Underpass stains, burnt toast & the pervasiveness of the Cult of the Virgin Mary

Can you say "false pattern recognition?"This is absolutely no different than children who see bunnies and horses in passing clouds. Every time you say "that looks a little like x" you're comparing what you see to another object...and we often identify things falsely this way. In this case, a religious belief is coupled to false pattern recognition to make "miracles" out of burnt toast or some other completely mundane object.

Exactly.The ability helps us a great deal (pattern recognition is what allows us to read, to perceive images on a screen, is instrumental in problem solving, etc), but all it takes is a slightly overactive imagination and a lapse in skepticism to make us see, as Phat says in someone's signature, "monsters where others see only windmills."The specific cases of seeing Jesus/Mary in various and sundry accidents of chance is a bit more interesting because it's so specific and widespread. Once the suggestion is planted that "this looks like the Virgin!" similarly-minded people will also see the false pattern, and the herd validates each others' beliefs that the Rorschach image is in fact miraculous. This is then taken as "objective evidence" that the divine exists.It's also interesting to note that simple skepticism and reasonable application of Occam's Razor is all that's required to prevent this phenomenon. People jump to believing in the supernatural because they want the supernatural to exist, even if only subconsciously in some cases.