When I was going to India, some travel literature warned that if
your car hit a cow, you should run to a police station for protection,
because a crowd might attack you. Of course, it is easy to hit
cows, because the roads are filled with a crazy mix of cars, trucks,
herds of goats, cows, bicycles, pedestrians, carts. There
are wandering cows all over, even in the cities.

I saw one cow that was all-white, certainly looking very much
like a dignified, sacred cow- very massive and slow,
serene, dull and lethargic, hunched over. Oh, how it reminded me
of Pope John Paul II. Only, it was nosing very calmly through a
garbage dumpster. This image, and realizing how seriously
this was all taken by a religion, was like a revelation about
the human race and its belief systems.

Mind you, I became fond of the people of India, and would
not want to hurt their feelings. Their gods are no less real
than yours, and are probably more colorful. However, we
might be a little wiser if we started treating religion as fables,
like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, rather than trying to
be serious about it.

I saw one cow that was all-white, certainly looking very much
like a dignified, sacred cow- very massive and slow,
serene, dull and lethargic, hunched over. Oh, how it reminded me
of Pope John Paul II. Only, it was nosing very calmly through a
garbage dumpster. This image, and realizing how seriously
this was all taken by a religion, was like a revelation about
the human race and its belief systems.