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Posted on 03/13/2017 8:58:52 AM PDT by ebb tide
Two trials, two appeals to conscience.
Trial 1: I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.
Trial 2: If the number of bishops and universities should be so material as your lordship seems to think, then I see little cause, my lord, why that should make any change in my conscience. For I have no doubt that, though not in this realm, but of all those well learned bishops and virtuous men that are yet alive throughout Christendom, they are not fewer who are of my mind therein. But if I should speak of those who are already dead, of whom many are now holy saints in heaven, I am very sure it is the far greater part of them who, all the while they lived, thought in this case the way that I think now. And therefore am I not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm against the General Council of Christendom.
What is the difference of these two quotes?
The first, from the friar Martin Luther, asserts the primacy of conscience over the universal consent of the Church and the tradition.
The second, from a laymen Thomas More, notes the agreement of conscience to the faith of Christendom, the history of the Church, and the saints of Heaven.
Why are these appeals to conscience significant? I think Belloc is fundamentally correct in his assessment of the nature of Protestantism as a denial of religious authority, resting in a visible Church:
The Protestant attack differed from the rest especially in this characteristic, that its attack did not consist in the promulgation of a new doctrine or of a new authority, that it made no concerted attempt at creating a counter-Church, but had for its principle the denial of unity. It was an effort to promote that state of mind in which a “Church” in the old sense of the word-that is, an infallible, united, teaching body, a Person speaking with Divine authority-should be denied; not the doctrines it might happen to advance, but its very claim to advance them with unique authority.
The individual quickly emerged to fill the vacuum left by the Church, as the dominant religious factor in the modern period.
Martin Luther: Revolutionary, Not Reformer In this year of the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, we have to take stock of the legacy of the renegade, Catholic priest, Martin Luther. What were his intentions? It is commonly alleged, even among Catholics, that he had the noble aim of reforming abuses within the Church.
In fact, Martin Luther discovered his revolutionary, theological positions about a year before he posted his 95 theses. Probably in the year 1516, while lecturing on Romans at the seminary in Wittenburg, Luther had a pivotal experience, which shaped the way he viewed the Christian faith. Essentially, his “tower experience,” resolved his difficulty of conscience. He saw God and His commandments as a moral threat:
But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn’t be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said, “Isn’t it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?” This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience. I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.
Reading Romans 1, while in the tower of his monastery, Luther suddenly saw the resolution of his troubled conscience through faith: “All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light.”
As we see in Trent’s teaching on justification and the Joint Declaration of Faith, there is nothing wrong with the realization that righteousness (same word as justification) comes through faith alone, moved by the grace of God. The problem is the re-reading of Scripture and all of the Christian tradition in a different light through this realization. Luther’s troubled conscience and experience of faith led him eventually (as it took him a while to work it out) to reject many of the Sacraments, books of the Bible, and the Church’s authority all in the name of liberty of conscience. A great schism would follow from Luther’s personal experience.
The Significance of Luther’s Teaching on Conscience No doubt reforms were needed in the Catholic Church in 1517. Contrary to popular opinion however, Luther primarily sought to spread his understanding of the Gospel, not to correct abuses. Catholic practices became abuses precisely because they contradicted his tower experience of 1516.
One of Luther’s early tracts, Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520), lays out the implications of his view in more detail:
Besides, if we are all priests, as was said above, and all have one faith, one Gospel, one sacrament, why should we not also have the power to test and judge what is correct or incorrect in matters of faith? What becomes of the words of Paul in I Corinthians 2:15: “He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,” II Corinthians 4:13: “We have all the same Spirit of faith”? Why, then, should not we perceive what squares with faith and what does not, as well as does an unbelieving pope?
All these and many other texts should make us bold and free, and we should not allow the Spirit of liberty, as Paul calls Him, to be frightened off by the fabrications of the popes, but we ought to go boldly forward to test all that they do or leave undone, according to our interpretation of the Scriptures, which rests on faith, and compel them to follow not their own interpretation, but the one that is better….
Thus I hope that the false, lying terror with which the Romans have this long time made our conscience timid and stupid, has been allayed.
Luther never condoned license (though he did condone Philip of Hesse’s bigamy), as he said his conscience was captive to the Word of God, but he did separate the decision of his conscience from the authority of the Church. This proved absolutely foundational for Protestantism and modern, religious experience.
Father of the Modern World The claim that Luther stands at a crucial moment between medieval Christendom and the modern world is not contentious. This is need for care, however. His separation of faith and reason and insistence on the spiritual nature of the Church, in my opinion, did quicken the advance to secularism. However, Luther did not directly intend the creation of the modern, secular world as know it. Yet his stand on conscience and his individualistic interpretation of faith did lend itself to modern individualism, which I would even say is the heart of modern culture.
Cardinal Ratzinger suggested that Luther stood at the forefront of the modern movement, focused on the freedom of the individual. I recommend looking at this piece, “Truth and Freedom” further, but his central insight on Luther follows:
There is no doubt that from the very outset freedom has been the defining theme of that epoch which we call modern…. Luther’s polemical writing [On the Freedom of the Christian] boldly struck up this theme in resounding tones…. At issue was the freedom of conscience vis-à-vis the authority of the Church, hence the most intimate of all human freedoms…. Even if it would not be right to speak of the individualism of the Reformation, the new importance of the individual and the shift in the relation between individual conscience and authority are nonetheless among its dominant traits (Communio 23 [1996]: 20).
These traits have survived and at times predominate our contemporary religious experience. The sociologist, Christian Smith, has noted in his study of the faith life of emerging adults, Souls in Transition, that an evangelical focus on individual salvation has been carried over into a new religious autonomy. He claims that…
the places where today’s emerging adults have taken that individualism in religion basically continues the cultural trajectory launched by Martin Luther five centuries ago and propelled along the way by subsequent development of evangelical individualism, through revivalism, evangelism and pietism…. Furthermore, the strong individualistic subjectivism in the emerging adult religious outlook—that “truth” should be decided by “what seems right” to individuals, based on their personal experience and feelings—also has deep cultural-structural roots in American evangelicalism.
Luther’s legacy clearly points toward individualism in religion, setting up a conflict with religious authority and tradition. The average Western Christian probably follows his central assertion that one must follow one’s own conscience over and against the Church.
Luther’s View of Conscience in the Catholic Church The key issue in debating Luther’s legacy on conscience in the Catholic Church entails whether the teachings of the Church are subordinate to one’s own conscience or whether conscience is bound by the teaching of the Church.
I know an elderly Salesian priest who told me with all sincerity that the purpose of Vatican II was to teach us that we could decide what to believe and how to live according to our conscience. This is clearly the “Spirit of Vatican II,” as Gaudium et Spes, while upholding the dignity of conscience, enjoins couples in regards to the transmission of life: “But in their manner of acting, spouses should be aware that they cannot proceed arbitrarily, but must always be governed according to a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself, and should be submissive toward the Church’s teaching office, which authentically interprets that law in the light of the Gospel” (50). Dignitatis Humanae, Vatican’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, holds together two crucial points, stating that one cannot “be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience,” (3) as well as that “in the formation of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to attend to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church” (14). The Council upheld the dignity of conscience as well as its obligation to accept the authority of the Church.
The misinterpretation of the Council’s teaching on conscience as license found its first test case just three years after the Council closed in Humanae Vitae. Theologians such as Bernard Härring and Charles Curran advocated for the legitimacy of dissent from the encyclical on the grounds of conscience. The Canadian Bishops, in their Winnipeg Statement, affirmed: “In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assure that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”
Conscience also stands at the center of the current controversy over the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia. I’ve already written on how Amoris stands in relation to the Church’s efforts to inculturate the modern world in relation to conscience. Cardinal Caffarra claimed that the fifth dubium on conscience was the most important. He stated further: “Here, for me, is the decisive clash between the vision of life that belongs to the Church (because it belongs to divine Revelation) and modernity’s conception of one’s own conscience.” Recently, the German bishops, following those of Malta, have decided: “We write that—in justified individual cases and after a longer process—there can be a decision of conscience on the side of the faithful to receive the Sacraments, a decision which must be respected.”
In light of the current controversy on conscience, it is troubling that Luther is now upheld as genuine reformer. The most troubling is from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in its Resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and throughout the year 2017: “Separating that which is polemical from the theological insights of the Reformation, Catholics are now able to hear Luther’s challenge for the Church of today, recognising him as a ‘witness to the gospel’ (From Conflict to Communion 29). And so after centuries of mutual condemnations and vilification, in 2017 Lutheran and Catholic Christians will for the first time commemorate together the beginning of the Reformation.” The Vatican also announced a commemorative stamp (which to me sounds like the United States issuing a stamp commemorating the burning the White House by British troops).
Pope Francis has spoken of Luther several times in the past year, including in an inflight press conference returning from Armenia: “I think that the intentions of Martin Luther were not mistaken. He was a reformer. Perhaps some methods were not correct.” In response I ask, what did Luther reform? Francis pointed to two things in his journey to Sweden. The Reformation “helped give greater centrality to sacred scripture in the Church’s life,” but it did so by advocating the flawed notion of sola scriptura. Francis also pointed to Luther’s concept of sola gratia, which “reminds us that God always takes the initiative, prior to any human response, even as he seeks to awaken that response.” While the priority of God’s initiative is true and there are similarities to Catholic teaching in this teaching (that faith is a free gift that cannot be merited), Luther denied our cooperation with grace, our ability to grow in sanctification and merit, and that we fall from grace through mortal sin. Francis also noted, while speaking to an ecumenical delegation from Finland: “In this spirit, we recalled in Lund that the intention of Martin Luther 500 years ago was to renew the Church, not divide Her.” Most recently he spoke of how we now know “how to appreciate the spiritual and theological gifts that we have received from the Reformation.”
It is true that Martin Luther did not want to divide the Church. He wanted to reform the Church on his own terms, which was not genuine reform. Luther said he would follow the Pope if the Pope taught the pure Gospel of his conception: “The chief cause that I fell out with the pope was this: the pope boasted that he was the head of the Church, and condemned all that would not be under his power and authority; for he said, although Christ be the head of the Church, yet, notwithstanding, there must be a corporal head of the Church upon earth. With this I could have been content, had he but taught the gospel pure and clear, and not introduced human inventions and lies in its stead.” Further he accuses the corruption of conscience by listening to the Church as opposed to Scripture: “But the papists, against their own consciences, say, No; we must hear the Church.” This points us back to the crucial issue of authority, pointed out by Belloc.
Conclusion: More Over Luther We should not celebrate the Reformation, because we cannot celebrate the defense of erroneous conscience held up against the authority of the Church. As St. Thomas More rightly said in his “Dialogue on Conscience,” taken down by his daughter Meg: “But indeed, if on the other side a man would in a matter take away by himself upon his own mind alone, or with some few, or with never so many, against an evident truth appearing by the common faith of Christendom, this conscience is very damnable.” He may have had Luther in mind.
More did not stand on his own private interpretation of the faith, but rested firmly on the authority of Christendom and, as Chesterton put it, the democracy of the dead: “But go we now to them that are dead before, and that are I trust in heaven, I am sure that it is not the fewer part of them that all the time while they lived, thought in some of the things, the way that I think now.”
More is a crucial example of standing firm in a rightly formed conscience. We should remember why he died and not let his witness remain in vain. He stood on the ground of the Church’s timeless teaching, anchored in Scripture and the witness of the saints. If we divorce conscience from authority, we will end in moral chaos. As Cardinal Ratzinger asked in his lucid work, On Conscience: “Does God speak to men in a contradictory manner? Does He contradict Himself? Does He forbid one person, even to the point of martyrdom, to do something that He allows or even requires of another?” These are crucial questions we must face.
Rather than celebrating the defender of erroneous conscience, let’s remember and invoke the true martyr of conscience, who died upholding the unity of the faith.
“If you want to ramble on about what is, or isn’t scripture, before,...or after,.. answering yes or no, that’s fine.”
Could you answer my questions? I would have no problem with yours - but they are all predicated on a false premise of sola scriptura. With that in mind I asked you questions about sola scriptura - questions you would struggle to answer using sola scriptura.
We could play this game all day where you ask questions based on sola scriptura which I have no difficulty answering and I ask you questions you cannot answer using sola scriptura. The issue seems then to boil down to sola scriptura. And sola scriptura is a false doctrine. Hence, you use it and I reject it. I’m orthodox. You’re not.
“By normal debate rules, you should have answered mine first, so I will give you more time.”
I don’t need it. I see no reason to debate you according to your heretical view. Sola scriptura is a heresy. It appears no where in the Bible even.
“Meanwhile, I will penalize your evasiveness by giving you two more very specific questions:”
Then I will answer the questions essentially as I answered the ones before - but with one difference: I will answer your questions WHEN IT IS OBVIOUS YOUR ARE INCAPABLE OF ANSWERING MINE.
“If Acts 2:38 is in your bible, just as it is in my bible, it shows baptism is done for remission of sins. Does the remission of sins wear off? (I mean, hey, according to you, your predecessors decided that Acts 2:38 was inspired)”
No.
“If Hebrew 9:22 (without the shedding of blood is no remission) is in your bible, just as it is in mine, then blood must be miraculously applied to the soul being baptized, as per Acts 2:38. Yes of no?”
Yes.
“(Don’t forget to send flowers to be placed on Saul Alinsky’s grave)”
Remember, I can answer your questions and you’re incapable of answering mine - as you have already proved now.
Here they are again just in case you maintain your manifest failure:
You undoubtedly believe Matthew’s gospel is inspired. No where in scripture does it ever say Matthew wrote an inspired gospel. Isn’t that true?
You undoubtedly believe the book of Esther is inspired. Where in the Bible does it actually say Esther’s author was inspired but Judith’s was not?
No where in the scriptures is there an inspired table of contents of the Bible. Isn’t that true?
Jesus, in every gospel, says that he is/or will give His flesh/body for people to eat. Isn’t that true?
Jesus, in every gospel, says that he is/or will give His blood for people to drink. Isn’t that true?
In Matthew 16, according to Orthodox, Catholic and many Protestant scholars, Jesus declares Peter the Rock. Here are examples of Protestant scholars admitting it: http://phatcatholic.blogspot.com/2006/09/protestant-scholars-on-mt-1616-19.html Since that is true, then isn’t any attempt by an attacker against the Catholic Church to create an impression that if 1 Peter 2:5-8 says Jesus is the cornerstone just a duplicitous way of trying to undermining the standard and ancient orthodox understanding of Peter as the Rock of Matthew 16?
Now, I want to post a couple more comments:
1) I actually answered a question or two of yours - AND YOU COMPLETELY IGNORED THAT FACT. Below are the questions you asked and I answered. Thus, when you say, “I gave very specific questions. You, in turn, gave me very specific questions. By normal debate rules, you should have answered mine first, so I will give you more time. Meanwhile, I will penalize your evasiveness by giving you two more very specific questions” you’re not exactly being truthful now are you since I did in fact answer four questions of yours - which means I answered four more questions of yours than you answered of mine. It should be I who penalize you. It is no surprise to me that you would be so mistaken about reality. Someone who attacks Christ’s Church as you do cannot be in a firm grasp of reality to begin with. Here then is what you have completely ignored - perhaps because it doesn’t serve your purposes or perhaps because you are incapable of dealing with it.
“Lastly, If the mass is consumed for eternal life, is once enough?”
It can be - for those who only need it once. God, in His wisdom, however, foresaw that people would sin so He gave us the sacraments to aid us. The sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist can be received more than once and should be.
“If so, then why continue to consume it repeatedly?”
Why read the Bible more than once? Why pray more than once? Why tell your wife you love her more than once? Jesus said to do this (meaning the Eucharist) in remembrance of Him. He never said, “Do it only once.”
“If once is not enough, then why is that?”
Again, for some, once may be enough, for most it is not because of our own sinful choices. Again, is reading the Bible ONCE enough for YOU? Is praying ONCE enough for YOU?
“Does it not have eternal power?”
Yes, it does. But we don’t. God gave us free will. We choose to sin. God’s Word has eternal power - but I bet you read the Bible more than once, right?
Since you “penalized” me when I actually answered several of your questions and then completely ignored all of my answers (which seems completely intellectually dishonest to me for a person to do) I will now penalize you this way: You must answer all of my questions, and respond to all of my answers or you will forfeit this debate and sola scriptura will be acknowledged as a heretical fraud. That seems fair in light of your obvious wrong doing in claiming I did not answer questions when I did answer some and you simply ignored the answers. And after all, your questions were predicated on a false point - sola scriptura - which was not agreed to by me as a basis for debate. To start a debate without agreed to rules is one of the worst offenses to be committed in a debate so this will be the one and only chance you get to make up for your violation of basic debate rules (since you insist). I’m sure you’ll fail in any case.
Whatever She is now, a large percentage of Christianity accepts both Her divinity and Her mission, along with the supernatural ways through which we’ve come to know Her.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/virgin-mary-text
“That’s Romish fantasy. The Lord did not “found” the rotten parts of Roman Catholic theology.”
Awww, look. BlueDragon is apparently so desperate for attention that he is responding to posts to other people and making sweeping statements that smack of sheer bigotry with no basis in reality. Awww. Poor baby blue dragon.
Why do you hate the teachings of the Early Church Fathers??
As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18, note the following bishops promise in the profession of faith of Vatican 1:
• Basil of Seleucia, Oratio 25:
'You are Christ, Son of the living God.'...Now Christ called this confession a rock, and he named the one who confessed it 'Peter,' perceiving the appellation which was suitable to the author of this confession. For this is the solemn rock of religion, this the basis of salvation, this the wall of faith and the foundation of truth: 'For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.' To whom be glory and power forever. — Oratio XXV.4, M.P.G., Vol. 85, Col. 296-297.
• Bede, Matthaei Evangelium Expositio, 3:
You are Peter and on this rock from which you have taken your name, that is, on myself, I will build my Church, upon that perfection of faith which you confessed I will build my Church by whose society of confession should anyone deviate although in himself he seems to do great things he does not belong to the building of my Church...Metaphorically it is said to him on this rock, that is, the Saviour which you confessed, the Church is to be built, who granted participation to the faithful confessor of his name. — 80Homily 23, M.P.L., Vol. 94, Col. 260. Cited by Karlfried Froehlich, Formen, Footnote #204, p. 156 [unable to verify by me].
• Cassiodorus, Psalm 45.5:
'It will not be moved' is said about the Church to which alone that promise has been given: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.' For the Church cannot be moved because it is known to have been founded on that most solid rock, namely, Christ the Lord. — Expositions in the Psalms, Volume 1; Volume 51, Psalm 45.5, p. 455
• Chrysostom (John) [who affirmed Peter was a rock, but here not the rock in Mt. 16:18]:
Therefore He added this, 'And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; that is, on the faith of his confession. — Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily LIIl; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LII.html)
• Cyril of Alexandria:
When [Peter] wisely and blamelessly confessed his faith to Jesus saying, 'You are Christ, Son of the living God,' Jesus said to divine Peter: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Now by the word 'rock', Jesus indicated, I think, the immoveable faith of the disciple.”. — Cyril Commentary on Isaiah 4.2.
• Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII):
“For a rock is every disciple of Christ of whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, 1 Corinthians 10:4 and upon every such rock is built every word of the church, and the polity in accordance with it; for in each of the perfect, who have the combination of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the blessedness, is the church built by God.'
“For all bear the surname ‘rock’ who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters.” — Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII), sect. 10,11 ( http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101612.htm)
• Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II): Thus our one immovable foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God. On it we can base an answer to every objection with which perverted ingenuity or embittered treachery may assail the truth."-- (Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II), para 23; Philip Schaff, editor, The Nicene & Post Nicene Fathers Series 2, Vol 9.
This is new to me.
Care to share it?
Don't do those; either.
This is NOT rocket surgery...
Sigh...
So is a Brown Scapular.
Got one of those?
Anything you 'need' can be found in Christ.
Even the first 'pope' agrees!
2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Sorry; but your explanation is WRONG.
Corinthians 11:23-26 (NIV)
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. THIS is a PASSOVER meal. Matthew 26:17-30 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 17 On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal. 20 When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve;[a] 21 and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” 23 He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” 25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” He replied, “You have said so.”The Passover with the Disciples
We got folks in this thread that claim the teaching of the CATHOLIC Early Church Fathers are NOT sound 'cause they wuzn't a pope!!
Go figger!
Oooops
Thanks a LOT!
Reminds me of the old joke...
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Are you sure you can skin grizz?
Jeremiah Johnson: Just as fast as you can catch' em.
[Bear Claw runs into and through the cabin with a huge grizzly bear close behind and jumps out the back window]
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: [as the fight rages inside the cabin] Skin that one, pilgrim, and I'll get you another!
How do you like your albatross cooked?
Thanks for sharing Christ in your life! Post 187 gives a good explanation of Luther's use of the word "alone" in Romans 3:28.
Get over yourself. You're the last one on these threads to play by any set of normal or fair debate rules.
My new activity template.
Great idea, thanks and keep the sharpening stones handy, Pilgrim...
And the raging bears were suddenly lulled into state of sleepiness? Wouldn't that be nice..
You are right. It's not rocket surgery.
It's bear skinnin'.
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