Two bulls once met across a fence.
The first bull said to the second “Where are you from?“, to which the second replied “Outside your fence. How about you?“
The first bull answered “Oh, I also came from outside the fence, but I found life to be better here. Indeed, I tried living within many different fences, but they all left me hungry. The farmers would give me shredded paper, or tofu, or elbow macaroni, or ground up cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but none of these sated my hunger. Our Farmer, though, he feeds us grain and water and salt. You could join us, if you like.“
The second bull looked over the fence at the herd, and nodded. “I can see that you are well fed and healthy. I can see a certain appeal to joining. I must know, though: why didn't you just go out of the other farmers fences and eat the food nature provided you with, though? I've found it to be quite nourishing.“
The first bull looked at the second. “I can see that you are healthy as well, and you are lucky indeed. All truly nourishing food comes from Our Farmer, and so you must have been milling around near a place he left food out. He's not unkind, you see, and so doesn't only feed those of us in his fence. It must be scary, though, having no reliable source of food.“
“No reliable source of food?“ asked the second bull, confused, “I get my food from the same source your Farmer does, from the ground itself. Without the middleman, my source is at least as reliable as yours.“
“While, yes, there is some food to be had from the ground,“ rejoined the first bull, “the food of Our Farmer is better. You see, he's where grains come from, and corn, and apples. You can't get those from the ground. I'll be the first to admit you are doing very well on your ground-food diet, but there are two big problems. One is that the ground can't supply the most important things, so you'll never be completely nourished, and the other is that you can't rely on the ground to only give you good food, so you'll end up eating bad things.“
“That's what I have a sense of smell and of taste for,“ said the second bull, “and a memory. I can figure out which things from the ground are good and which are bad. Grains, for instance. I found some, growing in the ground, far from here, and I can tell they're good food. Your Farmer doesn't have the monopoly on grains. You certainly look like you're fed on grains, but your Farmer's got to get them somewhere, and it's the ground.“
“Of course, your senses are good to have, but they're not enough,“ pointed out the first bull. “Even if grains did grow in the ground... which they don't... your senses weren't enough to tell that they're good. That's why it's important to be in Our Farmer's field. He knows what's good for us, even when our senses don't. He tells us what is good to eat and what is bad, and he gives us the good things to eat. Simple as that. All we have to do is digest them... which isn't always easy...“
“Well yes, naturally it's not easy.“ interjected the second bull, “If it didn't take any effort to digest the food, it would all slide out the other end with no benefit gained...“
“But we aren't reduced to relying on our senses. Granted, you can use your senses to tell that we've got something good going on here, that's how I decided to join the herd. I could tell that there was something special about Our Farmer's food...“
“But there's nothing special about your Farmer's food!“ objected the second bull. “There's something special about your food, but not because it comes from your Farmer. If your Farmer were replaced by a mechanical bull, grains and corn and apples would still be good food, it would still come from the ground, and it would still be the right food for the likes of you and me. The food, yes, that's special, but getting all worked up about it being tied to your Farmer is not only unnecessary, but could lead you to make mistakes. You'd be better off learning, yourself, how to tell good food from bad and how to find the good food where it grows in the ground.“
“But, you see, we already can tell good food from bad: the food Our Farmer gives us is good, and anything else is at risk of being bad. And we already can find the good food where it comes from: it comes from Our Farmer.“
“You can't see that your Farmer is a fallible middleman between the source of proper food and yourself, you don't believe that complete nutrition can be derived from the actual source of all nutrition, and you want me to join you?“ queried the second bull.
“I can't see why you wouldn't want to. I see that you can tell that our food is good. We have a nice big herd, too. You don't seem to be in a herd. Aren't you lonely? If you had calves, would you want them to be lonely and underfed?“
“Until you realize that there are more important, more fundamental things than your Farmer and are able to discern them with your own eyes, I cannot be a member of your herd. If I had calves, it would be wrong to raise them among closed eyes, even if they were well fed and never lonely, for it would be far too easy for them to never learn to open their own eyes, thinking they have food and friends and that truth is only of secondary importance.“
“But,“ protested the first bull, “Having Our Farmer's food and being in the fence really is what matters...“
“Just so,“ lamented the second bull, “just so.“