Millions of religious adherents around the world express a sense of vindication every time something that looks to them like the Virgin Mary appears on a garage door or an oil tanker or a potato chip or a piece of wood or flaking paint or an oyster shell.
If our perception of the image of a mythical creature upon some found object indicates that creature’s reality, then what does this image I happened upon in the woods today imply?
O Elbereth! Fitzer had it right: Ents are real!
It’s become an item of accepted wisdom that, if you find an object that appears to have a smudgy image of the Virgin Mary or Jesus on it, you can auction the item on EBay and make a lot of money. I could use some extra money, and so I decided to take a look into the possibilities for myself.
Sadly, what I found is that the market for blurry religious icons seems to have dried up. There’s a glut of little miracle objects on EBay these days, and none of them seems to be selling.
This potato chip, in a handsome little black box, is supposed to show the face of Jesus, but I can’t see it. Apparently, no one else can either. The seller is asking $3,000. No one is biting.
With even more chutzpah, another seller is asking $12,000 for a smear on a rock that’s supposed to look like the Virgin Mary. Alas, there are no bids. The image looks more like Queen Victoria to me. Goodness, could the Queen have a blessing for us?
There’s under two hours to go on the bidding for a seashell that’s supposed to look like the Virgin Mary. The starting price is $20.00. So far, the top bid is: Absolutely nothing.
No one is even willing to put up a bid for this little seashell that’s supposed to have an image of Jesus on it. The suggested bid is only 99 cents, but still no one wants it.
Let’s face it: Holy smudges are passe. If you want to get attention for your found religious icon, you’ve got to kick it up a notch. Let’s get conceptual. An image of Jesus on a piece of toast, holding another image of Jesus on a piece of toast – now that might get a bid.
Catholics all around the world have been claiming that smudges that bear some kind of vague resemblance to either Jesus or the Virgin Mary are proof not only that their god exists, but that Catholicism is the best version of Christianity. They’ve cited a tree stump in Ireland, a dirty wall in Samoa, a foggy window in Pennsylvania, a clothes iron in Massachusetts, and of course, toast.
Why hasn’t everyone in the world accepted this evidence and become Catholic. Well, one reason is that there are other apparitions besides the Christian ones. These apparitions provide evidence for belief in systems other than Christianity.
Inspired by the story of the Virgin Mary tree stump in Ireland, I found two such apparitions today, on a four-minute walk down the street. These apparitions prove, using the standard of evidence employed by Catholics, that The Lord of the Rings was a holy book, and not at all a piece of fiction.
Look at both these photographs in the right way, for long enough, and you’ll see that they look like ents. Ents are spiritual beings from The Lord of the Rings that look like trees, but are able to walk and talk like human beings.
The photograph on the left, if you squint at it, looks like an ent that has been tortured by the wizard Saruman. As anyone who has read The Lord of the Rings knows, the ents fought against Saruman and his orcs. So, this ent apparition is proof not only that ents exists, but that orcs exist too. It’s evidence for the historical Saruman, just as the Shroud of Turin is proof of the historical Jesus. Praise be!
The photograph on the right, on the other hand, clearly shows ent lips. Is it a coincidence that those lips appeared on that tree just as I was passing by? Non-believers might think so, but more spiritually inclined people will see that I was meant to see the lips on that tree, and that I was meant to write this article showing the ent lips to the world.
This is modern-day prophecy, folks, a message from the great big Tolkien in the sky, who wants us all to know that we should be like the environmentalists who say, I don’t just hug trees. I kiss them too!
You know, I wouldn’t have noticed it at first glance, but upon studying the image I believe I see an image of the Virgin Mary on this Yes on 1 road sign located off Route 1 in coastal Maine:
You can see her if you look very carefully. Also Joseph and Baby Jesus, too. There’s another figure I can’t make out. The Holy Ghost?
No one has been able to successfully complete the find the virgin in the window contest from earlier this week. Maybe it was too hard. Not everyone can locate the Blessed Mother when she’s playing hide and seek in a pane of glass.
So, for this coming Sunday morning, all you believers out there are getting a new challenge. In Rathkeale, in the County of Limerick, in Ireland, church members have begun to worship a tree stump, forming pilgrimages to it, making it offers of trinkets, praying to it, and such manner of things. Why? They say that it’s an incarnation of the Virgin Mary.
Below you see 8 different tree stumps. One of these is the stump in Rathkeale, Ireland that local Catholics insist is the Virgin Mary. So, can you tell which one of these stumps is a holy virgin, and which of them are less pure?
Be the first to select the correct stump, and you’ll get a free pair of tickets to the Rathkeale Virgin Mary Amusement Park… as soon as it’s open for business.
No fair searching through news articles about the supposed apparition. Just look at the stumps and play find the wooden virgin.
The Virgin Mary has been getting around. She started out in a piece of toast, went to a garage door in Pennsylvania, and appeared in an underpass in Texas. Now, fresh from her appearance in Samoa, our lady of the smudgy vision has brought her world tour to a car wash in Jesup, Georgia, where the owner says that an image of Our Lady Of The Two For One Special has appeared in a window. He’s put the Virgin Mary window on a special display, so that people can come to pray, and to wash their cars.
What does this Virgin Mary apparition in a window look like? You can see it right below. One of these photographs shows the window from Jesup that’s supposed to be the Virgin Mary. Can you choose which one is the holy apparition, and not a smudge?
We’ve been told before by some of our readers that an apparition of the Virgin Mary is a warning that a tsunami will soon take place – just like happened in Samoa. So, should the residents of Jesup, Georgia start preparing for the mother of all tidal waves?
Last year, I spent a few days looking for the meaning of life, the universe and everything in my morning whole-wheat toast. Last night I discovered that someone’s one-upped me, manufacturing the means to a daily miracle:
Press it into your bread before toasting, and vision of the Virgin Mary will infallibly appear.
It’s a very clever idea, although some of the fun is taken out when you know for sure what will appear. I’d like give you a link to the product, but it’s made in China, which means that somebody’s being grossly underpaid and possibly poisoned so that you can make a funny.
Besides, you can do do it yourself without the packaging. To make your own Virgin Mary or Crucifix or Cthulhu or Flying Spaghetti Monster toast press, just unfold a bunch of paper clips (or popsicle sticks, or twigs) and twist them together into the shape you’d like. Press that shape into the bread, then toast it. Or, to use another method, cut your shape out of a piece of paper, lay it on top of your slice of bread, and unleash some cooking spray onto it. The paper will block the cooking spray from certain parts of the bread, acting as a stencil. Et voila!
Nearly instant inspiration, and really, you did it yourself.
In Samoa, members of the Roman Catholic Church are in a tizzy because of a stain on the wall. Some Samoan Catholics say that it is an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Others say that it’s Jesus.
Did Mary have a beard?
I took a look at the image myself, and had a pretty hard time seeing how it’s supposed to look like either Mary or Joseph. But then, I’m an unbeliever. Why don’t you give it a try?
Identify the photograph that Samoan Catholics claim is a holy apparition, and I’ll give you a prize: A Platinum Club membership on the Jesus Express, so that when you go to heaven, you’ll get a drink before anyone else.
