If anything it looks scary to me, that white patch at the top of the photo looks like a skull to me. Im really starting to think that these people have a mental disorder. Over at rationalresponders.com they think that religion is a mental disorder. What do you think of that, Les. I’m on the fence about whether religion should be considered a mental disorder, though the jesus pareidolia freaks definately are mental.

I think religious belief is a form of delusion, but for most people it’s no worse than many other forms of delusion humans tend to be prone to such as wishful thinking.  Which isn’t to say it’s a good thing that I think should be encouraged, just that I don’t rate it on par with schizophrenia or something along those lines.

I do think some folks are a little crazy to begin with and their religious beliefs feed into that, but those are the exceptions more so than the rule in my experience.

...i know i don know you but…

...ITS A BUMP...ON A TREE!!!!!

MAN! Some people are stupid… well, i can see that some people will say anything is something relious if it keeps them frm (forced to stop typing at this point...)

Jack Skellington, maybe? 
I wonder if trees ever get sick of having loonies staring at their blemishes.  Why don’t believers look for signs and wonders on their own bodies?  “Look at little Jimmy’s birthmark- it looks just like the crucifixion!  And those liver spots on Grandma’s arm form the Blessed Virgin!  And this irregular mole I have looks just like John the Baptist’s head!  What?  You think I should have it removed?  Are you crazy?!?!”

I personally see one of those giant brain martians from Mars Attacks! in the part at the top.

In any event, I don’t think religion is a mental illness like say schizophrenia for most people. I think it’s a mental illness like most neurotic tendencies (for example, mild obsessive compulsive disorder) in most people. We all have neurosis, and perhaps the tendency to be overly credulous when presented with something like religion by authority is just one of the shared neurotic tendencies of the human brain.  One might even argue that it’s an artifact of our simian ancestors tendency to yield to authority within a troop (such as the case in modern groups of apes).  If that is the case, it’s just an extension of our tribal tendencies that most people still actively embrace. 

Of course, some people are totally delusional in their religion, but I think too they might be suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder or other serious mental problems when they start falling into the “batshit crazy” sort of religion.

Pareidolia, religious or otherwise (ever notice how some cars look like they have faces on the front?) is just an artifact of our brain that everyone does to some extent or another and really shouldn’t be considered mental illness.

I’m on the fence about whether religion should be considered a mental disorder, though the jesus pareidolia freaks definately are mental.

Xav, I tend to agree with Les. I think, though, that we are brought to believe a lot of patently crazy things because a) because we are taught to trust authority and emotive responses (like when you’re a kid and “you know you’ve done wrong”, where “wrong” is defined by an authority figure) and b) because we’re already wacky to begin with.

Give a guy who worships the God of Hippies a chance at this tree, and it won’t take many guesses to know what he sees. What differs different mindsets is about the experience of that person. Religions offer attempts to coagulate that collective experience into something coherent, which is, perhaps, why so many are incoherent.

It looks like a knob and some sap...which is probably similar to the folks that are seeing divine crap on this tree.

Here’s the REALLY stupid thing about these sightings… even if they did once exist, no one knows what Jesus or the Virgin Mary looks like.

Most of the representations that we are familiar with were painted in the previous 3 or 4 centuries, usually by Italian or Byzantine painters who used models of middle-European appearance.

If that is the case, how can anyone say they have seen a likeness? The stupidity of the human race appalls me. I’m off to another planet; i’ll come back when it’s safe to do so.