Refractions and Reflections

[ source ] I am a Once Upon a Time fan - it is one of the handful of television shows I keep up with on Hulu. It often makes me think theologically. In the most recent episode [season 4, episode 9], for instance, Ingrid casts the spell of shattered sight on Anna; the purpose of the spell has always been to distort people's perceptions of what they see. Theologically, it makes me second-guess myself. The literal rendering of the Bible passages that speak of God allowing people to "believe a lie and be damned" or "turning them over to a reprobate mind" has always caused me fear - would God actually allow me to be deceived because I dared think outside the box of legalistic religion? I don't think so. But I still have a few remnants of that insecurity. And then on the road searching for Emma, Mary Margaret and Regina have a conversation about whoever wrote the book in which their lives have been chronicled. Regina is convinced that the author decided ...

I have been watching Doctor Who. In Season 1 Episode 11, the time lords take the last remaining member of the Slitheen family aboard the TARDIS to return her to her home planet and save the earth from her scheme to destroy it. The prisoner tells her captors they are taking her to her execution. The character Mickey tells her she deserves it. She responds that he is very quick to assume so. She says, "You're awfully quick to soak your hands in my blood, which makes you better than me how, exactly?" On one hand, an answer might be that the Slitheen's fate has been decided by the authority of Law - who are the time lords to interfere with what has been deemed just? In a subsequent scene, when the Slitheen describes the tortuous way in which she will be executed, the doctor stoically tells her, "I don't make the law." She responds, "But you deliver it. Will you stay to watch?" On the other hand, most people who take up a cause of "justice...