Talk:Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 WikiProject Religion
Religion Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
B This article has been rated as B on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

Contents

[edit] Requested move

Rationale :   The actual article is about something much more specific. I have no idea how it should be renamed, though.
Proposer : The Famous Movie Director 01:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

I've moved as you suggested; you can still merge, of course. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 06:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (Further source)

A further source: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/08/Neighborhoodtimes/An_image_of_Jesus__Al.shtml

[edit] Pareidola in Islam?

such as characters for the word Allah being seen on the body pattern of oscars (the fish) etc.

Yes, worth mentioning. I've added this to the intro, and will dig out some news references. There's a nice compilation at Miracle Pictures of Islam. Tearlach 15:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it worth pointing out that the word "Allah", written in the Arabic script, is *really* easy to find in a bunch of random squiggles with a vertical tendency? Three vertical strokes and something roundish, connected at the bottom except for the first stroke. That's all you need to claim that Allah signed the tsunami or whatever.

Is it worth pointing out?
Reckon so. With only slight exaggeration, it's as if God in English were called "OOO" or "III". There's probably a more formal way of expressing this. General simplicity of letter forms in the Arabic alphabet (especially in the everyday Riq'a); a tradition of massive typographical flexibility (see Islamic calligraphy); and the particular shape of the word Allah. Tearlach 08:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, some decoration of Muslim pottery consists of simply three vertical strokes that are interpreted as some religious word. --Error 01:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, I hate these "vege-miracles" (as I call them). Armyrifle 21:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

 It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.
The Free Image Search Tool (FIST) may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

This article needs many pictures. --Error 01:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

As this is basically a list, I propose renaming it "list of religious pareidolia". Λυδαcιτγ 21:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work Shirahadasha. It is still a list, though, so "List of perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena"? Λυδαcιτγ 18:17, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move and WP:NPOV problems

This entire page, including the title, seems written in a completely POV fashion. The claim that religious patterns are seen "where none intended" is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. The article needs to characterize and describe the various claims of seeing religious visions and patterns in a neutral way. This article doesn't do that. I'd suggest a title change to "religious patterns" or similar, with pareidolia being one theory -- among others -- offered to explain them. Suggest revisting the RfM, seems to have died out for lack of interest in discussing rather than concensus. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:OR problems

Many of the items in the list are completely unsourced. For items that are sourced, in most cases the source describes the phenomena and fails to contain any claim that the particular incident involves pareidolia. The basic thrust of this list seems to be essentially WP:OR. Editors seem to be presenting their own personal belief and opinion about the nature of these phenomena, without bothering to obtain or present any sources for their claims. --Shirahadasha 07:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

As but one example of many, this reference doesn't contain anything even approximating a claim that the phenomenon described is pareidolia. It contains claims that the phenomenon is a legitimately religious one, contrasted with a wait-and-see can't-be-sure skepticism expressed by a Catholic priest. Characterizing this phenomenon as pareidolia in the complete absence of any source supporting such a characterization represents a leap of WP:OR specifically prohibited by Wikipedia polices. Best, --Shirahadasha 07:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Moved the article, changed intro, attempted to describe phenomena from a completely neutral point of view. Made pareidolia a POV explanation of these phenomena rather than part of their definition. Removed article tags. There problems of sourcing etc. with individual items in the list but believe this addresses the WP:NPOV issue with the article as a whole. Best, --Shirahadasha 05:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you're getting at here. Perhaps I was lax in thinking it sufficient to link to the pareidolia article here, which is reasonably cited. You're not going to get, for every single news item of this type, a mention of the possibility of pareidolia. Newspapers are not terribly into discussing cognitive psychology. But there are plenty of sources describing pareidolia as a general explanation for such phenomena. It may not get into newspapers, but it's the mainstream scientific view and deserves prominent inclusion, not just a footnote after the listcruft. Check out SkepDic Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking Medical Meanderings Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends-- and Pseudoscience Begins Faces, Faces Everywhere, etc. Tearlach 03:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial images

A photo, suggesting an image of Jesus, of a dog's bum has been widely seen on the Internet in recent months. Should this be included? I'm unaware whether it has been controversial, but I imagine that some users may find it offensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stanky (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is for info that is notable and verifiable regardless of whether some find it offensive. If the story was in multiple news sources it MAY be notable. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plagarism?

I don't know if it is plagarism or not but this article seems to be suspiciously similar to this [1] entry from Reference.com. The question is who is plagarizing who? Just an observation. Anthony 23:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, they cite us. Anthony 23:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing and vandalism

Because of the nature of the subject matter it must be very tempting for vandals to make up content. It is, therefore, particularly important that all the content is sourced. I have removed one statement that looked unsourceable and have added a bunch of ((fact)) tags. Unless these statements are sourced soon I intend to remove them. TerriersFan 15:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quantity

I'm a big fan of quantity, but this is kinda silly. I think someone needs to look into categorically pruning the list and finding only the better (bigger?) examples? Just an idea. Imasleepviking ( talk ) 22:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Any examples that are not referenced should be deleted but it seems well referenced. The page can be split into Perceptions of Mary in natural phenomena, Perceptions of Jesus in natural phenomena, Perceptions of Allah in natural phenomena. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I have added a split tag to the article. The page is only 38k at present but the split would break it up into logical divisions. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)