Yes, it's a vision, but this time it's not the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich or the face of Jesus in a water stain on a highway overpass. It's the letter "A" that stands for, and is often used as a symbol of, Atheism. It can be seen in a photograph of a rock outcropping sent by Sean Murphy to PZ Myer's science blog, Pharyngula. The 15 foot tall original can be found in Boulder Canyon, up Sugarloaf Road in Colorado but, as PZ Myers wryly comments, he doesn't expect to hear that Colorado atheists will be lining up there with candles and annointing oil. And why should they? In the naturalistic world-view held by most atheists, this is a chance arrangement of rock which appears meaningful only because humans have evolved as pattern-seeking animals.In psychology, the term for this is pareidolia. It is described as a psychological phenomenon wherein a vague or random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Examples of this are seeing the face of the Man in the Moon, constellations among the stars, images in the shapes of clouds and the face of the Virgin Mary in the scorch marks on a grilled cheese sandwich. It is the phenomenon that makes the Rohrshach inkblot test possible.
One hypothesis for why humans evolved this ability to find patterns in natural phenomena is that it has some survival value. Nine times out of a ten a shadow that looks like a crouching lion isn't one and, if you flee running and screaming, all it costs you is a little embarrassment in front of your friends. However, if you don't flee and it's that one time where the shadow actually is a crouching lion, you don't survive to pass on your genes to the next generation.Anyway, Josh, a reader of the Pharyngula blog, offers a possible explanation for the appearance of the 15-foot tall letter "A" in the rock of Boulder Canyon (see comment #37):
Well, it's not the best photograph in the world, but it looks like a road cut. It appears to show an exposure of a pretty highly weathered*, fairly coarse-grained granitic** rock (= a quartz-rich, intrusive igneous rock that crystallized from a cooling body of magma at depth).
There are three distinct veins*** of cooled molten material cutting through the granitoid outcrop. They don't look like quartz to me, but they are lighter than the main body of rock and are more resistant to weathering (see how they form little ridges that stand away from thEnglish script. e main body?), so if I had to guess, I'd say that they are intrusions of an even more quartz-rich igneous material than the granitoid. I think I see one family of joints, but it doesn't match the direction of any of the veins or dikes, so I don't think that it's history is related.
So, what it means is that, a while ago, someone cut a road through a body of frozen intruded magma that had itself been intruded by magma along several fractures that, when collectively viewed from a certain angle, suggest a particular (italicized?) letter in written English script.
Photo Credits:
1) Sean Murphy's picture of the rock formation
2) The letter "A" (taken from a picture of an atheist's t-shirt)
If you enjoy my articles, you can click on "Subscribe by email" to receive notification when new ones are posted.
Comments
It's obviously a sign from Dawkinism or Harrisism. We should all
make a shrine out of this phenom. LOL.
Looks like Photoshop to me.
It's clearly the Fantastic Four symbol in reverse. I think it's a sign. That Reed Richards loves us, and wants us to be good to each other.
So what are we saying? That rational people have a right to behave as stupidly as the religious reich? Well why not? All theists should line up and apologize now that we have a "sign" of our own. ROFLAO!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!