Atheists, if you found a religious image.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Say you are doing laundry and notice an image of Jesus/Mary/Buddha/Unicorn on the mold stains in the wall. Or something else to that effect in your property.

Would you have ethical problems with making money of it?

Assume that the image is clear and convincing (smelling of roses, sparkling or whatever) to the target credulous mass, and that you are convinced there is nothing mystic about it, of course.

Assume you have a ready supply of such credulous masses, waiting to pay to see it (or buy the t-shirts, or whatever)

Also assume that you can legally make money of it and that the cost of doing business is negligible.

1- Find image
2- X
3- Profit

where X is just your willingness to go for it.

Would you?

(actually, the answer is also interesting from believers, so go ahead and reply if you are so inclined)

2

I don’t know. I’ll know when it happens.

3

Naw. I’m too lazy and plus, have you SEEN what happens when you do this? Hordes of people crowd around your house or wherever you are displaying it. Ugh.

4

I guess I should know, but is this as an atheist or a believer?

5

Sure! Why not? Telling the world you have a pancake shaped like the virgin mary doesn’t mean you think the virgin mary story holds any significance. It would be the same as if you had an oily spot on the garage floor that was shaped like Margaret Thatcher. It just looks like something that is recognizable by the masses.

6

I would consider making money off religiously gullible folks like that to be Darwinian thinning of the wallet. I’d probably be too lazy to make a buck off of it, though.

7

Sure. But I’d do the same for Obama or Osama.

8

Absolutely. No qualms whatsoever.

I wouldn’t fraudulently make an image then try to pass it off as something other than that, but if people wanted to pay to see some image I happened to find on my property? Line starts over there.

9

Hells yes. If I would except anyone to refrain, it would be the religious (though they never seem to.) Why would an atheist have a problem with this?

10

Not in the least. I’d flog that fucker for every last dime.

11

Nope, it’s just mold in an interesting pattern, no significance at all, I’d simply remove it (kill the mold with bleach or something)

12

I’d have problems with it. I couldn’t market it as a miraculous image without hating myself for playing with other people’s emotions.

Maybe if the Ripley’s Museum offered to buy it to add to their collection of potatoes that resemble past presidents, that would be okay.

13

Sell out Jesus? No problem.

14

I would have ethical problems with profiting from the gullibility of the faithful. That’s what I don’t like about religion.

15

Would not it be more immoral for a believer to profit from this kind of thing ?

16

I feel like you’d have to do a little more than sell a Jesus-shaped waffle on eBay. You’d probably need an ‘I once was lost but now am found! Hallelujah!’ story to go with it.

I’m also not sure what could be ‘clear and convincing’ to a nonbeliever, whose first instinct may just be to say, ‘That smudge on the wall looks like a face. Oh well, time to clean’ rather than ‘It’s a sign!’

17

I don’t see how gullibility plays into it. You aren’t saying the baby jesus dropped it into your pancake griddle. You’re just saying it’s a pancake shaped like the VM. If you don’t try to sucker people in, you aren’t being a bad guy.

18

Too lazy to make easy money? Let’s leave that aside and assume it is something transportable that you could exhibit away from your home.

Or say an authenticable manuscript from John Paul II that you could sell or publish for profit.

19

I don’t see any deception or fraud being involved. The significance of the image is all subjective interpretation. If I didn’t fake it and I’m not making any false claims about it, what’s unethical? If somebody wants to buy my Jesus waffle, and I’m upfront with all the facts about it, I see nothing wrong with it. The buyer would be making a totally informed decision.

20

Clear and convincing to the believer. To the non-believer it would just be some curious natural item with a recognizable and not common shape and properties.

Say a branch falls from a tree with part of it being a Michelangelo-grade sculpture of a saint that smells of roses and bleeds oil. Something that trips your “this is not something I see everyday” sensors.