Pareidolia: Interpreting Patterns in the Mundane

It is not an uncommon occurrence for mankind to assign human qualities or characteristics to inanimate objects such as the moon or burned tortilla. This phenomenon is known as pareidolia, “a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct”. An example of pareidolia is seeing the face of Jesus in a burned tortilla. The brain, due to its uncanny ability to fill-in-the-blank, perceives the image of Jesus from a series of random marks and shading covering the tortilla. Mankind is extremely self-centered; the only way man can connect or understand the world is to conceive all things like themselves. Man does not restrict this act to mere physical objects, they also project

They too believed in different Gods, all whom symbolized and individual human quality. Zeus, the God of all God’s, earthly appointed responsibilities included being the Lord of Justice, punishing anyone who lied or broke trust. Furthermore, he was accountable for the weather conditions on earth. These weather patterns were interpreted to be a physical manifestation of Zeus’s current mood. If the weather was abysmal it was due to Zeus being displeased by mortals, and he would punish them by howling winds, rainfall, and lightning bolts. The Ancient Greek scientific understanding of weather conditions was limited; therefore supporting Feuerbach’s concept of Anthropomorphism, “understanding a non-human thing or phenomenon in human terms” . The average Greek citizen had no scientific knowledge of how or why cumulous clouds formed into dangerous thunderstorms. Thus in efforts to better understand their environment they assigned reasoning for a particular natural event to a specific humanoid

The Christian belief is based upon a single God. This God is depicted as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. All of these traits are human characteristics merely exemplified to suit an idealistic being. For example, mankind is powerful but not omnipotent; people are knowledgeable, but not omniscient. “The idea of God is a product of the human mind, modeled after us, the idealization of what we consider our best qualities, on this view.”. This revelation expressed by Feuerbach gives great explanation to why God is perceived in an all-encompassing manor. The Christian God is the metaphysical positive projection of all that is good and powerful in human nature; however, worshipers have freely assigned all of these superior qualities to a single being, while relegating themselves to lives of lesser distinction. Throughout the Christian religion, worshipers follow a book of stories and teachings designed to further instruct followers on how they should model their lives and attitudes in order to become more like God and his earthly manifestation “Jesus”. Though if one analyzes the Christian religion through an anthropomorphic philosophy, one could conclude that the text is simply teaching us more about