Why do theists continue to make up stories that Einstein believed in their God?

Question

An answer that cut and pasted this story got me thinking about it . This is called lying. It's bad OK?

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/e/einstein-god.htm

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. [Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955]

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

I'm not trying to make any claims that Einstein agrees with me and personally I don't care. I'm just trying to prevent spreading of false information.

Answer 1

I think the reason they want to make it out like he was a religious man is obvious. If a man who stood for all that is reason, logic and science believed in God, then they would simply turn that on people who study science and believe in big bang theory and evolution theory and say "One of you believed in God, why not you".

Of course the fact that this myth about Einstein [and the myth that Darwin repented on his death bed] are disgusting and I expect most Christians, if they know the truth, would not support these claims.

Answer 2

Einstein refused to be labeled or pinned down to a particular belief system.

When he was a child, raised by secular Jewish parents he briefly embraced Catholicism. When surrounded by Catholics for a time it lost it's appeal and he reverted to secularism.

He has stated both that he believes in the God of Spinoza (a pantheist) and also stated theat he could not consider himself a pantheist.

He has used the term 'god' in ways that made some religionists think he had converted, but when asked he stated that he believed in no anthropomorphic gods and didn't seem to understand why they thought he was religious.

He rejected the term 'atheist' because of the connotations that were current due to the Communists, and his assessment that some forms of atheism implied more than just a rejection of gods, but a political stance also, which he did not embrace.

The fact is, he flirted with a sort of self styled Deism, mostly as a world view and not as a sincere religious belief, behaved like an agnostic and ultimately was a pantheist whether he would admit to it or not.

His difficult behavior had more to do with his personality than any real possibility of a belief in a god. He simply refused to be placed in a box or used by others to spread beliefs he did not endorse.

Answer 3

Thank you for your question. I've been a fan of Einstein since my first physics class in 1963, have read numerous Einstein biographies and studied both special and general relativity in depth. It pains me deeply every time some fundamentalist trots out "God does not play dice..." or some other slip of the tongue as supposed proof that Einstein was a Believer. As was the custom of his time, Einstein often referred to a Deistic god of creation when discussing cosmology. It was fifty years before the Big Bang theory and there was simply no other socially acceptable way to refer to creation, back then.

Answer 4

Einstein was more of a Freethinker or Deist. This is the first step in claiming many of these types of people were Christians. I see this a lot with the Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson mentions "God" and suddenly he is a Christian. This isn't true. Jefferson flat out stated that he denied the divinity of Jesus.

Answer 5

there is not any lifelike answer as to how the Universe ought to violate it relatively is very own actual rules and easily pop into existence. This and the actuality that the Universe *HAS* actual rules in the 1st place strongly shows *layout*. layout shows a author. no longer merely that, yet this layout of the universe is so complicated that it thoroughly defies the assumption-approximately it originating by random probability. people who *somewhat* place self belief in medical reasons do no longer base their conclusions on random probability. Many scientists even admit to believing in God by high quality-tuning of our universe. it relatively is supplied with fixed actual rules and with organic constants that are precisely and very best to help a planet like ours and all the existence on it. case in point, the precise settings of the 4 standard actual forces (electromagnetism, gravity, stable nuclear tension, and vulnerable nuclear tension), influence each merchandise in the universe. they're set and balanced so precisely that even gentle differences ought to render the universe ineffective. This merely confirms the best judgment of what can already be "for sure perceived". (Heb. 3:4; Rom. a million:20)

Answer 6

How about another quote from Al
"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God."

Sounds more Deist or agnostic than atheist to me, but I understand how atheists just use half-truths to get a point across.

"the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom"

Answer 7

It is shameful the ways so many of these lies keep surfacing (the Darwin recanted, young earth/lack of adequate lunar dust and pre-cambrian evolution stuff being recent ones), and even more shameful how they were started by "god-fearing" Christians to begin with. These mainstream religions were all spread by force, and maintained with lies, leading to a reasonable conclusion that they were started with lies as well. By their fruits you shall know them.

And Behe is another fraud... he has been shown to make flase claims about his work being peer-reviewed, and when his work is proven to be in error, Creationists continue to publish it anyway.

A recent court ruling said the following:

"Professor Behe has applied the concept of irreducible complexity to only a few select systems: (1) the bacterial flagellum; (2) the blood-clotting cascade; and (3) the immune system. Contrary to Professor Behe’s assertions with respect to these few biochemical systems among the myriad existing in nature, however, Dr. Miller presented evidence, based upon peer-reviewed studies, that they are not in fact irreducibly complex."

Answer 8

Because Xians never study anything on their own, they just repeat what someone else told them.

Plus I thought lying was part of being a Xian.... don't they lie and tell their kids there is a god?
=)

Answer 9

Some scientists are true to their hearts though,

Molecular biochemist Michael Behe said: "You can be a good Catholic and believe in Darwinism. Biochemistry has made it increasingly difficult, however, to be a thoughtful scientist and believe in it."


Very eloquently put Father G.

Answer 10

OMG it has to be true you found a website that says so.

I have read the theory and what Einstein and the group of scientists involved had to say, Hmm do I believe that or a website?