General Relativity and God's Law

  In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton developed the first laws of gravity based on his observations.  He hypothesized that all matter has a gravitation "flux" emanating from it outward to other matter and this "flux" was responsible for attracting other matter.  From this he was able to derive his basic Law of Gravitational Attraction

   Of course Newton could not prove the existence of this invisible flux but based on planetary motion and other experiments it all seemed to fit.   Newton's laws were also based on some basic fundamental foundations that seemed to make sense to the scientists of his time.  The first assumption is that all space can be described in a simple 3D (height,width,depth) Cartesian coordinate system and all observers would measure the same distances no matter their orientation or movement.  Second, all observers would measure the same amount of time to pass regardless of their location or movement.

   Both of these basic assumption all seemed to make sense.  Why wouldn't we all measure distances the same and all of our watches run the same?  No one could see a reason why not, and so for over 350 years those assumptions were never challenged.   That was until Albert Einstein came along.  His observations of light bending around the Sun revealed that Newton was not 100% correct in his assumptions.


   Therefore, because Newton's basic requirement was wrong, all the laws of motion, momentum , energy etc. all had to be re-evaluated leading to Einsteins greatest achievement: The General Laws of Relativity.   This paper showed that gravity is not some mysterious invisible "flux" but instead a bending of space-time by mass which causes objects moving in a straight-line to appear to be moving in a curved line to us.  Like marbles rolling on a large stretched sheet of rubber that has been indented by a large heavy bowling ball they appear to be changing their trajectory because of the curved rubber, but they are trying to stay on a straight line that has been changed by the bowling ball.

  
    So what is that to me?

    We are often like Newton and the scientists of his time.  We have basic assumptions of up,down,left,right and that all our watches are the same.  It all makes basic sense to us.  How we see the world and how we THINK it should work are not always correct.  For some of our decisions, like Newton's Law on Gravity, it works fine.  Newton wasn't 100% wrong but he wasn't 100% right either.  His law was "good enough" to get us to the moon and back but if we used it to get to a nearby star we would miss it by a billion or so miles.   We also, spiritually think we have it all figured out.  We know what is best and what is not.   Adultery?  That's just a new loving relationship being formed.    Pornography?  That's just extreme art.  Lying?  That's just an alternative form of the truth.   Stealing? That's just an individuals attempt to reapportion wealth from those who don't need it as much.

   But that is not how God sees it.   Like Newton thinking the world coordinate-system is all straight lines, what matters is how the universe sees the coordinate system.  So also, how we THINK the world should work and how God sees it are different, but in the end what matters is how God sees it and not you.

  Let's take sex outside of marriage for example.   To our "enlightened" world sex before marriage is perfectly okay.   We have been taught to not hold back our urges and that it is filling our basic needs for physical contact with other human beings.   Movies and TV shows promote endless examples of men and women having no-holds-barred sex and no-strings-attached either (just close the door when you leave!).  But now studies show that men who later decide to "settle down" cannot seem to "attach" themselves emotionally to their mate.  It's like the "glue" has all dried up in the bottle.  Could it be that we have gone against what God had designed us for?   Could it be that he knows how we operate?   Even when some try to have-their-cake-and-eat-too by living together it doesn't seem to workout.  Study after study shows that those who live together before marriage are 30% more likely to get divorced later.  Much of this is because while living-together, the men do not fully develop into men of substance.   They keep their childish ways (going out with the boys, watching porn, playing video games etc...) and those ways become more ingrained in their way of life.  So when it comes time to marry, those ways are "expected" to be put away to help in being a spouse and father, but now it's even harder to adjust because all those attitudes were thought to be acceptable to the other are now deemed unacceptable.

    God is not some irrational angry being.  He has reasons for his law and when we take the time to try to see things from HIS perspective we see that he is right.  Like Einstein seeing that space is really curved and not straight like how our brains feel it "should be" so also, we wee that God's law is really how things should be and not our interpretation.

All STATES Matter!

    If you want to piss someone off simply tell them: "You don't matter!"   Instantly you will have a fight on your hands.  We saw this when the whole "Black Lives Matter" movement came out and was met with "All Lives Matter" as a response.  Later this was followed with "Blue Lives Matter".  We all want to MATTER.  We all want to be heard and listened to and our needs met.

    The purpose of the Electoral College is very simple: To preserve the UNION.  We are the the United STATES of America and not the United Peoples of America.  That is really what is at issue here.   The states elect the President and not the PEOPLE.   The States created the Federal Government by coming together and writing the Constitution and ratifying it in their state legislatures back in 1791.   Our Constitution is about preserving our UNION of STATES pure and simple.  Our founding father recognized that not all our states are the same.   Some are more rural and some are more urban in nature.  They each have unique needs and wants that need to be balanced.   They saw the growth of the urban states.  They knew that the urban states would have a majority vote over the rural states without any care of their needs.  If left unchecked, this would eventually lead to civil war and a dissolving of our union.  In a sense, it's purpose to say to the Federal government: ALL STATES MATTER!

    To illustrate this, imagine family of five: a mother, a father, two boys and girl.  Imagine that to make decisions in the family they use a purely democratic system of voting.   It is a true statement that women have unique needs and wants that are many times different from that of men.   Let's say in our hypothetical family,  they want to decide where to go on vacation.  The males may want to go camping and fishing whereas the females may want to go to the city and see museums.   In their democratic system, the males would always out vote the females and get their way.   Year after year the women would be subjected to camping outdoors and smelly fish.  Other decisions as well during the year would not go their way.  Where they eat, what they do, what movies they see, what TV shows they watch etc would all be ruled by the men because they are in the MAJORITY.   Our Founding Fathers referred to this as the "tyranny of the majority".   The majority isn't always right and shouldn't always get their way.    In our family example, it would be better for the sake of harmony (and to prevent divorce) that the men give up their majority rights and do what the women in the family want to do.    It too is about preserving the UNION.  The union of the family in this case.

    Our country is much like this family in that the majority is not always right. All voices, like those of the rural states need to be listened to as much as those of the large urban communities.   Just like the men in the our family example aren't always right and it wouldn't hurt them to go to the city and see some museums from time to time.  So also, our country needs to listen to the right and do things their way from time to time.   It's all about preserving our UNION of STATES so we don't resort to separation because a large group of states no longer matters anymore.   Just look at the state of California.   While they are talking about seceding from the union (over an election), at the same time several northern counties in their own state are talking about seceding from the state of California to become their own state because they no longer matter either.

Dopamine addiction is real

   Dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter compound in the brain.  It is the brain's "feel good" compound that gives us our natural "high" when something good happens to us.   It re-enforces our desire to repeat an action or activity that we perceive as good for us.   We don't often think about what internally drives us to do the things we do.   We like to think we give money to various charities because we are inherently "good people" but how much of it is from our own brains internal desire to get another shot of dopamine?

   We look down our noses at drug addicts for their weakness to turn away from dangerous chemicals but when it gets down to it, in some sense we are all drug addicts.  Dopamine is such a strong chemical that few of us can say no to its lure.   What is worse, we don't even know that we are addicted to it.   No needle needs to be injected.  No pill swallowed.   No bottle to drink.   Nothing needs to be snorted, or inhaled.   It's always available.  It's always in store and ready to be consumed.  All that is needed is the proper stimulus to activate it and the list of activators is almost endless:

• Shopping
• Exercising
• Skydiving 
• Mountain climbing
• Tricks on skateboards
• Racing cars
• Riding motorcycles
• Getting good grades at school
• Getting promotions at work
• Eating
• Sugars
• Carbs
• Doing charity work
• Social media
• submitting pictures to Instagram
• posting on Facebook
• tweeting on Twitter
• blogging on YouTube
• Cleaning the house
• Organizing
• etc. etc. etc.

   Dopamine is important.  It's what allows us to get good at various activities.  Let's face it.  We all have to start somewhere and usually it's at the bottom.  In order to get better at anything we need to repeat it over and over again.   But unless there is some internal "reward system" it's very difficult to find the energy to repeat a process.   Small rewards act as that reward system and encourage us to try again and again.

   The school system has long been the biggest source of dopamine pushers.  From little on, we were given bright GOLD STARS on our little works of art or assignments to reward us for our effort.   Seeing those gold stars on our paper would give us our first push of dopamine into our little 5 year old brains and BAM!! We were hooked.  We would do anything to get another one of those gold stars or see our name listed on a bulletin board for high achievement or honors.   Even if he we ourselves were not the recipient of the reward it would many times flow down to us as well.   I can still remember seeing my brother Jim who was 4 years older than me graduate from high school with a gold cord hanging over his shoulders for "Honor Roll".   I was going to be a freshmen the next year and thought to myself "If Jim can be Honor Roll then I know I can be too!"  I put a plan into place the next year to prove I could do it (before I was just a A/B student).   Four years later I walked down the aisle with the same gold cord over my shoulders and surpassing my brother with a 4.0 (he only had a 3.93).  That was probably my biggest push of dopamine I had ever experienced.

    Dopamine rules the world.  It's what drives us to build bigger, faster, stronger, cheaper, better.  It drives businessmen to expand their businesses.  It drives the wealthy to become wealthier.  It drives the Philanthropist to give away even more.  It drives the worker to work even harder.  It drives the athlete to play harder and practice more.  It drives the actor to take on more challenging roles.  It drives the musician to go on the road and perform on stage in front of thousands.

   But it also has it's downside as not every dopamine activator is beneficial over the long term.  Take for example the most common activator today:  Social Media.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pintrest are all built around a common theme.  Feedback.   Whether it's a re-post, re-tweet, a "like" or a comment, it all serves the same purpose: to give the user a dopamine shot.  How many of us post a comment or picture on Facebook and await our friends replies and comments.  We sit there anxiously waiting for their hopefully "positive" replies.   We might even hold off on a post in the evening because we know most of our friends might be asleep and not see it.   Like the old philosophical question goes: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sounds?  So likewise, if I make a great post and no one sees it, does it matter?   I think we are not so much interested in changing the world as we are in getting our little daily/hourly/minute injection of dopamine.  If we are so lucky to have a comment go viral or at least go into the double/triple digits we may be high for the rest of the day or week as we achieved a new level of gold stars.  Also, heaven forbid, if we get a "negative comment" we become like a heroin addict who must fight back against those are threatening to take away their drugs.   We unleash on these poor bastards all the furry of hell who dare to challenge our view and our source of self-pleasure and self-worth.

   Another problem I think social-media has also had on our world is that it allows people to escape from the problems in their life.   Remember the list of things I said dopamine drives us to do?   Build bigger, faster ... work harder?  What if I am already getting all the dopamine I need through social-media?   What if my life is full enough by getting re-tweeted or "liked"?   Do I need to work hard at work?   Do I need to get promoted?   Do I need to hear praise from my boss or co-worker?  Maybe not.   Some people have labelled Millennials as "lazy".   I really don't think that is the case at all.   I think that, for many, they are getting their dopamine from social-media and so their brain's need for more dopamine is all tapped out.  At the same time, social-media can serve as surrogate supplier in bad times as well.  For example, in previous generations if you didn't get a great review from your boss you would work hard to fix it the next year to get a better review (a gold star).  But today, many can retreat their their other world of social media to pump them up and restore their lost dopamine supply.   The problem with this alternate source of dopamine, however, is that it's not a longer term supplier of what we need as a society.  Tweets or Posts, for the most of us, are not going to pay for a house, raise a family or provide a retirement income.  Escapism, whether with drugs, alcohol or social media, never works out in the end.

   As with any drug, it's the misuse of the drug that leads to problems rather than the what the drug is trying to do.   Pain killers, for example, are meant to dampen the pain receptors.  In the right context they allow the body to relax and the area that is causing the pain (maybe post surgery stitches) to heal. The problem becomes when the person only feels normal when they are taking the pain medicine and do other terrible things to fill that addition such as: lying to doctors, embezzlement, robbery and even murder. Likewise, dopamine addiction too causes the user to do things that are harmful to them or others.   The skydiver must take riskier jumps.   The sugar addict becomes obese.  The work addict ignores their family needs.   The social-media addict spends much of their time re-checking their account to check for responses and thinking of better ways to increase their positive feedback.  The texting addict drives with their knees on the steering wheel or with one hand firmly on the phone and their vision down and away from the on coming traffic unaware they have slowly drifted into the opposite lane. In all of these cases dopamine addiction was the root cause for their destruction.

   So next time you post another Facebook comment or tweet another snarky comment on Twitter, or sending another funny text message to a friend, maybe you should first ask yourself this:

Am I a dopamine addict?