I know Einstein has been frequently cited by both atheists and the religious alike but it looks like he wasn't exactly either From the AP http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001 [rquoter]Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’ Famous scientist also dismisses belief in God as product of human weakness LONDON - Albert Einstein: arch rationalist or scientist with a spiritual core? A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish." The letter, handwritten in German, is being sold by Bloomsbury Auctions on Thursday and is expected to fetch between $12,000 and $16,000. Einstein, who helped unravel the mysteries of the universe with his theory of relativity, expressed complex and arguably contradictory views on faith, perceiving a universe suffused with spirituality while rejecting organized religion. The letter up for sale, written to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954, suggests his views on religion did not mellow with age. In it, Einstein said that "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." "For me," he added, "the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." Addressing the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people, Einstein wrote that "the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them." Bloomsbury spokesman Richard Caton said the auction house was "100 percent certain" of the letter's authenticity. It is being offered at auction for the first time, by a private vendor. Quirky beliefs John Brooke, emeritus professor of science and religion at Oxford University, said the letter lends weight to the notion that "Einstein was not a conventional theist" — although he was not an atheist, either. "Like many great scientists of the past, he is rather quirky about religion, and not always consistent from one period to another," Brooke said. Born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1879, Einstein said he went through a devout phase as a child before beginning to question conventional religion at the age of 12. In later life, he expressed a sense of wonder at the universe and its mysteries — what he called a "cosmic religious feeling" — and famously said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." But he also said: "I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws." Brooke said Einstein believed that "there is some kind of intelligence working its way through nature. But it is certainly not a conventional Christian or Judaic religious view." Einstein's most famous legacy is the special theory of relativity, which makes the point that a large amount of energy could be released from a tiny amount of matter, as expressed in the equation e=mc2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). The theory changed the face of physics, allowing scientists to make predictions about space and paving the way for nuclear power and the atomic bomb. Einstein's musings on science, war, peace and God helped make him world famous, and his scientific legacy prompted Time magazine to name him its Person of the 20th Century.[rquoter]
Does it really matter? The man is admired for his scientific genius, not because he's an atheist or a devout Jew. I somewhat resent these types of discussions because they tend to be used by either 'camp' (i.e. the self-assured pro-God and anti-God crowd) as some sort of circumstantial evidence that supports their views. I don't really think individual beliefs about the existence of a god (even those belonging to world-renowned scientists) amounts to much more than just an opinion. I am somewhat indifferent about this topic, although I do find Einstein to be one of the most intriguing individuals of the past few centuries.
Einstein is commonly used as a proxy for intelligence, so it's a symbolic battleground in the current culture war.
I hate Einstein. His formulas are much harder than Newton. That guy's crap makes sense (who cares if it is right or not)
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism." -- Albert Einstein http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm
When a bunch of individuals have the same opinion (or they think they do) they will tend to treat their belief as a fact. Facts require evidence to even make them facts. I can believe anything I want but my opinion better be backed up by facts. Einstein was good with PR and used the 'god' word in a more poetic sense. Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down kind of thing. People would have called him a heretic if he didn't. In another time when beliefs were considered fact he would have been literally burned.
Treemac's post fits with this editorial... The Neural Buddhists By DAVID BROOKS In 1996, Tom Wolfe wrote a brilliant essay called “Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died,” in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists. To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident. In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems. You put a magnetic helmet around their heads and they will begin to think they are having a spiritual epiphany. If they suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they will show signs of hyperreligiosity, an overexcitement of the brain tissue that leads sufferers to believe they are conversing with God. Wolfe understood the central assertion contained in this kind of thinking: Everything is material and “the soul is dead.” He anticipated the way the genetic and neuroscience revolutions would affect public debate. They would kick off another fundamental argument over whether God exists. Lo and behold, over the past decade, a new group of assertive atheists has done battle with defenders of faith. The two sides have argued about whether it is reasonable to conceive of a soul that survives the death of the body and about whether understanding the brain explains away or merely adds to our appreciation of the entity that created it. The atheism debate is a textbook example of how a scientific revolution can change public culture. Just as “The Origin of Species reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity affected art, so the revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world. And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible. Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development. Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment. Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real. This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism. If you survey the literature (and I’d recommend books by Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio and Marc D. Hauser if you want to get up to speed), you can see that certain beliefs will spread into the wider discussion. First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is. In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism. In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe me. I’m just trying to anticipate which way the debate is headed. We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.
Buddhism is a very modern religion. It's the first major religion to claim the vastness of the universe and the zillions of living things in it. It does not attempt to explain the creation of the universe because no one knows how the universe was created. This concept of a soul and reincarnation is not accepted because science cannot prove it yet. But that does not mean it's not there. Kind of like gravity. It's always been around, but people didn't know about it until Newton. Like ghosts, don't we all agree they exist? But wait, don't you either you go to heaven or hell? So why are there ghosts on earth? If you're undecided on religion, I suggest Buddhism. You don't need to worship any buddha to become a buddha. Kind of like if you study hard enough, you'll become a professor like your former professor, instead of forever being his student.
I think there's a projected image of God that others believe Christians and Jews believe in which isn't at all what they believe in. This idea of a god marching around some celestial realm with a toga on is a Greek concept that has very little to do with the God that Jesus would have understood from first century Judaism....but as I read commentary of what others believe I believe, I'm just struck how they're not even close.
but there is a very big conceptual difference between the judeo-christian versus the buddhist vision of god.
Christian version of god= Jesus Christ I think the Buddhist version is = mostly their is no god unless you want to believe that way. (obviously I don't know that much about Buddhist beliefs on god)
I agree...it's why I have a hard time with the Universalist approach...because it seems to me that's ignoring what Buddhists and Christians are saying about what they believe. There are differences. I believe God loves everyone. I believe I'm to do the same.
I greatly admire the lengthy theological underpinnings and Christian view of a metaphorical God (such as the Word, Idea into form, love, or a path of a personal good through Jesus), but I'm more mixed on thoughts of an eternal afterlife or concepts of a permanent and unchanging soul that American Christianity stereotypically focuses upon. I'm also mixed on the afterlife concepts of Eastern Mahayana Buddhism. Some sect's ideas of reincarnation reminds me of an amnesiac player of a video game who only retains memory after she finishes a life with a high score. I don't think I can accept the permanence of a soul. To me, the permanent soul seems to be a human attachment for even more meaning in what should already be an existence loaded with personal meaning. Maybe I'm getting the wrong idea on what the Christian interpretation of the afterlife means. If it's something like Hell being away from God's love, and Heaven being in the presence of God's constant love, I still can't come to grips with the permanent soul. Because if that were so, then the gift of free will is lost regardless of where you end up. Speaking of free will, I still worry about scientists tinkering into it. It isn't a lack of faith that humanity is a code science can crack, but rather the eagerness for scientists to declare that the code has been successfully cracked, and a public so willing to believe them.
