Golden Calf

I just had a funny thought while I was making my protein shake / coffee thing.

For some reason I was thinking about that old story about the golden calf, and how people were worshiping it. Am I the only one who thought it was really weird that they picked a calf? Of, course in Sunday school that question was not fielded particularly well, so I pretty much just dropped it.

But I just started thinking about it again.

Wouldn't it be ironic if it all came out of an enlightened person's frustrated attempts to use a parable to get people to understand the basic idea of universal truth? Let's just say it was some minor prophet named Fred.

Something like this:

Fred: "Ok, think of it like this ... think of God (universal love) as having a relationship with you like the mother cow in a sense. All you have to do is follow the wishes, and everything you need will be provided ".

Knuckleheads : "So we're like calves?"

Fred: "Well, no, but for purposes of the metaphoric example only. If at all, only in the sense that the perfect ideal, relational, childlike devotion and dependence represented by the helpless calf's connection to its mother is in parallel to the type of commitment and way of thinking that is most conducive to spiritual development."

Knuckleheads : "Oh, so like a super calf?"

Fred: "I think you're missing the point of this. I'm not talking about an actual calf, but just a representation of a perfect position within a particular type of relationship. It's not even an actual thing, it's just an example I used for the purposes of illustration."

Knuckleheads : "Ok, thanks Fred. I think we've got it from here."
(to each other: "Should we kill him?" .... answer: "definitely." ....and then, of course, they made the golden calf)