Let's Get The Record Straight - Do You Agree with Albert Einstein?

Question

I've seen answers that say Albert Einsteindidn't believe in God and answers that say he did.
Here is what he said:
"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 religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

"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 egotism."

"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

Answer 1

You have done a good service here by gathering what Einstein really said. He was vague in some quotes, and believers are careless with the truth. They often distort what such a man said to try to support their beliefs. Isaac Asimov said that a creationist distorted something he wrote to try to make it appear that he believed the same way the creationist did. Anyone who has read much of Asimov's writings know he was quite opposed to creationism. I never had any doubt that Einstein was too. Thanks for confirming it.

Answer 2

His points are well taken and are religious in nature. He is a reformist.

He certainly didn't believe in randomism, which is the cornerstone of Darwkins and Darwin.

He said God doesn't play dice.

Carl Sagan once said if you called the Universe God, he could believe in that.

Well the religious say GOD is everything, hence God is the universe hence Dr. Carl Sagan is a believer.

He said so publically that he'd believe in God in that respect.

I think Einstein's the same way.

The politically correct term universally used is Mother Nature (as opposed to Father God).

I've never actually asked Atheists if this don't believe in Mother Nature, they'd probably say it's like Santa Claus.

Einstein also said, and it's in writing

"I am not an Atheist."

He also said he was not a Pantheist.

He once made reference to a friend of his and that person's beliefs and God and said his were close to that one.

That particular person he spoke of once had nice things to say about Jesus.

And his most famous of quotes is

"Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind."

The first thing you and eveyrone else has to understand is Einstein held a very deep and strange view of the universe.

Einstein also made mistakes so he was not infallable.

His biggest mistake came from accepting a commonly held view of the universe that his own work and math showed was incorrect and rather than be bold about this, he changed his work to fit the model.

That was Einstein's mistake in Science and Math

It would seem to have carried on in his critical thinking to God and Religion and he's now being bold and not siding with the status quo on the view of things, because he learned how wrong that can be and that his own views may have more merit.

So, perhaps there is something in his view of God that we can learn to at least appreciate.

Einstein's God is not a negative one, but a positive one.

Einstein's God is out to help man not hurt man.

I tend to feel somewhat similar and have said I cannot view a God that demands I kiss his boots or else.

That doesn't strike me as being a very Godly thing to make someone do.

Answer 3

Einstein also said: “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.” “I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” Einstein, like many scientists, had an open mind and questioned everything.

Answer 4

When Einstein mentioned God it was not in theism or deism, but through pantheism. He believed that there was no "creator of the universe" but when he said god he was talking about nature or the Como's. Albert Einstein was most certainly an Atheist and was angered when religious people would use his words to promote there religion.

BTW here is a interesting fact about the man: In 1947, when Israel became a country, Einstein was asked if he would be there first president! He declined and said that he has no political interest.

Answer 5

He merely states that he cannot believe in a God that rewards and punishes based on behavior that is made into correct or non-correct by let's say organized religion. He did not believe in an after life.... and he did not believe that god is the same as us ( as we were created in his image).... he seems to hint at the ridiculousness that we now have created God as being in our image instead. He thinks that Ethics are man-made and not Devine.... which is true as heads of state have used God as an excuse and changed the scriptures countless times in history to suit their own purposes. A beautiful example of this would be St. Valentine. The Romans were at war and decided that comradery amongst the soldiers would be greater if they were not so concerned with sex, mating and marriage....so they abolished marriage until the war was over so that people could not have sex and their only purpose would be to fight.. Young couples flocked to Valentino and begged him to marry them in secret. Eventually he was found out , tried for treason and was quartered in public, To this day he is on the four ends of the earth and Christians believe that they must be whole in order to proceed to the next world (which in my belief is not true)...but I digress, It is stories like these that Einstein probably thought were the ruin of religious beliefs. He said that he cannot believe in the survival of the "individual" after death... and that is somewhat true as when we go to the other side we become one with eachother and have no need to say I,I, I. me, me, me,..... we are part of a higher scheme.

Answer 6

Yes, I sure do. Einstein believed in Spinoza's God. I believe that God is basically benign. God does not interact in the every day affairs of man.

Why should anyone believe that there is an after-life? That is just wishful thinking.

God is not concerned with ethics. Ethics are a result of human culture.

I do not think that there is a grand being taking conduct grades. Reward and punishment are manifestations of the physical world.

Answer 7

Thank you for posting these quotes. I get so tired of seeing Einstein being taken out of context around here, as if he were a deeply religious man. Some people like to bear false witness against him, it seems.

Einstein was most likely an agnostic. He didn't believe in a personal God, but he also didn't reject religion outright. In fact, he hoped that Buddhism would probably one day rise to become a widely practiced humanistic religion:

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spritual; and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."

"If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."

Answer 8

Has any religion ever defined god?...not really. All the religions says that good took human form and came to earth for salvation of people. But no religion agrees that god is a physical form with super human abilities.

And every religion believes that god is the supreme truth...the reason of the existence of this universe. And that is what Einstein admires. So do you think you can call him a non believer?

Answer 9

Einstein is God's gift to mankind, to use his talents for the good of the majority. He may have not believed in God due to his immense thinking capabilities wherein, he always looks for a "cause" and "effect" and always tries to rationalize and hypothesize. I agree with him in a sense that he was a great thinker and it was in his very nature to look for semblance in this world by looking for associations of different phenomena and logical explanations about the inevitabilities and metaphysical aspects of this world (just like most people, only in different levels) But, the mere fact that he personally turned down the US government in constructing the first A-bomb during the height of WWII and was imprisoned because of it, it means that he had a conscience. Conscience is a sign that God resides in each and every one of us. Einstein may have not realized it during that time because of his fact-finding mind that somehow blinded him that God exists. It is common for us to also question the universe and the very purpose of our existence, but in the very end of our lives, there will always be a reason for us to realize that we are not only made of flesh and I'm sure Einstein have realized that too, afterall, God is the source of all our talents, skills or intelligence.

Answer 10

FIRST You need Facts.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."