Aliens in paintings?

Shots taken from:
MADONNA COL BAMBINO E SAN GIOVANNINO
(Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John)

Right - this image was 'created' by an atheist fellow on a site I frequent, with the following attached blurb:

It amazes me that people who strongly believe in religion seem to laugh at the idea of aliens visiting earth.
ME: Here's a painting of the virgin mary and wait, what's that. Seems that the artist thought it was important because of how detailed it is and the guy looking up at it. Looks very machine like, kind of like a space ship.

Fundie: Aw no, it's really uh...uh..satan, yeah. It's satan trying to lead us away from Jesus.

Me: But why is it in a painting.

Fundie: Uh....uh....(insert several bible verses here).

Me: That doesn't prove anything. Tell me, why would someone paint some flying ship in the sky in a virgin mary painting

Fundie:.....you're going to hell! (runs off.

My response, in an attempt to show that it's open to interpretation:

so there's no chance that it was a comet then? painted by someone who had heard of, yet not actually seen one? just like the strange statues of dolphins that look nothing like dolphins, because they were crafted by artists who had had them described to them, but never actually seen one

I'm all for alien life, the universe is too old and too big NOT to have more sentient life out there, but visiting us? sometimes, a UFO really is just an unidentified flying object, y'know - and sometimes it's a ufo to one person, but has been identified by someone else.

and his reply:

I'm quite sure that if it were a comet, and that person heard a discription of it. It would not look like a mechanical object sitting in the sky with lots of flashing lights on it.

I linked him to an article about these paintings:

Scratch that idea then, and go with the iconography of the age, perhaps?

Art And UFOs

He responds:

that's very interesting. It only leaves one question, why would they make some machine like object in the sky rather then an angel or people on clouds like the other paintings pictured there.

My response to this silly question:

It doesn't look like a machine-like-object to me - probably because I'm not looking for a machine-like-object. This phenomenon is called 'confirmation bias' - you are seeing what you want to see. When I look at this painting, I see a glowing cloud, and nothing more.

Plenty of paintings of the Nativity have versions of this in them, either a cloud on it's own, or a cloud with an angel, or an angel on it's own, ocasionally there is a light-radiating tear in the sky, with or without an angel - the reason being that they were simply symbols, not an actual representation of the true thing (all based on a verse in St Luke's Gospel, where he tells of an angel coming down and telling some shepherds that christ has been born.)

As is obvious to anyone who has researched the subject, even in passing, this is a common symbolic icon used in hundreds of paintings of the Nativity, and not a painting of some machine-like-object that some claim is a 'UFO' - it has been identified, it is well known.

Add to this the fact that it is obvious these artists had damn good eyes for detail - if they were painting something they had seen, and it was a machine-like-object, why would they paint it as a blobby looking cloud, in exactly the same composition and style as all the other symbolic icons used in contemporary Nativity paintings?

I despaire, I really do. I know there are all types of atheists, just as there are all types of everyone else - but really, do they have to go so far out of their way to make themselve's look stupid?

It bothers me, it really does. It probably shouldn't...

Anyway - how on earth does that shiny blob look like a 'mechanical object'? Is he seeing something I can't? It looks more like a glowing rock and is obviously meant to be a cloud.

He obviously hasn't done his bloody research - the thing is a symbolic representation of a fucking angel telling some shepherds the good news.

The same damn thing is seen in almost all of the Nativity paintings, some with the angel on show, some with only the cloud, some with both, some with a glow, some with rays - like this one. Almost all of them also have the shepherd looking up, shieling his eyes, and again, almost all of them also have a dog with said shephered, also looking at the cloud.

It's got slightly different forms in all of them, but it's always the same damn thing.

But does this guy care? No. Because he's an idiot.

If he's going to start using old paintings to shore up his rather silly beliefs about aliens, he really aught to do his homework first.

Edit: Added my response to his 'question'.

Awesome? They HAS it

Simulated pets?

Click on the 'tanks' to release food c.c

So much procrastinating fun o.o

Edit: Forgot to add the link so you guys could get some XD They have hamsters and penguins and tree frogs and so on XD

http://abowman.com/google-modules/

'God told me to do it'

More accusers set to testify against evangelist

Once again, some indescribably fucked up bastard is using the 'god told me to' defense.

The woman said she was a third-generation Alamo follower into adulthood — until the Arkansas-based pastor took an 8-year-old as his latest bride. At one point, the woman said, she objected when Alamo graphically described how he fondled the girl as she held a stuffed animal.

"He told me to shut up and that I shouldn't question what `the Lord told me to do,'" the woman said.

Yes, because it's the perfect fucking defense for raping and abusing underage girls, forcing them to marry him in sham weddings and basically keeping iron-fisted control of a hoard of brain-washed followers.

In her earlier testimony, the woman said she felt forced to become one of Alamo's brides at age 15. Alamo said the Lord had told him to take her as his wife, and that she feared she and her family would be shunned if she did not submit, she testified.

"We didn't have anywhere to go," said the woman, whose parents and grandparents were also Alamo followers.

Unspeakable bastard. The part I am disliking, is that he's only going to get ten years for this, if he's found guilty!

Forcing fifteen year olds to marry him, taking them to his bed and sexually abusing girls as young, if not younger than, eight? And he's only getting ten years?

Granted, he's getting a $250,000 fine per count, but what the fuck? Ten years? That's it?

'The Greatest Show On Earth'

Want.

I've got most of his other books. This will not only add to my collection, but looks like it will be a truly fascinating read. I look forward to its publication.

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.



You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.



But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


By Jenny Joseph

Homeopathic A&E

Found this via Pharyngula XD



So true, so very very true XD

Her Name Was Neda

Woo in my area - Crop Circles spell our doom!

This is pretty much just down the road from where I live, and it's the wooest of woo (well, almost).



'Crop Circle Experts' (now isn't that a funny thing to say?) are claiming that this image is portending the doom of the world, in December 2012.

How exactly they got that from a picture of a Pheonix, I seriously don't know.

Phoenix crop circle may predict end of the world

Crop circle experts believe the latest pattern to be discovered, a phoenix rising from the flames in Wiltshire, may give a warning about the end of the world.

Crop circle enthusiast Karen Alexander, from Gosport, Hants, said: "The phoenix is a mythical creature which symbolises rebirth and a new era in many cultures across the world.

"Within the crop circle community many believe the designs are constantly referring to December 21 and its aftermath.

"This could be interpreted as the human race or earth rising again after a monumental event.

"The patterns are becoming more intricate with every find and it is exciting to think how they are going to evolve by the time we get to 2012."

Seriously, I want to meet the artists/pranksters that are behind this latest fad, so I can thank them for causing even more amusement for me come December 21st 2012.

It's going to be so much fun, sitting back, watching the woosters panic over nothing.

Iranian Protests

Don't you just love it when the people get up and make a stand against corruption?

Protestors defy Iranian efforts to cloak unrest

(Might have to join to see that artical)

I'm also loving the way the people are sending word to the rest of the world, despite the media clamp-down by Ahmeddinnerjacket's people. I know the other guy probably isn't as progressive as we'd all like, but he sounds a lot better than the current bloke.