Among Friends

[Karnerblue]

Has anyone seen this???   It's so amazing.  It's a cloud formation over Portugal.

[chessylady]

Doesn't look like a hand to me, more like a natural phenomenom.

[Karnerblue]

@chessylady It looks like two hands cupped.  The photo was called "hand of God" ... it's all how you look at it.

[nana59]

Looks kind of scary to me........think I'd take off running.....

[sandraskates]

I don't know why but find that formation a little creepy. Maybe it's because I was listening to Coast2Coast last night and the topic was chemtrails. . .

[redhead65]

It is amazing to me what people believe they see, hear, etc. if they want to badly enough.

I'm all about the "hands of God" when I see it, but this picture has nothing that even looks that way...it is an extreme stretch in the believers eye.

People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and usually try to do just what they want to do. It's human nature I suppose.

[Lyttlewyng]

I find this phenomenon fascinating and upon doing a little research I learned that

this is  a natural psychological function of the brain.  It is known as pareidolia which causes an illusory perception to see images in random patterns. 

It's why we see religious symbols or images in wood grain, tree trunks or clouds.

Pareidolia can reveal a portrait of Mother Teresa in a piece of burnt toast, the man in the moon or the face on Mars.   In other words, pareidolia is one of the ways our brain  processes information, helping us to make sense of abstract patterns by assigning meaning to them.  Comparatively,  in a clinical environment, the Rorschach ink blot test is an example of encouraged pareidolia as a means to understand a patient.

[gmkb]

I prefer to think of the hand of God as a protective, kind, helpful, loving symbol.  This, to me, looks frightening, fiery, evil.

[lovestopaint]

It looks more like a fist to me, and I think He is pretty angry.

[Libbylady]

Looks scary to me.  I prefer the image of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich I saw once.