Einstein and God

Here is an email I received in response to one of my essays on religion.

Einstein and God

Lee Ryman : leeryman@email.com : 2001-09-02

I wish to thank you for a great website. Finally I’ve found a site that explains the stuff you need to know without going into the stuff you don’t. It is very clear and the references to other websites are also a plus.

I specially enjoyed reading the Combating Kristianity page. I could not agree more to what your saying, people continually inflate the simple Christian faith to unbelievable proportions. It is a way of life in amongst a great variety of ways-of-life, not some hype reality TV show in which we are all supposed to act. I used to go to church regularly, but I got tired of pastors and fuddy-duddies (my term for the overly fundamental, similar to your Kristians i think) telling me we are all going to die for our sins/we should be evangelists for the faith/we have sinned and will die/etc. etc. etc. Can’t I just experience this universe and live life to the full and encourage others to do the same whatever they believe? isn’t that what its all about? Heck, just the way people go about their daily life is better evangelism than anything I’ve seen.

The quote from Einstein at the top of the page got me thinking about a way-back high school assignment on him. From what I remember, he had a deep belief that there was a creator god, the perfection in science he saw in the universe around him leading him to that believe. Did you ever get that impression when reading his works?

Once again, a very though inspiring website.

On the topic of religion, Einstein said the following:

"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." He was upset at the lack of order implied in Quantum Mechanics. I think he might prefer the Many World’s Interpretation which avoids that gambling element.
"I want to know God’s thoughts… The rest are details.", and by that I think he meant the design intentions behind the physical properties of the universe.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." I suspect Einstein was thus impatient with religions that claimed to have pat answers to all questions. He might have thought along the lines of my real god essay.
"When the solution is simple, God is answering." By this, I take it to mean, the true nature of the universe is simple, and elegant. You know you are on the right track when everything suddenly simplifies.
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." I take it he would agree with me that conventional religions are blasphemous. They paint God in such a petty light.
"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love." I take it he disliked the sloppy way that flakes use science. He might have disapproved of the lack of rigour in my personal philosophy essay.
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." Again I think Einstein was impatient with conventional religion. It blinds people to the mystery, wonder and awe right under their noses. It insists they keep their noses buried in one and only one musty old book.
Einstein wrote a series of letters where he explained why he believed there was no personal God.
Einstein wrote an essay on the futility of prayer.
Like me, Einstein also wanted to wean humanity from a personal god. He wrote his own versions of my Combatting Kristianity page.
For more quotations see Einstein Quotations.
Einstein wrote extensively on the connection between science and religion. You can find even more with a Google search on "Einstein religion"

And Einstein was not a Christian.

This may sound crazily grandiose, but I see one of my missions in life is to carry on Einstein’s work in trying to make the connections between science and religion a legitimate field of study. I hope some day will will have a science of belief engineering where where we study precisely why people believe what they do, how people can change their beliefs, and the effects those beliefs have on their subjective and objective experience. We will study such questions as how do you get people to behave altruistically? How do you get people to treat each other well? How do you get people to take long range consequences into consideration? And of course we will iron the kinks out of the Quantum Philosophy.

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