Hey,

The sand thing is in fact another issue of Slartibartfast's

portrait, as the one carved in ice described in

Hitchhicker's guide to the galaxy !

Everyone knows that.

I seem to recall that the Lord God Almighty was in the habit of appearing amid clouds of glory in the Old Testament, so presumably the large fluffy cloud to the right of the Jesus cloud in the Google image is none other than God Himself, and we're witnessing a holy family day out at Mount Sinai.

Have you ever played the game - What Do Clouds Look Like. There are easy ones of course like Whales and Wales both of which don't have many sticky-out bits. After a while you will probably find a map of Italy and if you are lucky a horse or even the face of President Bush.

I have to say that I worship none of these.

That is so a norse god. He even has a viking helmet (of the hornless variety).

This can join the "Face on Mars" and "Satan's Head in the WTC collapse", along with the Man in the Moon, for those who see humanoid faces in everything from constellations to dust swirls. Looking at clouds and forming associative patterns is as old as civilisation, hell, I used to do it when I was a kid. I've seen Star Wars battlecruisers, flowers, bird-shapes and even skulls in clouds with a stretch of the imagination.

Really, I think if any putative omnipotent universal creator wanted to really apprise humanity of his/her/its existence, it would do so far more dramatically than arranging a few wisps of water vapour in a semi-random pattern that *might* vaguely resemble a human face - much less Jesus' face specifically. What we have here is a devout Christian going to a known holy location with the pre-concieved idea that he/she would find something - anything! - that *might* establish "God's Holy Presence in this Holy Place." If the clouds hadn't been there, they'd have seen a pattern in the sand, or the shape of the mountain, or a stand of trees, or - something. They'd have kept looking until they DID find something they could pass off as "evidence" that God is there and trying to show himself.

All I can say to these Christians looking for God's face is, look in your own Bible:

<biblequote>

But He said, "Thou canst not see My face, for no man may see Me and live".

Then The Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock;

And it shall come about, while My glory passeth by, that I shall place thee in the cleft of the rock and cover thee with My hand, until I have passed.

Then I shall take My hand away and thou shalt see My back, but My face shall not be seen."

- Exodus 33: 20-23

</biblequote>

more crazy religious types providing fun for us again :)

the pattern on my bathroom's tiles looks a rhino. that must mean rhinos are godly and that in fact god is a rhino.

is it me or does the human race get more retarded as i get older?

anyone else think we are devolving? in a million years we will be back to a single cell organism.

That has just wasted 30 seconds of my life that I can't get back.

Just a thought... since this is Mount Sinai, a truer interpretation would be that it is more likely to be an image of Moses than one of Jesus floating up there in the clouds as an imprint of his historical presence.

A cloud Jesus? When will the fundies learn that Jesus wasn't white!!!!

I see Jesus!

Is that a Christmas stocking he is in?

Funny that the area highlighted is nowhere near Mt. Sinai, which funnily enough is on the Sinai Peninsula. That is the triangle of barren rock between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_Peninsula

The place with the cloud is somewhere in Saudi Arabia....

....exactly what Jesus looked like? This is just a long-haired dude with a beard. It could pretty much be anyone from that era, or a member of ELO from the early 70s. Did Jesus really have a beard? I'm not aware he had his portrait painted by anyone at the time.

Our impressions of what Jesus (or indeed Satan) look like come largely from art and screen. This chap in the sand looks like Robert Powell to me.... ain't that a co-incidence? ;¬)

Now, if I saw a detailed cloud depiction of Christ on the cross, with a crown of thorns round his head, Mary at his feet etc...... that might make me look twice.

"Then I shall take My hand away and thou shalt see My back, but My face shall not be seen."

That's not a Bible quote. That's what I told the bird I picked up behind bar Friday night.