From Reuters, December 19, 1996:
“Hundreds flock to Virgin apparition on office tower”
CLEARWATER, Florida (Reuter) — Hundreds of people converged on Clearwater Wednesday to see what they believe is a vision of the Virgin Mary on an office building.
“God is giving us a sign,” said Sister Martin, a nun of the Order of Saint Anne in Bangalore, India.
“The image, two floors high, first emerged last Thursday on the tinted windows of a finance company office. It glows and shimmers, turning from green to blue, to red, and there is a distinct outline of a head, a hooded robe and most of a torso.”
“Skeptics say it is caused by the sun reflecting off water left by sprinklers. But others believe it is a true miracle.”
“God is telling us it is time to change our ways,” said Sister Christian of the same order. “(It) looks exactly like all the paintings of the Blessed Mother
And we also have this from CBS News, April 20, 2005:
“Faithful See Image Of Virgin Mary “
“Stain On Wall Of Chicago Underpass Believed To Be Image Of Mary”
CHICAGO, April 20, 2005
“A steady stream of the faithful and the curious, many carrying flowers and candles, have flocked to an expressway underpass for a view of a yellow and white stain on a concrete wall that some believe is an image of the Virgin Mary”.
“Police have patrolled the emergency turnoff area under the Kennedy Expressway since Monday as hundreds of people have walked down to see the image and the growing memorial of flowers and candles that surround it. Beside the image is an artist’s rendering of the Virgin Mary embracing Pope John Paul II in a pose some see echoed in the stain.”
“We believe it’s a miracle,” said Elbia Tello, 42. “We have faith, and we can see her face.”
So are we to believe that God is communicating with us via stains on a window and a concrete wall? The belief in the Virgin Mary is basically a Catholic belief, so is this validating Catholicism? If so, than is this saying all other Religions are false? After all, Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. I guess all you Baptist, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other Christians got your collective faiths trumped by a stain. Somehow, I find that fitting.
This whole fiasco reminds me of when you were a kid and you laid down on the lawn and stared at the cloud. After a while they would take on the form of a ship, a dog, whatever you could imagine. Aside from the fact that there is no proof that Mary even existed, there is no doubt that the images in question look like renderings of the Virgin Mary. Since we have no photos of Mary, we only have artist’s conceptions of what she might have looked like, so the best we can say is that they resemble an artist conception. It’s a safe bet that if you looked at stains on windows and concrete all day you could find numerous images of people and things.
Random coincidental images that appear to look like an artist conception is really thin. But the really sad part is the reaction from thousands of people. These incidents illustrates several pertinent facts.
First, people will believe really unreasonable stuff, particularly if it supports their already existing faith. In the Bible, God spoke directly to many people. He supposedly perfomed or caused to be performed many miracles, witnessed by thousands. So now he has reduced his communication to stains on walls and windows?
When were we notified that he changed his methods? Oh yea, in the Bible, when it says that the real cool, very convincing miracles would cease. That’s real convenient.The Bible writers relate these fabulous, supernatural events, witnessed by thousands and we get stains. Why? Because there is not a shread of evidence that the events in the Bible actually happened. Perhaps there was a stain on a rock that looked like the Red Sea parting and someone ran with it. I can’t prove that happened and you can’t prove it didn’t.
Also, people will seize on these incidents as proof of their faith because it is the only thing resembling a fact and they are thirsting for any tangible proof of their faith, any “miracle”.
Religion is so short on facts, the faithful have to resort to “divine” random occurring stains to bolster their beliefs.
It’s sad when grown, intelligent normally reasonable people will seize on and venerate a stain. It’s past sad. It’s pathetic.
But the most apparent and perhaps the most significant fact of all is that people would be highly receptive to an appearance by God himself. The window and concrete stains were obvious random occurring phenomena, not a sign from God. The significant point is people’s reaction. The faithful have never seen substantial, factual proof of their faith and to many, here it was.
Where is God? Does this not prove that should God appear to the human race and speak a few words, he could stop a lot of suffering and answer a lot of burning questions that would put the question of his existence to rest? If he appeared every generation or so, life here on earth would be vastly different. We humans have short attention spans, so say every thirty years or so, God could put in an appearance. He could give us the basic rules to live by in one or two pages, not cryptically woven into a book that by its very nature invites thousands of interpretations. Certainly life would be much better. It would clear up a lot of questions.
“Sure I believe in God! I saw him in 1958 and than in 1988. Everyone believes in God”
I believe an awe inspiring appearance by the Creator would a good thing.
Still haven’t seen Him. It doesn’t prove or disprove his existence. I’m a Deist. I believe in intelligent design, call it God or whatever. It’s a conclusion I’ve come to from observing nature. Not everyone shares my view. I don’t have the answers, just questions. Apparently, the entity that has all the answers and who could easily settle all this controversy, prefers not to.
Those professing faith will seize on proof of their faith, no matter how thin, no matter how unreasonable, no matter how just plain silly. It’s really sad. Not because these people believe that a water stain on a window is a sign from God. It’s sad because it isn’t a sign from God. These people are desperate for divine guidance and they get none.
Instead, their urge to believe gets manipulated and exploited by Organized Religion.
If naturally occurring images are God’s way of communicating with us than we might want to look into the religious significance of Mickey Mouse.
Disney collects and catalogs unusual natural occurrences of Mickey that appear on everything from a cow to a potato. In fact, there are far more documented instances of Mickey images than of The Virgin Mary. Maybe we ought to look into this Mickey thing.
Maybe we’re missing God’s real message.
