A Parable

yawp!

There was once a parrot that learned to speak English fluently, and memorized millions of books, poems, letters, calculations, science and mathematical texts, etc. It was a wonderful parrot--so wonderful in its ability to mimic speech that people from all over began to make a pilgrimage to listen to it squawk its remarkable collections of stories, poetry, and theology.

It remained a parrot, but the pilgrims soon began to treat it as an oracle--attributing to the bird consciousness and philosophical wisdom. No one had ever seen or heard of a parrot of such prodigious talent for mimicry.

A religion formed around the poor thing, when all it really wanted was suet and a little water. But in place of what the parrot needed, people from all around the world came and worshipped, sang, and danced before the bird--offering it their very lives.

When the bird died from malnutrition and dehydration, the pilgrims made a beautiful replica of it and played some of the many thousands of recordings that people had made of its remarkable mimicry. The stuffed bird had the virtue of needing no care and feeding, and so the people were happy

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