The Religion of the Beef Steers

Today humans rule the earth. We have effectively subjugated all other species with which we have contact, and our dominion continues to expand. Our lordship is particularly evident over domestic animals. In the West we have a unique relationship with cattle, sheep, and goats, species which evolved and herded for centuries before human's (s)elected them for domestication. The dynamic which exists between the modern beef steer and his human master is of particular interest for our exercise. For the following statements let us imagine ourselves in the hooves of a modern beef calf dwelling in a more or less humane modern beef farm. Let us agree to call the cattleman "El." From the point of view of the calves, what can be predicated truly and accurately of this relationship?

• El fashioned us an all things in our world (the farm) for his own pleasure and glory.
• As we find ourselves here, we owe our very existence to El.
• El cares about us.
• El provides for us (feed, shelter, community) and protects us (from disease, predation, etc.)
• For all of our intents and purposes, El is all-knowing.
• For all of our intents and purposes, El is all-powerful.
• El's will is, for all of our intents and purposes, inviolable.
• It is forbidden and perilous to attempt to violate El's will.
• El has a plan for each of us in the herd.
• The meaning of our lives is comprehensible only in relation to El's plan.
• El regulates and schedules our lives with fastidious detail in accordance with his plan.
• The purpose of my life is to serve El.
• There is a day of reckoning in our future in which El will evaluate each of us according to his pre-ordained plan and sentence us--sending some to eternal darkness and sending a select few, whom he hand chooses as those who accord with his secret design, to a well-watered green pasture with an endless supply of virgins.