so captivate me. Perhaps because I am innately attracted by the sense of place. Whatever the reason, since we needed a break from my perpetual quasi-unemployment and my wife’s demanding hours, we have come to Mystic at last. Since traffic was exceptionally heavy, we haven’t had a chance to explore much beyond Mystic Pizza, now an iconic stop for all visitors.

She wasn't there

Curious about the name with its quasi-religious overtones, I tried to find in the town’s literature some hint of its origin. Nobody knows for sure. Like many “American” toponyms, however, Mystic likely derives from native American roots. The suggestion has been made that it means “great river whose water is driven in waves” (missi tuk). To the colonial ear ever alert for religious significance, this may have become “Mystic.” The true origin of the name may never be known.

Religious enthusiasm among early European colonists and their scions further west often inspired quasi-spiritual toponyms. Devil’s Tower and Devil’s Lake (Wyoming and Wisconsin, respectively) had no associations with the dark lord, but rather were locations of spiritual significance for the native populations. Grasping for a way to express this, the best evangelical Christianity could come up with was “Devil.” At least Mystic sounds much less diabolical. As we explore this town I will, by dint of natural disposition, keep an eye open for the religious implications. If I, perchance, uncover the true origin of the name, my readers will be the first to know.

Life Without Dragons

2 Comments

Every now and again, the great cosmic spheres align in their eternal turning and something just right clicks into place on our little planet. Such a juxtaposition must have recently occurred, for just when my worry about dragons had been reaching a crescendo, I received an offer for “dragon bane,” a beautifully crafted double-axe in the Minoan tradition, for only $39.99. The double-axe, or labrys, actually predates the Minoans, probably originating in ancient Sumer. The dragon predates even that.

Labrys dragon style

I’ve posted on the origin of dragons before, but of all mythological creatures dragons are perhaps the most tenacious. In various guises they reappear when we thought that they were gone. They are among the most ancient of feared creatures. Representing the untamed, indeed untamable areas of life, the dragon is the perfect symbol of chaos. Dragons are the disorder against which gods always struggle. Metaphorical dragons are always more troublesome than physical ones.

Although the idea of being a sword-swinging hero out to vanquish the forces of evil is an appealing one, I know that I won’t be purchasing this collectable. I have too much respect for dragons to see them slain by gods or mortals. What would life be without our dragons?

Chris Christie’s State Education Budget Plan

1 Comment

Strawberry Fields Forever

5 Comments

For beings dwelling on the surface of our planet, we tend to live far from the earth. I was reminded of this yesterday when my family went on our annual strawberry-picking venture. Each year we drive out to a remote farm that has pick-your-own strawberries and fill too many baskets because we just can’t stop ourselves when nature offers such obvious bounty. On the years when I can visit the northwest with my in-laws, one of my favorite pastimes is huckleberry picking. The two berry experiences differ vastly; one is a cultivated, planned layout of particular strains of red berries, the other is a forage-and-hunt search for wild purple berries that haven’t been stripped by the grizzlies. Both, however, put me intimately in touch with the earth. Trousers muddy from direct contact with the ground, fingers stained from the delicate fruit juices newly plucked from the plant – it is an earthy enterprise.

At such times it is evident how religions began. I don’t pretend to comprehend the whole complex phenomenon of the psychology of religion, but in those rare moments I share in the ancient art of survival. Finding your own food, body pressing directly on the earth with no cushion or blanket or furniture between. These moments must reflect our earliest ancestors’ daily life. When times of hardship came and food could not be found, they could only watch as members of their group died an agonizing death from hunger. Would they not call out to the powers beyond themselves, the unseen providers who alone could assure a steady supply of food?

In is no surprise that the first instances we find of religion in any developed form are strongly agricultural. Gods of rain and “fertility” abound. The ancient voices can distinctly be heard: we truly are helpless to create our own food. It is an echo that fades with each passing triumph of human control over our environment. When we can force nature to do our bidding – irrigating huge tracts of waterless land, feeding pesticides and growth enhancers into the very soil, even starting to create life itself in the laboratory – where are the gods? They have stiff competition indeed. So when I hold that strawberry in my hand, organically connected to the very planet that gave birth to us all, I feel that I have tapped into the roots of religion itself.