I was thinking about something in quite a roundabout way, so please bear with me.

I’ve heard photographers talk about “3D pop” effect of certain lenses, and initially I didn’t understand what they are talking about, because it’s stupid. Then I understood what they were saying, but I still think it’s stupid.

You see, the so called “3D pop” effect in a picture isn’t caused by the lens, it’s caused by the light and what it does in a scene. If the light is “flat”, basically if the weather is cloudy and the whole sky is a softbox, the volumes in the images aren’t being lit in ways that show their 3D nature. Also, lighting can help separate the planes; if there’s a vehicle in the mid-plane, and it’s lit horizontally by sunlight, and the mid-plane is additionally separated by the depth of field, it’s going to “pop”, appearing quite three-dimensional.

The effect is magnified if the lens is sharp and contrasty, so that the shadows and reflections are precisely defined, and there is no haze in the image.

The effect is reduced if the lens is not stopped down correctly, if the depth of field is too shallow or too great. If it’s too shallow, it doesn’t encompass the whole motive in focus; if it’s too great, it doesn’t allow the foreground and background to fade, isolating the motive and allowing it to stand out. So, basically, for the most part it has nothing to do with some magical property of Zeiss or other lenses; it’s about illumination of the scene and basic photographic technique. People who talk about this have noticed that something is going on, but they mistakenly think it’s about the lens.

3D pop with the most basic 50mm lens

Why am I talking about this?

I was wondering why the American Christians are so aggressively helping Israel, when the modern Jews are by definition the part of the Hebrew religious community that is defined by their rejection of Christ. One could say that the Jews accept most of what Christians call the Bible, which is technically true, except for the fact that they reject the part that matters most to the Christians because it defines their entire faith, and they accept the part which the Christians have included for the sake of historical context, to explain why Jesus was important, why his teaching is exceptional, and why there was no salvation without him. Essentially, in order for the solution presented by the Christ to be understandable, they had to show what the problem was, and the problem was exactly the part of the Bible that the Jews believe in, while the solution is the part they vehemently reject. By all rational standards, the Christians should not like the Jews very much, and historically that was exactly the case. They thought of them as slanderers of Jesus and Mary, as blasphemers and liars, and considering what was revealed to me recently, that seems to be exactly the case. So, why are the American Christians so intensely supportive of Israel?

From what I can tell, they think the world will end when the conditions described in the Revelation of John, also known as the Apocalypse, are fulfilled, and since it’s all about the events that are happening in the territory presently known as Israel, they concluded that a Jewish state needs to exist there in order for the battle of Megiddo to take place; the Harlot, Beast and Antichrist to be revealed and destroyed by the second coming of Christ, and the world to end.

The problem with the Revelation is that it’s part rehashing of the Old Testament, part insane rambling. It’s the part of the Bible most beloved by crazy people, and it’s obvious why. Some part of it might indeed be prophetic or inspired. Most of it, however, is raving madness. If you’re informing your worldview by that text, you have a serious problem.

A large number of people are doing exactly that, and they are going even further: they are actively working on making it come true, by setting up what they see as necessary conditions for the second coming of Christ. This unfortunately isn’t without precedent, because Jesus did certain things “to fulfil the scriptures”. Essentially, it’s like “predicting” that you’ll die on a certain day and then killing yourself so that you get to be a prophet.

Essentially, those people seem to think that God is somewhat stupid and can’t seem to get his shit together about the end of the world, so they’ll get out and push, basically. They’ll set up the conditions described in the Bible as preceding the end of the world, and they will even make the battle of of Megiddo take place. Not only that: they will even make other things described in the Revelation a reality, as if to bring reality closer to their religious framework, and then use that as an argument – “you see, it’s all coming true!”

You can see why I started with the story about the “3D pop” effect. People tend to perceive something real, but then confuse all sorts of things and derive all sorts of weird conclusions, and I see this sort of weird thinking everywhere. In this case, I’m afraid, we have a weird cult of American crazies who are trying to enact Armageddon so that their JeeeEEEzasss!!! would finally come, and they are used by another cult of Jewish crazies who are trying to enact the supposed conditions for the arrival of their Messiah. Both think God is stupid and senile and needs to be prodded a little because he can’t seem to get his shit together, so they need to get out and push.