Christ on a Stick

A vine growing on a telephone pole resembles Jesus.  Cancer still not cured.

Humans are really good at finding patterns in things. It's how we are able to comprehend the world around us, and facilitates higher-level and species-specific abilities like language use. Plato talked about this: how are we able to see something that we've never seen before and identify it? (Like, seeing a new chair, but we instantly know it's a chair, even though we've never seen that chair before.)  Plato attributed this human ability to what he called "Forms" (now sometimes called Platonic Forms).

Sometimes, though, we are too good at this, and we see patterns where none exist.  Like when we thought there was a face on mars, when someone sees a picture of the virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich, or even Jesus on a telephone pole:

It doesn't take a genius to realize that, underneath that vine, is a vertical pole with wires moving off horizontally.  If you let a vine overtake the pole, it will follow that general shape.  And if you stare at it long enough, your human brain may begin to see a pattern.  It doesn't mean that all of the BS claims of Christianity are suddenly confirmed because (*gasp*) a vine climbed up a pole.

If you believe that this is a "sign" or some such, what does that really mean?  It would mean that God has fiddled with the natural process of this growing vine in order to make it look to humans like the figure of Jesus being crucified.  This is, I suppose, a "message" to people that's supposed to mean, um, God is a narcissistic gardener?  The interpretation aside, if God wanted to reveal himself to humans (as he does so often in the Bible), there are so many other, more clear ways in which he could do so.  And if God is interested in fiddling with events down here on Earth, there are so many other things that would need his attention, other than sending vague symbols that can easily be explained by natural processes.  You know, like curing cancer, resolving the debt ceiling "crisis," stopping earthquakes from creating tsunamis that cause nuclear meltdowns, that kind of thing.

So before you go proclaiming "miracle!", think about what a monumentally stupid statement that would actually be.  Because if this is a miracle, then God is a narcissistic gardener that doesn't actually give a crap about what suffering is going on down here on Earth.