What the heck is a holy cow?

Answer 1

Holy Cow is often said, in the West, as a disrespect of other people's religion, only because some tv star said those words as a joke and for money. People keep on copying him for a laugh. Yet, we say: don't laugh too soon: as Cows are Sacred and Holy to many people in India, many of whom are vegetarians. The cows, often Water-buffalo in type, were, and often still are, used instead of tractors and horses to pull ploughs, they are strong and pull the farmer's hoes and ploughs well. This of course means later on, food if the plants grow well, as sown by the farmer and the Cow. That's why they were so held as Sacred by many people. As you know, there is often starvation in India. If they slaughtered all the cattle, it would seem the farmers could not dig their fields or paddocks, so later on there would be much lesser food to eat, already many people there don't have enough food. So many people living in India are quite poor and cannot afford a tractor, and if they did, most of them could not afford the fuel or gas or diesel or petrol to run the tractor on, nor can they afford the oil. India is a place where there's not much of an electricity supply and not much fuels for cars and tractors, so forth available. So mostly, they use Cows or Water-buffalo to plow the fields and will never eat that cattle-beef. In the ancient days, a man who owned a cow was considered fortunate and rich because he could sow the fields to grow the foods so he and his family would have plenty with a surplus too, to sell or barter for other things like their home, beds and clothes.
If a person disrespectfully says "Holy Cow" as a joke or insult, it causes hurt emotions and feelings in others. Mostly, people who joke like that find that others will turn their backs on the fool. Others may be upset and say so, starting up yet another argument.
Our advice is: Respect others, they have not hurt you anyway. Peace is better.

Alternate answer: I don't think that most people in the west do use the expression as a term of disrespect towards other religions but simply as a term of exclamation. It is said just a they might also say; Whizzo or Holy smoke, without meaning any disprespect to either wizzards or to the system used to announce the election of a pope or indeed to funeral pyres. See the related link below this answer box for more information..

Answer 2

It looks like cheese!