Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? O.K., it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that".
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Polar lobes and trefoil embryos in the Precambrian
Upstream plasticity and downstream robustness in evolution of molecular networks
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Category: Religion • Weirdness
Posted on: August 30, 2006 11:43 AM, by PZ Myers
Am I some kind of preeevert or something? Because when I see this turtle's plastron, which some say has an image of the Virgin Mary, I see something completely different. When did a featureless tube with a nipple-like bump at the top acquire this peculiar association with virginity, I wonder?
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Comments
Sweet Jesus. Why? Why? Why? What's the fricking point of a "virgin" Mary appearing miraculously on a turtles belly? Are butt plugs ever ribbed?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 30, 2006 11:53 AM
Looks like an arrowhead to me.
Posted by: beajerry | August 30, 2006 12:12 PM
That's not the gender of human-genital-region-associated-imagery that visual representations of the canonical Blessed Virgin generally call to my mind.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | August 30, 2006 12:17 PM
Looks like a headpiece for a suit of armor to me.
Posted by: CJ | August 30, 2006 12:29 PM
The Virgin Mary wears hoops under her robe? (That's what the lower bumps look like) Staying with the hooded-figure motif, I'd say it looks like a Muslim woman in traditional head-to-toe cover-up. So maybe God does have a message for this turtle's owner -- but it's not the one she's thinking.....
Seriously: the owner says the patch appeared recently. What would cause a turtle to develop that sort of marking? Disease? Age? Change of diet?
Posted by: Steve Watson | August 30, 2006 12:32 PM
I remember a Carl Sagan TV segment where he's describing a ancient and very bloody battle on a Japanese bay. Hundreds if not thousand of Samurai died and sank in the bay. Occasionally a fisherman will bring up a crab with a perfect image of a Samurai on its back. Locals believe it to be a soul of a Samurai who dies there. Sagan asks how such a crab could be created without some divine intervention. His answer is simple and correct - we did it. Whenever a fisherman hauls up a crab that vaguely looks like a Samurai, they throw it back. Over hundreds of years, only the crabs that have the image survive. And evolution selects those with the best image. It was a beautiful and simple example of the power of evolution.
I think you should put that turtle back and spread the idea more widely. Wait a few hundred years and the turtle will have a very clear, distinct, and voted-on image of the virgin. And people will still think it's a miracle. Sigh.
Posted by: JbCharleston | August 30, 2006 12:56 PM
said holy interpreter of turtle bellies has named one of the poor things "Mary", the other "Joseph". if they are truly female and male (how would the holy interpreter know?), what if they mate? will holy interpreter toss 'em both into the fire because they've violated the direct Will of God?
seems extreme, but, then, asking for your kidney back because the recipient converted to Hinduism is extreme, too.
Posted by: ekzept | August 30, 2006 12:57 PM
If you do a google images search for "Our Lady of Guadalupe" you will perhaps understand better what's going on here. The icon of Mary as she is said to have appeared at Guadalupe is well-known to Catholics and famous in Mexico. (I am not endorsing the idea of miraculous images in tree trunks or on turtle's bellies, or in water stains on highway overpasses -- as happened in Chicago last year -- just trying to explain the resemblance some are seeing in the turtle case...)
Posted by: Michael Kremer | August 30, 2006 1:06 PM
I have a problem seeing simulacra. They almost always look just like random blobs to me. I wonder if there's something wrong with my brain...
Posted by: Ethyl | August 30, 2006 1:07 PM
Koo koo koo. We understand what they think they are seeing.
Still don't know what the point would be.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 30, 2006 1:11 PM
Here's your Carl Sagan video, JbCharleston.
YouTube: Carl Sagan on Evolution - real PBS feel to it.
Posted by: Aerik | August 30, 2006 1:12 PM
I had no doubts. I was being facetious...
I'm sure there's even one shaped like "Our Lady Of Guadalupe".
Posted by: Steve_C | August 30, 2006 1:16 PM
SteveC says
And I say, Sweet Mary. Here's a chocolate cond--er, holy image from a couple weeks back.Posted by: Comstock | August 30, 2006 1:19 PM
I saw it. Looks like a chocolate stalagmite.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 30, 2006 1:21 PM
No, it's a naked Ted Nugent wearing a collapsed poor barrel. You know the guy. Looks kind of like GeeWhiz.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 30, 2006 1:22 PM
ah, there's an opportunity here! after all, the shapes of virgins, holy or otherwise, are a body plan.
i wonder what the actual mechanism on turtle bellies is that gives it differential coloration?
Posted by: ekzept | August 30, 2006 1:23 PM
Just another example of confirmation bias. They see the Virgin Mary because they want to see the Virgin Mary. The undeniable truth is that that image is obviously Stevie Nicks.
Posted by: Narc | August 30, 2006 1:43 PM
Ethyl: My thoughts exactly. And this woman lives in Burbank, so even with her Anglo-sounding name, she'd be well aware of Guadelupe imagery, even if she's not Hispanic.
Posted by: Theron | August 30, 2006 1:44 PM
I dunno...it looks more like making me believe in Druids or the Nine of Mordor...
Posted by: Rowan | August 30, 2006 1:46 PM
Seriously: the owner says the patch appeared recently. What would cause a turtle to develop that sort of marking?
My guess is this was the first time she actually turned it over and looked.
Posted by: Carlie | August 30, 2006 1:49 PM
Theron, I think that it's Burbank, IL. Zheesh, is there something in the water in the Chicago area? First the
vulva, er, virgin Mary under the overpass and now this!"I said it's the truth, so now they all believe it," said McVane."
Sigh.
Posted by: Mena | August 30, 2006 1:56 PM
Cheeses crust people see that woman and her son anywhere and everywhere.(shaking my head and laughing)
Posted by: say no to christ | August 30, 2006 2:03 PM
Mena:
There is a large Hispanic population in the Chicago area, so that it's Burbank IL rather than CA doesn't matter as much as you think. Hispanic population of
Burbank, IL: 11%
Cook County: 20%
Chicago: 26%
(Wikipedia)
Posted by: Michael Kremer | August 30, 2006 2:35 PM
Male turtles have fatter tails, longer toenails on their front feet, and a more concave plastron (lower shell) than females. See illustrations here. Kinda hard to tell from the virgin mary turtle's picture, with the owner's finger on the tail.
Posted by: Manduca | August 30, 2006 2:43 PM
*!#@%&*! HTML tags
here are the turtle sexing pictures.
Posted by: Manduca | August 30, 2006 2:50 PM
I think it's one of the Daleks. We should pobably be concerned about this.
Posted by: Mistinar | August 30, 2006 3:00 PM
Back in the winter, my bf's recently-converted-to-fundie sister saw "Jesus" on her TV screen while the power was off. (Yes, it was a shadow created by the tree outside the window. Yawn.) Well, the family was all over her about it, and later that night, as we were cooking dinner, we discovered a cremini mushroom that looked like a pair of buttocks.
Took pictures of it and was going to send it to her. Look, we've got Jesus' butt on a mushroom!
Then we decided it's probably just better not to play those games ...
Posted by: meridian | August 30, 2006 3:45 PM
California, Illinois, what's the difference, really? Completely arbitrary geographic designations, random lines on the map. I can't be held responsible!
Posted by: Theron | August 30, 2006 4:04 PM
Yet another (sadly unimaginative) person suffering from pareidolia which, if it isn't already, should be a diagnosis in DSM IV.
Posted by: dinogami | August 30, 2006 5:32 PM
Michael Kremer, there is a large hispanic population all over the Chicago area. I'm in the western suburbs and a good percentage of the signs are in Spanish and English. I just didn't think that that's what Theron thought.
Theron, California had the chocolate Jesus/Mary/whatever, Illinois had the underpass fiasco. It matters to us! ;^)
Posted by: Mena | August 30, 2006 5:35 PM
Images of the Virgin Mary have always looked like vulvas. Her robes are the labia and her head is the clitoris. It's not an accident -- it's part of the way that Christianity spread by co-opting the symbols of earlier pagan religions.
For bonus yonic fun, rotate the Jesus fish so it's standing on its nose. Remind you of anything?
Posted by: HP | August 30, 2006 5:39 PM
Posted by: Babbler | August 30, 2006 5:48 PM
Re: "Why, yes. All you have to do is google image search butt plugs and voila! Plugs of all shapes and sizes. "
There's a website called something like Divine Interventions (??) that has all manner of dildos, butt plugs, and various other accourements shaped like all sorts of religious personnel.
Posted by: Ethyl | August 30, 2006 7:06 PM
.....For bonus yonic fun, rotate the Jesus fish so it's standing on its nose. Remind you of anything?
What, you mean this?
http://img75.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0ichty0vw6.gif
Posted by: Ick of the East | August 30, 2006 7:12 PM
as to the whole virgin mary/xian fish imagery...
anyone interested might want to investigate the adoption of such imagery from pre-existing secular and pagan sources:
http://www.halexandria.org/dward097.htm
http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsvesica.htm
It never ceases to amaze me how many xians I meet who are completely ignorant of the source of much of the imagery, symbolism, and ritual that has been subsumed into their religion.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 30, 2006 7:31 PM
I wonder if anyone will ever find an image of Mary's Joseph, history's most oblivious cuckold?
Posted by: raindogzilla | August 30, 2006 7:40 PM
dinogami: If it occured persistently and with unusual frequency, I agree. But if it was just "happened once" I dare say it would be require all of us to be so dagnosed. I remember waking up early one morning and the shadows in my bedroom produced a very face like appearance on my bedsheets or something and I remember part of my brain insisting that there was a face there and another part going: no, you silly brain-part, you sleep alone, that can't be a face! (The same sort of "divided consciousness occurs in peripheral vision in my experience too.)
Posted by: Keith Douglas | August 30, 2006 9:09 PM
My god always talks to me thru turtle plastrons.
Think I Ching.
Posted by: ts | August 30, 2006 9:50 PM
That's an interesting anecdote about what you called "divided consciousness", Keith. Years ago, I had a patient who had been a soldier on the losing side of a civil war in his country. He insisted in perfect seriousness that one side of his body was missing. We'd show him the X-rays in an attempt to reassure him that everything that should be was present; I'd massage and carry out passive exercises on his arm and leg on that side, and he'd agree that I was touching him on a body part that was present. The minute I stopped touching him, though, he'd be back to insisting that side of him was missing.
I don't believe he was faking, either; as far as anyone could tell, he seemed to be truly experiencing both states sequentially or simultaneously. I've always been curious about how that kind of divided consciousness could possibly work. Our best guess was that he felt he had lost a part of himself in the territorial loss of the civil war, and was somatizing that in some way. Of course, as plausible as that sounds, we had no way to verify or disprove it.
Posted by: RavenT | August 30, 2006 10:11 PM
When I was a teenager I slept in a room one time that had varnished plywood walls. I woke up in the morning and low and behold, there was the face of Peter Frampton there in the plywood pattern! It was so cool and would you believe it, I really liked Peter Frampton back then. I'm not sure what he was trying to tell me but it was a powerful experience.
Posted by: yiela | August 31, 2006 12:23 AM
The dark plastral spot is perfectly normal for a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), and that particular shape is to be expected in the Chicago area- an intergrade between the pattern of the western and midland subspecies (bellii and marginata). As for gender, it's way too young to be showing the elongated claws of a male, and the tail looks like it's been bitten off down to a stub, probably by "Joseph."
Posted by: Chelydra | August 31, 2006 7:07 PM
Looks like the head of some obscure deep-sea cephalopod to me, but maybe I hang out on this site a little too much?
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | September 1, 2006 12:59 AM
Holy shit! I took a good look at my hooch and found the virgin Mary mother of god down there. I have a devine twat. Of course my husband will only allow women to come worship with him as we all know his testosterone will not tolerate other men. Lol
Posted by: say no to christ | September 1, 2006 1:42 PM
[Sauron]: I SEEEE YOUUUUUU.
Posted by: Finback | September 3, 2006 12:45 AM
RavenT: The philosopher Dan Dennett sort of calls the unity of consciousness the "user illusion". Basically, that usually everything is stimulated about the same way, and all our systems can reach a settled agreement about what's out there. But sometimes, due to disease or stroke or just plain weird situations (like maybe in the case I described only half my brain was awake or something) this "agreement" breaks down, and wackiness ensues.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | September 3, 2006 8:49 PM