On the other hand.. maybe the "shepards" are not faithless but have faith in the wrong "thing(s)".. and ARE honest agents in there own qualia..
According to the metaphor the "shepard" leads(or follows) the sheep to where they can feed themselves.. but consuming teachings, scripture, and dogma, pre-digesting it and comeing to vomit it up for the "sheep" is what birds do.. not "shepards".. ( a perverse metphor)
Whether "the Bird" is a "filty" bird ot a "clean" bird misses the mark of the metaphor.. and bypasses the reason for the metaphor completely.. And exposes the reality of the current situation.. I may be saying the "the Bird" ugh! "shepard" ugh.. "KING" has no clothes.. but the fact is obvious.. Whatever "he" is, that shepard, if hes vomitting, hes NAKED.. and the metaphor is raped and abused..
**Note: Yogi Berra eat your heart out.. d;-)~'.'.
"You've got to be very careful, if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there" - Yogi Berra
I might have used another creature for a metaphor (but I cannot recall its name) - the ones that go charging over the cliff, others of their kind following mindlessly and killing the whole group of them.