Spinning Yarns About Einstein's "Faith"
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:28 am
DAR
It is a constant battle trying to get people to understand Einstein's rather complex views on "God." His famous quote: "God does not play dice with the universe", explaining his position on QM and determinism confuses a lot of people.
But lately this Walter Isaacson fellow seems to be everywhere promoting his latest book, a 704 page Tome entitled: "Einstein: His Life and Universe." He was on this "This Week" with George Stephanopolus, I think NPR, he was on The Daily Show last night (and gave a very poor short explanation of general relativity) and the latest TIME has an article by him ("Einstein & Faith"). If you read this article you won't get a clear answer on Einstein's belief but this is very possibly because there is not a clear answer. But I will take issue with Isaacson when he says this:
Another quote supporting Einstein's atheism is this one:
So while Einstein certainly had mystical, awe inspiring and what he called religious feelings about the order and wonder he perceived in the universe, he did not believe in a personal God, was not a theist, and was much closer to the beliefs of an atheist.
Or an agnostic, consider this quote:
It is a constant battle trying to get people to understand Einstein's rather complex views on "God." His famous quote: "God does not play dice with the universe", explaining his position on QM and determinism confuses a lot of people.
But lately this Walter Isaacson fellow seems to be everywhere promoting his latest book, a 704 page Tome entitled: "Einstein: His Life and Universe." He was on this "This Week" with George Stephanopolus, I think NPR, he was on The Daily Show last night (and gave a very poor short explanation of general relativity) and the latest TIME has an article by him ("Einstein & Faith"). If you read this article you won't get a clear answer on Einstein's belief but this is very possibly because there is not a clear answer. But I will take issue with Isaacson when he says this:
That is not accurate. We have in writing Einstein saying he was an atheist and I'll take the written words of a letter over the foggy memory of some unidentified "friend." Skeptic magazine had an article dealing with this subject and Einstein's response to a specific query about his belief in God was as follows:"But throughout his life, Einstein was consistent in rejecting the charge that he was an atheist. "There are people who say there is no God," he told a friend. "But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views." --TIME
You can read the article here.Dear Mr. Raner:
I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me.
From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist. Your counter-arguments seem to me very correct and could hardly be better formulated. It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere - childish analogies. We have to admire in humility the beautiful harmony of the structure of this world - as far as we can grasp it. And that is all." --Albert Einstein 7/2/45 (Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997)
Another quote supporting Einstein's atheism is this one:
A theist is someone who believes in a personal God. Einstein (as Isaacson repeatedly acknowledges) did not believe in a personal God. The most fundamental and literal definition of atheist is "not theist." The "a" in "atheist" coming from the greek meaning, literally "not." It seems to me that if you are not a theist, you are somewhere on the atheist branch."It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
So while Einstein certainly had mystical, awe inspiring and what he called religious feelings about the order and wonder he perceived in the universe, he did not believe in a personal God, was not a theist, and was much closer to the beliefs of an atheist.
Or an agnostic, consider this quote:
Another important quote on this issue:“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.”
--Albert Einstein in a letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59-215; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 216. LINK
Many more quotes here."The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer become his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task..."
[Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium", published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941]