Critic Cal

The ceaseless boundless thoughtless tribal head-to-head which is the social interweb plays host to many glorious, definitive, profoundly opposition-overwhelming JPEGs which are variously tweeted, posted, liked, re-tweeted, followed, commented-on, shared, reported, voted (up or down), removed from News Feed (hide all stories...? change what updates...? send feedback to [insert friend here]...?) and generally marvelled at in any of several possible senses for all of a matter of seconds before the page refreshes to deliver a fresh cavalcade of bite-sized resolutions to the deepest, most bewildering bewilderments of human nature and existence: Reality? Wow! Really? For sure? I mean...really? 'Cos, well, I always, like, totally wondered about that. What is the deal, then? All this stuff around me...the fabrications of Descarte's malevolent demon ? the projections of my own imagination ? What am I? a  brain in a vat ? a cell in a giant battery powering the Matrix ? if...

The Rings Of Akhaten  -- episode 2 of the current Doctor Who series -- culminates with a sweat-dripping, hubris-bristling rendition, from the eponymous physician himself, of what is essentially an out-and-out New Atheist manifesto, all set to a stirring choral accompaniment and staged in front of a cosmic CGI backdrop: "Okay then. That's what I'll do. I'll tell you a story. Can you hear them? All these people who lived in terror of you and your judgment. All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh you like to think you're a god. But you're not a god. You're just a parasite. Eat now with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow, so... so come on then. Take mine. Take my memories. But I hope you're got a big a big appetite. Because I've lived a long life. And I've seen a few t...

One of the many nice things about working in a place full of intelligent and interesting people [1] is that they tend to know about such intelligent and interesting things. A slightly unfortunate consequence of this is that I can't seem to have a conversation with any one of them without adding to my already infeasibly long list of things I'd like to read/watch/listen to/learn about. Gone, for instance, are the days when I could dismiss the entirety of contemporary fiction as unworthy of my attention; enough of it has found favour enough with my respected companions that I must resign myself to the likelihood that some of it may have some merit to it after all. Thus did I deign to read ' The Shadow of the Wind ', a novel 18 years my junior. And -- *sigh* -- it quickly won my begrudging affection with its warmth, compassion and convicting insight; even, in places (briefly, mind, and inferiorly) prompting comparison with ' The Brother...

"Truly, you are a God who hides himself." said Isaiah (45:15) Why?! If there is a God, why does He not make Himself more obvious? Think how much simpler it would all be if there was a yes/no answer that was universally evident. Dallas Willard posits that the hiddenness of God allows people to define themselves: And why would God hide himself? Because God loves us, he wants to be known to us. That is the way of love. But because we, in our rebellion against him, are hardened in our insistence on having our own "kingdom," he must hide from us to allow us to hide from him and to pretend we, individually and corporately, are in charge of our life. He is such a great and magnificent being that, if he did not hide from us, we could not hide from him. He allows us the pretense of being our own god because that is what we want, what we choose. Pushed to the limit, this choice results in the terrible evils of which we have proven capable. (From ' The Craftine...