3MN: Three questions determine 99% of the goodness in your life
Happy 3-Minute Thursday!
You are busy, so let's make this quick. No fluff, no filler, no spamming. This newsletter will help you think in the best way and be a Christian on purpose.
💬 In the next three minutes:
☝️ The dark ambition of Oppenheimer (father of the atomic bomb).
✌️How Albert Einstein started and ended nuclear fallout.
👌 Three questions determine 99% of the goodness in your life.
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💣 Minute 1 - The high cost of science.
A new generation of Americans is learning about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project thanks to Christopher Nolan's latest film. The highly anticipated Oppenheimer is the buzz of Hollywood and a clear frontrunner for Best Picture. The film is based on the true events of a physicist driven by dark ambition, who seeks to develop an atomic bomb to end the war.
The film explores the moral implications of wielding such immense power and the consequences of seeking divine-like destructive capabilities. Oppenheimer’s faith was in Science, which is to say, he believed in man’s ability to conquer and master nature for man’s own knowledge and power using the scientific method.
In the film, when the first bomb was successfully tested, Oppenheimer quoted Vishnu from the Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." There's some debate about what he meant, but it seems he saw himself as a god-like figure at that moment. He chose to pursue scientific progress without considering the consequences, becoming almost like a "god" of science.
Oppenheimer was a man of tortured conscience. Almost immediately, he experienced the pangs of guilt over the “poor little people,” e.g., the tens of thousands of Japanese men, women, and children civilians who were incinerated or died later from radiation poisoning. Perhaps his conscience was convicting him that, inasmuch as their fiery and radioactive deaths were offered as a sacrifice in the name of Science, the cost was too high. Even though Oppenheimer himself doesn’t seem to have admitted this in so many terms, he did admit in a 1965 television interview (which is not in the film), that he and his fellow physicists had “known sin,” the sin of pride, by thinking they knew what was best for man and the world.
⏱️ Minute 2 - Einstein's science and regret.
A reflection from Albert Einstein, whose famous equation E=mc2 explains the energy released in an atomic bomb, but doesn't explain how to build one.
The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
When Einstein learned that the Germans might succeed in solving these problems, he wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt with his concerns. Einstein's 1939 letter helped initiate the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb.
🍎 Minute 3 - Can “great” men be “good”?
Reflecting on this duality, events like the Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project remind us that greatness alone does not define a person's character. The pursuit of greatness should always be accompanied by an unwavering commitment to goodness and ethical conduct.
THREE THINGS FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT
Three questions determine 99% of the goodness in your life:
- How have I shown kindness or helped others today?
- Did I treat others with respect and consideration?
- Have I been honest in my words and actions?
Everything else is noise.
VERSE OF THE WEEK 🔥
S M, G, A K M H; T M A K M A T.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Psalm 139:23
Until next week,
Payton Minzenmayer
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