Jack the Bodiless

It's pretty obvious that, considering the resolution limit imposed by the weave, there cannot be images in the eyes.

It seems likely that this was an embroidered cloak (hence no paint) made in Europe.

Boro Nut

If you writing looks like spaghetti, it seems obvious to me that one day spaghetti will look like your writing.

Us atheists have miracles too you know. As a child I remember having my favourite spaghetti on toast for tea, and instead of the usual jumble of mating worms, there, randomly formed on my plate, to my utter amazement, were perfectly shaped capital letters and numbers. By carefully arranging these, to my further amazement, it spelled out 'There Is No God'. None of the major religions chose to report this as a disproof of the existence of their god though.

Boro Nut

I also managed to spell out 'Fuckshit', 'Pumpy Bottom' and 'Blinking Flip Damn Arse' but my Mam made me eat those.

Boro Nut

Your right. I recognise the image, and there is no way Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe could possibly have been there at that time. He was much too busy sticking screwdrivers into prostitutes to stand around having his image taken by holy virgins.

Boro Nut

Echo

Heh, I like the way the site says the images in Mary's eyes are "clear," yet whoever put together the site still bothered to circle and highlight the images so miraculous-image-challenged people could actually pick them out.

Not that it helped.

leonarde

Palom,
I did find one promising site this morning:
<a href="http://pp.terra.com.mx/~msalazar/lupe-e.html" target="_blank">http://pp.terra.com.mx/~msalazar/lupe-e.html</a>

Click on "The Image" to see a brief discussion of
the nature of the image.
If I find anything else I'll let you know!
Cheers!

Draygomb

Excuse me but could someone explain how images could be seen in the iris when the eyes appear closed?

vagrant

Because...

[wait for it...]

It's a miracle!!

Sheesh...

leonarde

I'll have to look further into it but I THINK
the eyes are only half-closed/downcast. If I
remember she was on a little hillock and looking
down at Juan Diego and some other persons. But it
IS necessary to investigate....

lpetrich

I agree with being skeptical about the sighting; Catholicism was a very recent import back then, and there would not have been much predisposition to have a vision of the Virgin Mary, as opposed to some Aztec deity.

Another thing that may have helped the Church was a big smallpox epidemic that the Conquistadors had brought; it might have seemed that they had had a more powerful god that made them immune.

Also, it is interesting to think about what would have happened if Cortes had been defeated; I suspect that the Aztecs would have had a big victory barbecue -- of Cortes and his troops.

The Aztecs would still have become weakened by a smallpox epidemic, but their neighbors would catch it and in turn become weakened. But as the epidemic burned itself out, they would have recovered, though I'm not sure how long they would have lasted against later generations of the Spanish colonists.

Boro Nut

Wouldn't that make it more likely to be a miracle? I mean, thirteen people appearing on the eyelid and not the retina?

Boro Nut