Australia now has its own religious "miracle". Not quite the Blessed Virgin
Mary in a tortilla, but a
cross of light has appeared in a frosted window in the small
central Victorian town of Baringhup. The killjoys from the Australian Skeptics,
always eager to pour the cold water of reason onto outbursts of religious
mania, say it is an illusion caused by the refraction of light; though that
probably won't stop the pilgrims from coming to behold the sign of
(the end of the world / the glorious new age / the Second Coming / whatever).
Believers will point out that dozens of identical crosses of light have been
mysteriously appearing all over the world in the past decade or so, which
must be a sign of a greater force sending a message to the faithful, rather
than a simple natural phenomenon. Though one could equally ask why any
greater intelligence worth its salt would bother putting glowing
light-refraction crosses onto windows, images of the BVM onto automobile
mufflers, and so on, unless it finds the reactions of the credulous
entertaining.