TrueTomHarley
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Posts posted by TrueTomHarley
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8 hours ago, Anna said:
I am not quite sure I understand your reasoning
I may have weighed in too quickly on this one, without having read the whole context, just like the ol pork chop says I do.
Like Herod, I was in “a fighting mood” at the time. Unlike Herod, I have the worldnewsmediaforum as an outlet whenever I am punchy like that. That way I don’t have to go shooting up any public place, which is all the rage in these insane days.
Since the JWI comment immediately follows mine, and then your remark, I am not sure if I have made a faux pas or hit a home run, but I will cover myself in any event.
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1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:
You’re being an apologist.
That is a sin?
1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:It doesn’t matter if he didn’t technically lie
Actually, it makes all the difference in the world
1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:At best, it’s intentionally VERY misleading
To the extent that this is true, do you know people who lead off with their worst PR take instead of their best? Of course, it is proper to present it as the lawyer does. Parents re minor children is a proper subject for Court concern. Do you think the Court should weigh in on the various reasons that ADULT family members not see eye to eye?
1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:Someone outside of the org will easily misunderstand this Bethelite lawyer’s comments to believe the org is more tolerant than it actually Is.
Anyone who knows anything about Witnesses knows that they practice disfellowshipping for those unrepently opposed in deed or word. Nobody has to explain to them that those subject to this ultimate discipline might not like it.
1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:If the org has the truth, it should speak the truth instead of hiding behind legalese.
To the extent they “hide behind legalese, it is because their opponents make use of it over various issues, in this case, disfellowshipping.
1 hour ago, Noble Berean said:They know what they’re doing.
Do you prefer it when people don’t?
I mean, really there is nothing here in this comment other than you grumbling that people exist who are different than you.
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8 hours ago, Equivocation said:
I see my name lol, but confused on how and why I am mentioned jajaja.
Doesn’t matter. Take it. Who doesn’t want to be thought well-read?
If I recall correctly, Auntie Pauline was one of @James Thomas Rook Jr.’s favorite aunts.
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27 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
Are you posting this on the thread you intended?
They are all woven into a fine garment, so it hardly matters.
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On 1/25/2019 at 2:11 PM, JOHN BUTLER said:
Using silly expressions such as Anti-Pauline. Does it make you feel good ? I'm not impressed.
No. This simply shows that @Equivocation is well-read and that you, despite bolting from the Witnesses, have not compensated for that lack by becoming so.
It is pretty common outside of the JW world to refer to the “Pauline writings” and find uniqueness in them. After all, he wrote about half of the New Testament.
Since the overall world cannot comprehend unity, (because it doesn’t exist for them) they focus on points of uniqueness and figure that each one is grounds for division and dispute. They cannot conceive of people smoothing over things because it doesn’t happen for them. (Of course, I am speaking in generalities)
Often it is said that Paul is essentially a “co-creator” of Christianity. It is he that put most of the Mosiac Law underpinnings to the Way, spelling them out in his letters. The Michael Hart book “The 100,” rating the most 100 influential persons who have ever lived, ranks Jesus (#3) after Mohammad (#1)largely for this reason—he reasons that Mohammad is fully responsible for founding his religion, but Jesus is only half-responsible for founding his. Paul is #6. Isaac Newton, @James Thomas Rook Jr. will be happy to know, is #2, since he is considered the father of science, which rivals religion in the eyes of many and is on the ascendency.
Hart also ranks Mohammad before Jesus on the basis that Mohammad’s followers by and large follow him, but Jesus’ “followers” by and large do not.
Of course, I view this co-creatorship between Jesus and Paul differently. To my mind, it is to be expected, given Paul’s background and education. He is “bringing his [scholarly] gift to the altar,” doing what the simple folks that comprised early Christian leadership, Peter, John, James, etc, could hardly have been expected to do.
Jesus could have done it, of course, but his course was not to suck up to the “educated people,” as though he needed their validation. His course was to appeal to the uncomplicated heart. Let others fill in the scholarly and (for the typical person) boring details—not boring to everyone, of course, but it is well known that Paul’s writings are not the synch to read that Jesus’ sayings are.
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On 7/23/2019 at 2:58 AM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
However, when checking into a room at a Hotel, I have NEVER been questioned about "Are you REALLY one of Jehovah's Witnesses", to get any available discount .
This is because the clerk sees you “discreetly parting your suitcoat to reveal your holstered gun, and he doesn’t dare.
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34 minutes ago, Witness said:
Are you a regular reader now?
Yes. I have cancelled my subscription to the Watchtower. Also The Week. Also my trips to the library. Also any further visits to JW.org. How could I ever have wasted all those hours?
Now I am a regular reader. I do nothing else.
(No. I have yet to visit. That is not to say maybe it will be so someday. Try.to keep your enthusiasm in check)
- BillyTheKid46 and Anna
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9 hours ago, Witness said:
Thirty-some years, and 4 VW vans later (one a 1974 bus), I now worship the Father in Spirit and truth.
No! Say it ain’t so. The only thing that is lacking is that your VW bus ownership does not stretch back to the original ones of the 60’s.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that the JW website should be taken down and replaced with a Facebook page like yours. That way, Zuckerberg will steal information willy-nilly, the way he does, and we can count it all as placements.
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1 hour ago, Witness said:
How do you define a repentant heart?
When Anthony Morris, at the 2016 Regional in Atlanta, spoke of coming down south, and his sons had asked him ‘What is a redneck?’ he replied that they “would know them when they saw them.”
He was having fun with his opening remarks. Everyone....well, almost everyone....took it in that spirit. In case there was someone who did not, in a subsequent talk he walked it back, referring the the gentle “folk wisdom” of the south.
He speaks off the cuff sometimes. Rise, for he too is human. He probably regrets that remark about the tight pants, because @James Thomas Rook Jr. has made it is yeartext ever since.
It is very difficult counseling a huge and diverse group of people One will say: “Thanks for the new RULE!!” and his companion will say: “Huh? Did you say something.”
I think they just don’t want to find themselves in the shoes of Lot, whose sons-in-law thought he was joking.
Even at the Watchtower study last Sunday, the conductor gave an aside about the tight pants, observing that they must have to be put on when wet, so as to allow the fabric to stretch over the feet. Strictly speaking, (even loosely speaking) it is not necessary. But an 80-year old can be forgiven for a few seconds (it was no more than that, and he is universally regarded as a man of integrity and good judgment) of scratching his head and expressing bewilderment at the world that is today.
This is the same Watchtower conductor whose lifelong secular work was that of a Porsche dealer mechanic, and who quit in disgust when Porsche began manufacturing SUVs, as though an elite art museum commended displaying that painting of the dogs playing poker. It’s not true, he tells me. He was about to retire anyway, but he does nothing to counter the meme that others have spread around.
This is the same Watchtower Study, on how the wisdom of Jehovah is superior to the wisdom of this world, in which I thought the artwork was wrong. The VW bus is one from the 70’s, whereas it should have been one with a funky grill that was from the 60’s. The impeccably dressed brother with the hat is from the 50s—hadn’t dress hats pretty well faded out by the mid-60s? And don’t get me going about the “hippy” conversing with him, who no doubt took off his wig and clothes thereafter and resumed his place analyzing a computer spreadsheet.
And while I am on the topic of that Watchtower:
My daughter is in town for a few weeks. At the study observation of how some say God-given sexual desire argues for promiscuity, she said: “Well, that’s stupid! God made me to have to pee, too. Does that mean I should pee my pants?”
“That’s my daughter!” I told the family gathering, as she related her remark. Frankly, I wish I had thought of it.
But back to the tight pants. They were tight in the early 60s, too, and I can remember battles with my [non-Witness] Dad because I wanted to wear them and he had a fit over it, though I gradually won out. Even the “spray-on” descriptions are from the past. I wore clamdiggers, too, cool pants that came in pastel colors, had a stripe down the side, and ended mid-shin. I wore them when visiting my uncle who lives way way out in the sticks, and he said: “What are you doing wearing peddle-pushers? Those are girls’ pants!!” They weren’t peddlepushers, you hillbilly. They were cool clamdiggers.
It’s not just pants. Ties widened in the late 60’s as well, regaining the status they previously had given up. I remember Brother Park giving a talk about how the Bethel brothers were very concerned for Brother Knorr, who showed up for meals day after day with very wide ties, at a time when the styles were changing—I think he say they ultimately became as thin as a pencil. Those brothers were so worried about him, because he was “not in style.”
“BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?!” he gasped. Ties began to reverse and became wider and wider—and now Brother Knorr is “in style!”
And yes, I have rambled a bit, doing what John has accused me of. Sorry.
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On 2/4/2019 at 6:48 AM, JOHN BUTLER said:
I never even knew there was a 'keep out' time. I cannot think of any scripture to back that up.
That’s because there is not. Jack is drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid.
On 2/4/2019 at 1:26 PM, Witness said:No mention of time limit after that was given; and no followup for years now, to see if indeed, I have a repentant heart defined by the WT.
This is because I have tipped them off that you do not appear to, and they can save themselves the gas and time by doing other things with them.
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12 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
and whose theology was almost EXACTLY the very best of what Jehovah's Witnesses teach today.
Even the part about 2060 being the final year?
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11 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
No, under U.S. copyright law it is legal to use derivative works if the intent is instruction, or satire, and I am always satirizing something.
Most of the involved cartoonists have said something similar to Einstein: “If I had known, I would have been a locksmith.”
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On 7/29/2019 at 8:57 PM, JW Insider said:
My wife's data was compromised, and she followed the steps that Equifax sent, including locking the data of all three of the big credit agencies making it very difficult to get new credit and nearly impossible for others to get credit using her name.
I locked mine long ago, and yes, it is a pain. I almost always forget that I have done it, and usually forget how to unlock it—though I am getting better. The greatest (though not only) reason that the scoundrels want to steal your info is so they can drain you dry, and a credit freeze makes that much less likely.
I think what needs to happen is that AOC be appointed CEO of Equifax.
By the way, the Green Deal that she floated before Congress that was largely shouted down, has been adopted independently, even enhanced, by Andrew Cuomo, the NYS governor. He is advertising that his new law will make New York, not only the greenest place in the country, but probably in the world. 70% of all power to be derived from windmills by 2030, up from the present 20% or so. All emissions of any sort are to be monitored.
I hear that @James Thomas Rook Jr. has signed on as the Chief Engineer.
There is a huge generational divide, not only on climate change, but on democracy. The young are far more likely to think climate change is the prime threat to life, while the older tend to be less concerned, often thinking it is a political plot of the left. To be sure, AOC wants to go left, and a very large—is the the majority?—of the young want to go there with her.
It will always be the case when the gap between rich and poor grows too great. The poor are not going to be students of economics—they’re poor, and preoccupied with survival. All they know is that whatever the system may be, it is not working for them, and they lose patience as they see things getting, not less equitable, but more.
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22 minutes ago, Witness said:
By the way, where is that video these days? It is hard to find.
Many things are hard to find, until you find them.
23 minutes ago, Witness said:According to the organization, they become toast in Armageddon, since it is absolutely necessary to be baptized into the organization, to have any chance of surviving into the “new world”.
24 minutes ago, Witness said:but it is the general consensus of JWs.
Which is it: “absolutely” or “the general consensus?”
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2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:
Do you agree Tom, about idea SM offered in his "revelation" ?
I don’t really know who anyone here is, nor do I know exactly where he is coming from. I skim a lot. I missed that point of his. It is enough to know that he is not against Jehovah’s people. One does not have to weigh in on every little thing. Not having seen it, I don’t know whether I agree with it or not.
I think that SM and I are not on the same page in everything, but for purposes of this forum, we share more ground than not. It is not at all like Witness and yourself—you, who have outgrown any need or desire for God—and she, who is far too pious even for me, quoting reams of verses every time she bats an eyelid, each of which you reject. And here she is lending you support as though a faithful wife. It is not that I am “displeased” with it. I just find it weird. That is what is “too much.”
It is not like when, ages ago, someone said of my young son that he was “too much” as she listened to him, and he later asked: “Why did that lady say that there was too much of me?”
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4 hours ago, Witness said:
He must have the ability to read each heart, just as the Father and Christ do. Why would he need scriptures?
This is too much—absolutely too much. Witness and @Srecko Sostarmaking common cause, as though she was his anointed. Meanwhile....
2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:As you get older, it's not so much about being "inspired", or "infallible" ... it's more about being uncomfortable, and uninsurable.
Let us freely admit it. There are times when nobody says it better than the ol pork chop..
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11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
When you have the TRUTH ... we would not have to knock on THEIR doors ... they would be knocking on OUR doors.
“And the 70 returned and they were bummed. The Lord said, “Why are you bummed.” They answered, “We sat at home from morning through the burning heat of the day, straight into evening, and nobody knocked on our door.”
11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:The fact of the matter is this ... day by day, in the eyes of the World, Jehovah's Witnesses are losing what credibility we USED to have, with general nuttiness .... and the Governing Body, in it's self aggrandizing attempts at damage control, are day by day, losing THEIR credibility, except with the slowest, the dull, and the trusting.
I don’t think that this is true. The nuttiness is no more than it has always been, and is in many respects less. To some extent, it is exactly what one would expect. Jesus said he did not come to call on those who do not need a physician—he came to call on those who do. When our people go nuts, they still would not hurt a fly. When those outside go nuts, for many of them you’d better call the SWAT team.
The conventions invariably make a good impression. Both the website and the literature carts add a measure of dignity not always conveyed by any given publisher. Events transpiring in Russia paint us as downright champions of human rights.
Yes, the charges of CSA are bad, but they are largely offset by the fact that there is no sizable group of persons not also enmeshed in them, as well as a general weariness of lawyers. You well remember when premiere television or billboard sponsors were manufacturers or vendors. Today they are lawyers, and people weary over the massive transfers of cash that they enable, whilst skimming off at least the top third. They think of all the things they used to be able to do that they no longer can do on account of lawyers making things cost-prohibitive, and it qualifies any zeal for whatever cause they might represent. Even as people as individuals hope that their turn winning the lawyer-lottery may come next, people as a group share a general sense that the barristers have destroyed the fabric of life. Insurance premiums of all sorts skyrocket at a time that overall inflation is quite low. Everyone knows why. Nonstop lawsuits on everything under the sun amounts to a tax on everyone else.
I think it is too much you pumping life into anti-Witness memes—living and breathing that life. You are consumed with them, and thus you come to think they far more occupy people’s attention than they really do.
It is like that with every cause. It is like that even with us. We start to imagine that everyone on earth is turning over in their minds and hearts the kingdom cause, siding for or against. But when I met an author in the dog park, he said: “Watchtower—that’s the Mormons, isn’t it?”
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/07/the-author-in-the-dog-park.html
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Just now, Witness said:
I am not Pearl Doxsey, but I work with her. Wow, you went to her website defying the rules and regulations of your organization, not to seek out, "apostates".
Oh, come now. He does it by showing up here.
I, however, have not. I really really really want to, but I am too scared.
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3 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:
And so that John does not once again attach his maniacal laughing emoji to whatever he disagrees with—which is anything from a faithful Witness—I will do it myself and beat him at his own game.
Uh oh. There does not seem to be that option anymore. I’m sunk. Something seems a little flakey with this software lately. Has the Librarian (that old hen) fallen off the wagon again?
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9 hours ago, Witness said:
TTH made the comment, "Witness runs a fine shop that she operates out of Facebook. Why don’t you go there?"
Yes, yes, another diatribe on why how are spreading out the Fine Feast on Facebook, whereas the JW anointed are no good. Still, you didn’t address the question. Why doesn’t he go there?
Actually, @James Thomas Rook Jr. had said it, and I missed it. Something about being the only game in town. It is hard to keep up.
I think he means that with Jehovah’s Witnesses there is a combination of pure teachings that are found no where else. Some of them are individually, but the combination is not. They involve such things as the Name, the kingdom, no immortality of the soul, no Trinity, the reason for suffering, the preaching work, the need to keep watchful, transformed personalities, and so forth. The Christian ministry is a treasure, however it is a treasure carried in “earthen vessels”—that is, people, who are not unflawed.
Although he fights so much and so bitterly with the bus driver that I can’t imagine why he doesn’t just leave—it would make the driver happier, the bus company happier, the passengers happier, and one would think, him happier—yet he does not do it, probably for the above reasons. (except for the ministry, and the nearness of the end, which he doesn’t seem to think is so)
People are a collection of their experiences, both those that have happened to them, and those they have manufactured. I have called John a loon. Maybe he is not, but he so closely resembles one that I cannot tell the difference. My bad. As much as he carries on about worshipping the GB (with key support from JTR at critical times), he cannot seem able to understand that it is factors in the second paragraph that form a Witness’s faith, and following the direction of the GB is no more than not fighting with the traffic cop or the coach or the mentor.
Let us humor him for a moment. Let us grant his dream come true, that malfeasance will someday be uncovered ....gasp!’....high up in the ranks. So? It would hardly affect one’s faith. They are men—everyone knows that. There have been many times in the past when the earthly organization is shaken practically into rubble—in America during WWI, in Axis countries during WWII, in Russia now—and as soon as the heat is off, God’s people rebuild like ants, because their faith was never in human arrangements—those just exist to facilitate and enhance spiritual things—their faith was in the spiritual things themselves.
Many times in the past brothers in responsible positions have proven unfaithful, sometimes even deceitful, and have been removed and replaced. It happens. Even GB members have been removed—sometimes with fanfare and sometimes not. Faith itself continues. It was never in human arrangements. It was in spiritual things. Enemies of the faith make the same mistake here that they do in Russia. Failing to grasp spiritual things, they imagine that if the shut down the earthly coordinating organization, the faith will collapse. Instead, it is like stomping on the anthill. The ants run for cover, but almost immediately they commence rebuilding. Their faith was never in the anthill—that was just their to magnify their ant-life.
The Bible reading last week in 1 Timothy 1:18 encourages ones (Timothy) to hold “faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust aside, resulting in the shipwreck of their faith. Hy·me·naeʹus and Alexander are among these, and I have handed them over to Satan so that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.” As long as you hold faith and a good conscience, you are fine—and the faith is with regard to God and his Son, as accurately represented by the factors of paragraph 2.
If Hymenaeus and Alexander go bad on you, to be sure, it is a downer, but it does not destroy faith and a good conscience.
And so that John does not once again attach his maniacal laughing emoji to whatever he disagrees with—which is anything from a faithful Witness—I will do it myself and beat him at his own game.
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2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
It makes no sense to you because you have missed the point tht Baptism to God and Christ is what is in the person's heart ....the fact that Witnesses are DELIBERATELY kept ignorant OF THE CORPORATE LOYALTY OATH, that they are ALSO swearing fealty to a Corporation excuses their ignorance, completely. Not every soldier is a John Rambo.
What makes no sense to me is that you have evaded my question. If you have peered into the deeper things of God and have decided that those running the show are frauds, why do you come to the meetings that they sponsor, as you must have for them to give you any grief.
Witness runs a fine shop that she operates out of Facebook. Why don’t you go there?
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7 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
Perhaps TTH, the person dedicating his life to Jehovah wanted to do it NOW .... just as the Ethiopian Eunuch did..
Did you drive him there in his chariot?
7 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:Perhaps there are some people that do not agree with the philosophy that JW.ORG
That being the case, why would he even show up afterwards at any meeting directed by his spiritual enemies, so that they could “take you and he to the back room” or however you phrased it? If their baptism is no good, why assume that their meetings are? It makes no sense.
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17 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:
If you think that the GB, Branch Office personnel and Circuit Overseers do not think of themselves as "Clergy", try baptizing your Bible Study one afternoon at a local public pool, without congregation oversight.
“What I mean is this, that each one of you says: “I belong to Paul,” “But I to A·polʹlos,” “But I to Ceʹphas,” “But I to Rook.”
Is there a reason that he cannot be baptized at an assembly or convention like every other Witness on the planet? Did you tell him to wear tight pants, too?
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2 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:
@Anna & @TrueTomHarley and others, please get your heads out of the sand
From “TrueTom vs the Apostates:”
Drive this matter of child sexual abuse to the Supreme Court, if need be. If they decide to hear it, it will be case number 50-something that Witnesses have tried before that body. Let it be resolved once and for all when the time is right. Many groups are driven to the edge these days over child sexual abuse, as it becomes almost the only issue that matters to some. Over such matters, the Boy Scouts are exploring bankruptcy proceedings. The Boy Scouts! who have long fought the evil but did not succeed in eliminating it. The Boy Scouts! who taught generations of boys to be responsible. The Boy Scouts! who I can’t walk the area trails without coming across historical kiosks or other amenities constructed as someone’s Eagle Scout project. The Boy Scouts! who when they were successfully sued on behalf of a single plaintiff in 2010 for $18.5 million, one of that person’s legal team stated his belief that they “have undertaken a truly noble and important task in mentoring young boys, for which they are to be commended,” and it was his sincere hope that the $18 million judgment “will impress upon them the need to do it better.” Now that he has driven them clear to insolvency, it will be a little hard for his dream to come true. Though groups as the Boy Scouts manifestly benefit children in ways not readily duplicated, their deep pockets permit a pummeling such as cannot be visited on unorganized segments of society, though it be every bit as accommodating to child sexual abuse—and without providing any benefit. It will be so with groups that instill religious values into youth as well.
1 hour ago, Witness said:With Anna's help I believe you are now aware that John Redwood wrote this. He is the same man who, with his wife, told their story in the Atlantic.
Some elders wanted to meet with him afterwords, and he published their names, photos, and addresses. I wrote of it here:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/04/he-has-blocked-me-i-think-that-says-it-all.html
1 hour ago, Witness said:I do hope you will get your questions answered as this develops.
Given how vested you are in this, it is surprising that you do not know
JW Lawyer on Disfellowshipping and Shunning
in Topics
Posted
It is revealing to me that those who taunt us endlessly over just how “inspired” are the ones at the helm today seem to take for granted that there should be ones who are that way. It gets even more crazy when words such as “infallible” are thrown in. “Perfect” is even worse.
“Look at what Brother Jackson said,” they gloat. “Guess he’s not so infallible after all, is he?” they say. They take for granted that for the Christian life to have validity in modern times, there should be ones who ARE infallible, who can and SHOULD spoon-feed members, so there is a lessened need for faith, and hopefully (from their point of view) none at all.
These ones wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in the first century, when the ones taking the lead were manifestly not that way. A local speaker with a dramatic flair enacted a fictional encounter from back then with an irate householder, a forerunner of today’s “apostates.” “What! You’re going to tell me about love?” he tells the visiting brother. “Look, I was there at that meeting of Paul and Barnabas after John took a leave of absence! You see those two kids there? [motioning to his young children playing on the floor] They do not fight as I saw those two grown men of yours fight! Why don’t you learn love yourself before you come here to lecture me about it!”
For that reason, I shy away from such loaded words as “infallible.” Maybe the insistence on infallibility is a holdover from the Catholic Church, which for centuries insisted that the Pope was that way. “Inspired” will also blow up in your face, because you end up doing backflips in translating just what the word should effectively mean now—or even then, when the “leading men” fought like kids. (I even put the word “apostates” in quotes, increasingly, because it comes in many varieties and it means different things to different people.)
It is enough to say that the written record, which includes the dealings and interactions of imperfect ones at the first-century helm, is deemed “inspired.” “All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.” This is so even though it includes the account of Peter’s astounding cowardess (given his leadership role at the time) of changing his association once the Jewish-based brothers came on the scene—before they did, he mixed freely with the Gentile-based Christians; after they did, he “withdrew” from them.
It is still “inspired.” It is enough for us to go on. It is enough to make us “fully competent” and “completely equipped for every good work.” Even though it includes the blunderings of the “uneducated and ordinary” ones that were the leaders back then—and the leaders today hold to that pattern—that is still the case. It is not at all what Srecko or John thinks it should be—a true “anointed” to wipe away every tear and smooth the path, (sorry, Witness) removing all pebbles so that the people of God can sail along blithely without really having to develop faith.