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laldhillon.bsky.social

Stories make sense of chaos. https://laldhillon.substack.com/

98 posts 62 followers 247 following

Posts 20 Comments 29

"When the new Pope took on his role it was seen as a foretaste of the world to come, but now at the time of his death it feels as though he was fighting against a raging tide which has welled up on our shores." Some thoughts a week on from the passing of Pope Francis.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Some thoughts for the quiet of #holysaturday, about the moment where our idea of God collides with the real thing. #easter

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Records like this are illuminating. Words like this could role off the tongue of twenty or more politicians in any western democracy. They normalise depravity in an artistic and subtle way that we aren't really inoculated against.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

New substack is live! Some thoughts on desperation, and the place where we find God.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die. Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

submitted 23 days ago • 1113 comments

'Oh no, my cheating opponent has been caught cheating and disqualified - this will surely work in their favour' - it's obvious nonsense. Even if it does boost support for the far right, allowing your opponent to break the rules with impunity will probably be worse for you.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

If your god causes fires but the democrats control hurricanes, there’s a deep theological paranoia at work; it’s the church’s responsibility to resist this disoriented imagination split between ideology and theology

submitted 109 days ago • 0 comments

Dan: starts to suspect Minah then immediately flames out at the roundtable. The monkey paw in Minah's room: #theTraitors

submitted 109 days ago • 0 comments

I see three distinct phases. Pre-Fox, when opinion was diverse but actual facts were indisputable. Fox/Trump, where objective truth was subjected to the false equivalence of ‘alternative facts’ (ie lies). And now, where media & tech platform owners collude with him to drown out the truth altogether.

submitted 111 days ago • 117 comments

The fact checking activisms of tech platforms were always more public relations than comprehensive attempts to dam up the torrent of mis/disinfo. Remember, the logic of these platforms (no matter what slogans they use) is committed to capturing data on every aspect our lives.

submitted 112 days ago • 0 comments

It's hard to think of a worse aberration than a genAI sermon. Preaching is a spiritual and relational activity. You might as well ask the machine to pray for you while you're at it.

submitted 115 days ago • 0 comments

#theTraitors is microcosm of the UK: equal parts dumb, dystopian and wholesome. You've got a lowkey racist pile on of someone for being nice+a doctor, a very smart black woman running rings around everyone else, and someone who is pretending to be welsh for reasons only she fully understands.

submitted 115 days ago • 1 comment

One of the great things about #TheTraitors is that it doesn't (yet) seem to be being played by people who've seen 'The Traitors'.

submitted 115 days ago • 36 comments

All my best photos have the bairn in, but I quite like these too

submitted 119 days ago • 0 comments

This thread nails it. GenAI advocates at uni don't realise that they are devaluing their product because they think the product is the writing the student produces and not the student themselves.

submitted 124 days ago • 0 comments

This would be fine if there were AI tools which genuinely improved the learning process, but there aren't. In most cases it makes things worse e.g by encouraging plagiarism or feeding students bad info. I'm not obligated to use a bad, unethical tool just because it cost a lot of money to make.

submitted 135 days ago • 0 comments

Advent invites us to dare talk of hope in a time of despair and dread. But the hope of Advent isn’t fanciful sentiment. It’s gritty trust. Wide-eyed honesty. Facing hopeless human situations, clinging to God’s promise of deliverance. Like the prophet Jeremiah, buying a plot of land during a siege.

submitted 149 days ago • 1 comment

Theology in Scotland journal's themed issue on Reimagining Church and Society is out now - and the access is free! For an introduction, have a look at my editorial at ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TI...

submitted 143 days ago • 0 comments

Day 13 - Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky💙📚 #Books #BookChallenge

submitted 146 days ago • 0 comments

Day 12 - Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky💙📚 #Books #BookChallenge

submitted 147 days ago • 0 comments