The Golden Calf

October 31, 2008 12:41 PM

And the LORD said to Moses, "Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!'"
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing (60 comments total)

The thing they are sacrificing to the calf is satire itself
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:43 PM on October 31, 2008 [11 favorites]

I love this world sometimes. I really, really do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:47 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

As somebody said when I first heard about this, reality has now lapped satire. We can't make up jokes more ridiculous than what the subjects of our humor are now doing themselves.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:49 PM on October 31, 2008 [4 favorites]

LOLXIANS
posted by Class Goat at 12:50 PM on October 31, 2008

America is so fucking weird.
posted by jokeefe at 12:50 PM on October 31, 2008 [11 favorites]

No offense.
posted by jokeefe at 12:51 PM on October 31, 2008

...and lo it came to pass the the Leaders of the People said: let the Money Changers have full access with no restraints onto the steps of the Temple to do for themselves as they do in the People of the land...and it came to pass that many of the Worshippers lost their homes and livlihoods unto the moneychangers and the Leaders said: Let the treasury be emptied so that the moneychangers may replenish their hunger for gain and for later looting of the Land. And it came to pass. And again the Sheep of the Land got the Upright Finger from the Invisible Hand of Adam, the Smith, first among the Free Marketeers, who taught the Money Changers that Greed can be readily rewarded by those who possess Power granted llthem byh the Sheep of the Earth.
posted by Postroad at 12:51 PM on October 31, 2008 [22 favorites]

Suffering from economic ills? Take two tablets and call me in 40 days.
posted by Kabanos at 12:51 PM on October 31, 2008

Forgive them, Father. They know not what they are doing.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:55 PM on October 31, 2008

LOLXIANS

Considering how they're worshipping that calf, I wouldn't call them "Christian". Heck, I wouldn't even call them "Jewish"!
posted by Pope Gustafson I at 12:57 PM on October 31, 2008

What burns me about this is that if me and my friends gathered there to perform a ritual to Baal, it would probably get shut down in five minutes.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 12:57 PM on October 31, 2008 [13 favorites]

I was waiting for this to show up.
Bible time on Metafilter! Yay!
I love the golden calf story. Poor Aaron. The whole golden calf thing wouldn't seem to be so incredibly wrong-headed, but ironically, God had just issued a fairly important set of rules – ten of them, to be specific – and two out of the ten deal pretty directly with this kind of behavior. In fact, Rule number one - "You shall have no other Gods before me" and Rule number two - "You shall not make for yourself an idol." Aaron goofed in a very big way. And God was not happy. Old Testament God seems to take things pretty seriously and this was no exception. At first, when God hears about the behavior of His people – he tells Moses he's simply going to wipe them out and start over again. God had done this at a previous point in the story and it had turned out ok for the most part. Involved a big boat. Either way – Moses talks him out of it and says that he'll deal with it himself. Verse 25 - "As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, 'Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me!' And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. He said to them, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbour." ' The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day."
Apparently that didn't go far enough, because a few lines later – verse 35 - "Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron made."

These bull-worshippin yahoos better get their shit together before Moses gets back from the mountain. Or they're gonna be drinkin Goldschlagger - if you know what I mean.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 1:04 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Concerning the praying at the bull:

Not only did I expect immense amounts of lightning...

Not only did I get more goddamn evangelists in the financial district afterwards...

But they didn't even pray at it right! EVERYONE knows that the Brass Bull's luck charm only works if you rub the bull's nuts! THEY WERE AT THE WRONG END!

But that seems to be the location of a lot of these lunatics: the wrong end of the situation.
posted by mephron at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

And I thought prayer at the pump was silly. Really, a giant golden cow? Do NONE of you remember your bible stories? If not, here's a bit of bible Cliffnotes.

It seems the more publicly "Christian" someone is, the less they know of the bible.

For the record, I have not been browsing GodTube.com and waiting for an appropriate moment to share the site - it was divine providence, through the hand of Google, and the search for "golden calf bible video."
posted by filthy light thief at 1:05 PM on October 31, 2008

Bible fail.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:06 PM on October 31, 2008

Considering the power vacuum left by Charlton Heston's untimely demise, you have to admit this was probably inevitable.
posted by ardgedee at 1:09 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

da lulz, da 700 club haz dem.
posted by Stynxno at 1:19 PM on October 31, 2008

We could have saved 700 billion dollars if they did this a month ago.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:19 PM on October 31, 2008

To be fair, this is not a calf at all, nor is it made out of gold. I don't think Y*hw*h has anything to get mad about here, do you? And if there's any trouble stemming from this, these doink-knockers can always plead, with great plausibility, ignorance.
posted by Mister_A at 1:23 PM on October 31, 2008

They will probably get a plea-bargain down to smiting.
posted by Mister_A at 1:24 PM on October 31, 2008 [3 favorites]

Besides, last time they were praying at the golden calf, this time they're praying with him. Totally different, really, nothing remotely similar here at all, nope, moving along now...
posted by mr.grum at 1:32 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

LOLMESOPOTAMIANS
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:33 PM on October 31, 2008 [5 favorites]

Now that the Zombies have shown up, the stock market...uh. um. I need a pun here. Maybe something about Jesus.

[braiiinnssss]
posted by device55 at 1:36 PM on October 31, 2008

Is this about Hellboy? I love Hellboy.
posted by Artw at 1:37 PM on October 31, 2008

It's a Baal market.
posted by WPW at 1:39 PM on October 31, 2008 [8 favorites]

Metafilter: P.U.S.H.
posted by preparat at 1:41 PM on October 31, 2008

Did I see Pat Robertson? Is that the 700 Billion Bailout Club?
posted by wendell at 1:53 PM on October 31, 2008

That's hilarious.
posted by Tehanu at 1:55 PM on October 31, 2008

While we're quoting, I'm presuming we're gonna see some of this shit November 5th.
WHOOP THAT TRICK!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:08 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

You know, I was flipping around my various news and social bookmarks this morning, and I saw this image linked somewhere, and I assumed, just knew, that it was someone humorously referencing an Onion article. Yeah, funny, but I had a busy morning, so I didn't bother to read about it. I mean, I saw the story, but it didn't register anywhere in even the deep recesses of my brain that it was anything but satire. When I saw it linked here, again, I knew it was going to link to the Onion.

You're telling me this is real?

I mean, damn.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:14 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

God might be able to do something about their prayers if he wasn't tied up with that war over in Mesopotamia.
posted by photoslob at 2:14 PM on October 31, 2008

It never ceases to amaze me that grownups believe in prayer of any sort.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:19 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

While we're quoting, I'm presuming we're gonna see some of this shit November 5th.

Just as an aside here: The story of Jesus casting the traders and moneychangers out of the temple appears in all four gospels, but only in John does he make a whip out of cords to beat them with as he drives them out of the temple. As this makes Jesus a little bit more badass, I'm going to side with John's version being the true account.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:27 PM on October 31, 2008

That is a terrible reason to sacrifice a calf. You want a good reason to murder a cow to your god to usher in the return of good times?

I'll give you one.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:13 PM on October 31, 2008

Basically, this is a bunch of bull.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:20 PM on October 31, 2008

I thought the "good reason to sacrifice a calf" link was going to be a veal recipie.

Now I am disappointed, and hungry.
posted by paisley henosis at 4:01 PM on October 31, 2008

That's not a horn from Lord of the Rings, that's a shofar!
posted by blue_beetle at 4:10 PM on October 31, 2008

Tell me when they start offering golden hemorrhoids.
posted by Araucaria at 4:28 PM on October 31, 2008

LO, I HAVE BROUGHT YOU FIFTEE...*crash*...oh dammit....TEN! TEN COMMANDMENTS!
posted by DU at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is fucking hilarious.
posted by homunculus at 5:29 PM on October 31, 2008

From MiltonRandKalman's link: "She said drowning a cow was baseless because sexual intercourse between a human being and am animal could not cause pregnancy due to the different chromosomes and genes of the two."

Has no one heard of the minotaur!

And I say again, the praying at the pumps thing worked, that's all that's got you guys bent. Now once they fix the markets we can move on to war and converting heathens.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:29 PM on October 31, 2008

Mark 10:24-25 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust not in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is more difficult for a neutrino to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
posted by Xezlec at 9:08 PM on October 31, 2008

Many people are fasting and praying for the upcoming elections, Cindy says. We don’t want to let up in this final press, we need to P.U.S.H. (pray until something happens) to avert financial judgment...

Can someone please tell me how these indolent and ignorant so-called Christians could have possibly amassed so many followers? I guess it's better than a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, but not much.
posted by Down10 at 9:19 PM on October 31, 2008

i don't know what but someone really, really, REALLY needs to do SOMETHING to that bull statue

and the thought of christians praying at a bull statue - well, this just blows my mind
posted by pyramid termite at 9:49 PM on October 31, 2008

things like this are why, after growing up in a pretty fanatical christian family, i can't call myself one anymore. jesus is one badass mofo and i like what he had to say. but when reality or history hits his modern day acolytes they just stare at it like a deer in the headlights. it still amazes me that non christians have a better grasp of history and context than christians.
posted by Parallax.Error at 10:33 PM on October 31, 2008

Your bovine public sculpture is boring.
posted by ghost of a past number at 10:58 PM on October 31, 2008

I'm Christian and I'm appalled.

Not just by the people praying over the bull. But also at the crass commercialization of the megachurches and the ridiculous prosperity gospel. They seem to forget that Jesus turned over tables and drove the moneychangers out of the temple.
posted by wuwei at 1:09 AM on November 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

The thing with Bible-thumpers is that, while they are good at thumping the Bible, many have forgotten that you are supposed to read it.
posted by Skeptic at 4:28 AM on November 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Don't worry, the Zombies have this under control.
posted by afu at 4:34 AM on November 1, 2008

The first Wonkette post about this is here, which I point out only so's I can quote this hilarious bit:

"The dingbat has explained, “We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems.” Don’t they know that God taking over the economic systems would be SOCIALISM from SPACE?

Hee.
posted by shiu mai baby at 6:45 AM on November 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

"Maverick" is a word for a type of calf. That's all I'm sayin'.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 8:02 AM on November 1, 2008

This is so fucking...I..I...don't have the words.
posted by metastability at 8:08 AM on November 1, 2008

Not, of course, that these 700-Clubbers would pause to reflect on whether the "prosperity gospel" could have anything to do with the subprime mortgage crisis that's contributing to the current financial crisis.

Meanwhile that same day, down by City Hall some artists erected an ice sculpture of the word "ECONOMY" and left it to melt.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:37 AM on November 2, 2008

America is so fucking weird. No offense.

None taken. Hell, I live here, and I still think any single nation that was capable of producing the Precious Moments Chapel, the Holy Land Experience and Oral Roberts on one hand, and Larry Flynt, Oh! Calcutta! and Naked Boys Singing on the other is a pretty unusual society.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:11 AM on November 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Almighty dollar.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:29 AM on November 3, 2008

Empress, don't forget the Creation Museum, which "brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers."

Is it too much to hope that they have a diorama of those kiddies being gobbled up like a tasty, screaming repast for said dinosaurs?
posted by shiu mai baby at 10:32 AM on November 3, 2008

You know, it makes me wonder, strict creationists that believe humankind lived with dinosaurs once, many of them also do not believe in human caused climate change. What do these folks believe happened to the dinosaurs? Did mankind destroy them?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:06 AM on November 3, 2008

Dude, it was the flood! God punished mankind by drowning all the dinosaurs.
posted by Artw at 11:24 AM on November 3, 2008

No Noah failed at his task? What a slacker.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:27 AM on November 3, 2008

Empress, don't forget the Creation Museum...

Hee - my big regret is that that didn't exist in 2000; that was the year I took a solo road trip where I specifically went out of my way to find the kitschy Americana roadside stuff. I saw things like the Harry Houdini museum, the world's biggest hand-dug well (I got lost looking for the biggest ball of twine), I actually SAW the Precious Moments Chapel, saw a mosaic of Sitting Bull someone had made out of Jelly Belly jellybeans, I ate in hole-in-the-wall diners where the waitresses dressed in pink nylon and called me "hon", threw a tomahawk in Colorado someplace, stayed in a hotel in John Mellencamp's hometown, bought a newspaper from a small town simply because I'd fallen in love with that day's headline ("Tractor Accident Sends Local Man To Wichita"), nearly held up traffic trying to get a photo of an ad for "Mail Pouch Tobacco" painted on the side of a barn, and almost took cancan lessons in Dodge City; the finish line of the trip was in Las Vegas, where I had front-row seats to Sigfried & Roy.

The Creation Museum so would have fit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:30 AM on November 3, 2008 [2 favorites]