Chronicles in Ordinary Time

 “The key idea of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that gravity is not an ordinary force, but rather a property of space-time geometry.”
http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/generalRT/GeomGravity

“…general relativity is about more than just understanding gravity. It’s about explaining the totality of existence. General relativity inspired a new vision of the entire fabric of the cosmos. From general relativity flowed the realization that the universe is expanding, that it contains spacetime bottomless pits called black holes, that it is traversed by ripples in space triggered by cataclysmic collisions.
“The implications for the further reaches of the universe were more surprising than even Einstein ever realized,” physicist Stephen Hawking has written.
General relativity explains how the universe can obey physical laws that apply to any form of motion. It’s at the heart of identifying and investigating crucial questions about space and time, existence and reality. And its implications are not limited to esoteric concerns on cosmic scales — it has its down-to-Earth impacts as well. Without general relativity, for instance, GPS devices would be worthless. Satellite signals designed to keep your car on the right road would be off by miles if not corrected for the effects predicted by Einstein’s math.  -Tom Siegfried
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/einsteins-genius-changed-sciences-perception-gravity

I’m not a physicist, but I am fascinated with physics. Our understanding of gravity is theoretical. It’s a pretty good theory, and aspects of the theory are demonstrated all the time. However, no one really understands gravity; nor does anyone really know why gravity exists We haven’t ventured far enough into the Universe to know that the theory is True throughout the Universe. It’s simply the best explanation that has come along.

The image on the right was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, a few days before it crashed into the atmosphere of Saturn last week. The upper part of the image shows a portion the rings of Saturn; the lighter area at the bottom of the image are believed to be ice crystals ejected by one of Saturn’s moons. A portion of Saturn itself, is in the black area at top left of the image. It’s black because it’s facing away from the Sun, the light source for all the light in our Solar System. The image on the left was created from the data transmitted from Cassini.

Years ago, while working with NASA, Carl Sagan requested that the Voyager spacecraft take a parting photograph of the view behind, as Voyager left the Solar System. In that photo, Earth was seen as a tiny blue spot in a shaft of light.

The Universe is far larger than we can possibly imagine. A human tendency toward hubris—excessive pride or self-confidence—leads us to imagining that we know for a fact, those things we know very little about.

Those whose faith resides in Science often use the same kind of language to discount those whose faith resides in a Creator. Granted, many of those whose faith resides in a Creator use language that isn’t sophisticated, and cannot provide mathematical proofs to give credence to their ideas. I cannot provide proofs to my ideas about the Creator, my ideas about the Universe. All I can tell you is that when I was an atheistic young adult, I encountered the Spirit of the Creator of all life; and this encounter changed the direction of my entire life.

From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan:

“…There is no reason I should expect an omnipotent being to leave evidence of His existence, except that the Gifford Lectures are supposed to be about that evidence. And I hope it is clear that the fact that I do not see evidence of such a God’s existence does not mean that I then derive from that fact that I know that God does not exist.
“That’s quite a different remark. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Neither is it evidence of presence. And this is again a situation where our tolerance for ambiguity is required. The only thrust of these remarks is for those—and it’s by far the greatest majority of contemporary theologians—who believe that there are natural pieces of evidence for the existence of God or gods. And so, I have no problems with any of that. And, as you say, if a god existed who gave us free will or merely noted that we had free will, and wished to let our free will operate, then he or she or it might very well give us no evidence of his, her, or its existence for just that reason.
“…That we have to use our sense organs and our intellectual abilities to comprehend these issues, I think, is apparent. Perhaps they are limited, but it’s all we have. So, do the best with what we have. Don’t foist, I say, our predispositions on the universe. Look openly at the universe and see how it is. And, how is it? It is that there’s order in there. It’s an amazing amount of order, not that we have introduced but that is there already. Now, you may choose to conclude from that fact that there is an ordering principle and that God exists, and then we come back to all the other arguments: Where did the ordering principle come from? Where did God come from? If you say that I must not ask the question of where God came from, then why must I ask the question of where the universe came from? And so on.” [emphasis added]

From an old entry: Chronicles in Ordinary Time 68: We aren’t what we think we are
https://mjarts.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chronicles-in-ordinary-time-68-we-arent-what-we-think-we-are/

Imagine a baseball stadium…

I’m not really a science guy, but I’m fascinated with science; I find that my generic understanding of science helps me to understand the Universe, which means that science helps me understand the nature of the Creator.

As I understand it, if an atom was the size of a baseball stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a baseball, and the electrons of a water molecule would orbit somewhere within the confines of the stadium structure. Quantum mechanics, and that concept which is sometimes, but not necessarily accurately, called ‘Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle’, proposes that the act of looking for a particle actually changes the location of the particle—so I’ve indicated the Hydrogen molecules as amorphous ‘star’-like images. When you look to find these atomic particles, they will most likely be somewhere else…

The rest of the volume of the stadium is empty. Electromagnetic forces and nothing solid. We are made up of zillions of atoms; consequently, we are made up of zillions of packets of empty space and a ‘few’ atomic particles. And yet, we believe ourselves to be made up of solid material. The apparent solidity is caused by the electromagnetic forces within the atoms.

We aren’t what we think we are.

So, what are we?

A question that has been asked for Millennia. One of the aspects of living in this cyber-era is that we have a tendency to believe we know so much more than our human counterparts of the last centuries. There are a lot of ‘factoids’ that we now know that people in the past did not know; but that doesn’t always mean we are all that much wiser…

I believe that everyone’s idea of the Creator is too small. This is ‘an occupational hazard’ of being human. Our minds can only perceive so much. People can’t really imagine an Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creator; we are stuck here in time, never knowing what’s ahead, and relatively powerless to accomplish anything that will last. But we dream of More. We realize that we were made for More; until the World squishes such thoughts out of our minds; by its incredible and ever-growing weight.

That ‘blue dot’ is not anywhere near the center of the Universe; it isn’t anywhere near the center of the Milky Way; I believe this is the idea that first confounded the ‘religious experts’ of earlier centuries. ‘Surely [‘stop calling me Shirley’] we, who are created in the image of God, must be in the center of the Universe.’ In reality, we are probably located in a low-rent district near the edge of the galaxy.

I believe it is our ability to think that is how we are made in the image of the Creator. I know from my own experience that we can change the way we think; we can change the way we perceive our world. I believe that we can come in contact with the Creator of the Universe through the labyrinthian pathways of our brains. Functional MRIs can plot the path of a thought. Functional MRIs can show that in the mind of one with Bipolar Disorder, thoughts get blocked; as if by a roadblock on the freeway. Studies have shown that with rather drastic methods, those ‘roadblocks’ can be bypassed. Sometimes those blockages can be bypassed with the use of ancient herbal formulae.

I believe we can re-program our brains through the way we think. I believe that the Spirit of the Creator can help us to reprogram our brains; and can ‘plant’ new ideas in our brain. We do not have to be the victims of our brain chemistry. But changing the way our brains operate doesn’t just happen; one has to cooperate with the process, and it requires a lot of work.

I believe these ideas because I have seen them at work in my own life. I have become a person, that in the past, I did not want to be. I have discovered that other people are more important to my life than I am. By nature, I am a curmudgeon who really doesn’t care about people I do not know. In spite of myself, I’ve changed.

A friend asked:

My sensory nerves are ‘dissolving’—I lose sensation on a continual basis; and a bunch of neurologists have no explanations as to why, or how long. Ironically, as I lose these sensations, they are often replaced with pain. Sometimes, intense pain. For the most part, the pain does not get worse when I move. So, I keep moving.

I have spinal damage in my neck and lumbar regions—damage that probably occurred in high school. My parents didn’t have the money, and didn’t see the need, to take me to a neurologist. I have no proof it happened in high school. I’ve been in three ‘totaled’ car wrecks, and did stupid stuff as a contractor. The old damage that shows up in contemporary MRIs could have occurred sometime in the first decades of my adult life.

All I know for sure is that the continual pain I’d felt for years, went away one day; the day after I went to a ‘Crusade’. I felt compelled to ‘go forward’ with the dozens of people who were leaving their seats in the Civic Auditorium. I did not want the ‘Spiritual Gifts’ the preacher was handing out. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to go forward. Nothing happened that night, beyond embarrassment. The next day I realized that the pain in my low back, pain I’d had for years, was gone. It stayed away for a long time. Apparently, something happened in my brain that was ‘stronger’ than my brain chemistry and the damage to my spine. My mind overcame pain.

But I can’t prove it; and I can’t download software into your brain. Part of the continuing story of my faith walk. Stuff I cannot prove. My experience in encountering the Spirit of the Creator has become my “Formal Principle”.

The 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation is taking place soon. Martin Luther nailed his ‘Ninety-Five Theses’ to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517. The ‘official’ beginning of the Reformation. His intense study of Scripture became his “Formal Principle”.

I wasn’t raised in the Church; I never entered a church sanctuary until I was in my twenties. My reading of the Bible happened in the same time period as my reading of Marcus Aurelius. Both are profound. While I believe that the Bible is entirely inspired by the Spirit of the Creator; and is entirely True in its original languages, for the purposes that they were written; I don’t believe the Bible is entirely factual. In one of the oldest books of Torah [Older Testament], the Creator speaks to Job, and tells him that about 2/3 of what was written—the speeches by Job’s ‘Comforters’—is actually nonsense. However, it hadn’t been written at that time, so we aren’t entirely sure which 2/3 is being referenced.

Jesus and His Apostles practiced Judaism, not Christianity; an altered Judaism, which is what caused the Religious Right to be ticked off. That which became the Newer Testament was written to believers who practiced Judaism as taught by Jesus. They later became known as Christians, but there’s no indication that they stopped practicing Judaism. Judaism without circumcision, and without Kosher food. This is probably about as far away from Luther’s Holy Roman Catholic Church as one can get, while still using the name of Jesus. I have trouble believing that Paul and the Apostles realized that they were writing the “Formal Principles” of the modern Church. Would their writings have been different, if they knew what was to come? I have no idea.

We won’t know, until Time does not matter.