einstein

This was originally a post in a newsgroup to a Christian Fundamentalist who claimed Einstein was a theist. She (one Linda Kimball who is to the right of both Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin!) even tried the word, Monopantheist. Pretty funny. As you will see, Einstein called those claims lies. I wrote this before I was a stickler for references so I need to update some of the references. Albert Einstein warned people not to anthropomorphize; to create God in our image as traditional religions have done. By creating God in our image, we humans have invented the myth that we were made in God's image. He stated:

"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."

In this statement, It is God and Einstein is warning people not to assume that God has an intellect such as ours. It is a mistake to project our intellect into what we think God is. It is not our intellect, It is God. It has no personality, but has big muscles. A God with no personality or selfhood. No "I am that I am" of the three Abrahamic religions. It would be foolish to think that it is our intellect that has no personality but big muscles so Einstein wasn't telling people not to haughtily elevate the value of our intellect into something godlike. That is just what we have done by creating a God that created us in its image. By cross referencing to some of his other statements it gets clearer. Einstein's God is a God with no intellect, no personality and no self-conciousness. It has no awareness as we perceive awareness of the world, the self and other selves. There is no mind that thinks and plans and acts. None that holds values or makes and passes judgments. His religion deals with the admiration of the structure of the universe. God is not the personhood of a diety such as Allah or YHWH. The Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam evolved over the millennia and was created in the image of the purposes of authoritarian priests and kings. Life was extremely hard then and so were the rules for survival, both physically and socially. Their myths, legends and codes are largely reflections of the people and times of their evolution and creation by oral transmission. Oral transmission of legends can make a simple story into an epic legend from the gods. There is no such thing as divine revelation if there is no divine mind. We can chalk many of the ancient's revelations, visions and voices to superstition, ignorance, certain rare types of Temporal Lobe Epilsepsy, and Schizophrenia. (The legend of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus clearly resembles the manifestations of this specific type of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy)

When Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the International Synagogue in New York sent a cablegram to Einstein, demanding "Do you believe in God?", Einstein responded, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

That is another statement that denies a god with the self and volition of theism. Spinoza was a Pantheist. Pantheism is where the Universe is God and God is the Universe. (Augustine supported the ruthless persecution of pantheists before he set his sights on the Manicheans, Donatist and Arianist Christians. Pantheists were beheaded or burned as heretics for over a thousand years) With pantheism, the creator and the created can't be separated into two entities. Pantheism is not a consubstantiality of creator and created which is far simpler than the illogical three is one and one is three of the three persons of the consubstantial Trinity of Christianity. Nature is God. God is nature. Nature's God. Enlightenment deists used the term, Nature's God. Jefferson was never talking about the Christian diety in the Declaration of Independance. His use of creator was deist and Newtonian; closer to pantheist than theist. Einstein's concept of God is one that is revealed in the orderly harmony of the universe. We see here his focus on structure, order and harmony; the physical laws and forces underlying and operating in the universe. And since to Einstein there is no personal God, what is revealed can only be described as the laws of nature. It is by reason that God is revealed. God is then a metaphor denoting the underlying forces and principles of the laws of nature. (So, when a twister just misses your house, even an atheist can jest "thank God!)

A PERSONAL GOD AND THE AFTERLIFE

Let's look at more of what Einstein said about a personal God and surviving death. It has powerful muscles but no personality.

"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".

"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.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams had no respect for these kinds of priest, either. They said very similar things about priestcraft, fear, and ignorance. I have for a long time thought of our remaining religions as part of humanity's intellectual and spiritual childhood that it needs to outgrow in order to become an adult. Our infancy was a time of Animism. Einstein remarked:

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one,..."

"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)

Feebleminded, fearful, ridiculous self-centered fools? OUCH!

The statements regarding modeled purposes and human frailty are key to understanding the anthropomorphizing we humans have done. Back in the first quote he warns us about projecting our own concious intellect on to our conception of god. Here he repeats a variable of this and makes the claim that we have created a god who is modeled after our own purposes. A god that is but a reflection of its creators with all of their frailties and willfullness. God as been created in the image of man, with his purposes, having all of his frailties and willfullness. This is easily seen in the Old Testament and the hellfire parts of the New Testament where God is obsessively jealous, intolerant and prone to violence while at the same time calling his subjects his children. Kings and Emperors were like that for ages so this God is sometimes called King of Kings. Like totalitarian dictators, the Bible and the Quran are very violent and threatening books. Is it any wonder that Christianity and Islam have histories filled with intolerance and blood? The examples are set in dogmatic stone in their holy books. Einstein noted that religions say to be good to your brother and neighbor but in reality they resemble battlefields. We have indeed created a God in our own volatile image with both its good and its bad.

"Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history."

"The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously." (Albert Einstein Letter to authors Hoffman and Dukas, 1946)

Einstein considered traditional religions as "an attempt to find an out where there is no door."

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." (Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."

TRUE RELIGION

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation 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. (Albert Einstein) Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press)

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."

"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."

"In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this religious feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

"True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness."

This is the true religion of people in love with life who do not have the weight and irrationality of ancient superstitions on their backs. They are truly free, able to direct all their energies into living their lives well, live righteously and with sound judgment. Listening to one's moral sense is much easier without the clutter of fearmongering religions in one's mind. If Einstein says we should mix religion with science its his definition of religion he is speaking of; not one of a personal God which he denies. His religion of living ones life with all one's soul is devoid of any anthropomorphic theism.

MORALITY

Einstein said some very insightful and thought provoking things about the relationship between morality and myth that should not exist in a modern society. In Christianity and Islam we hear all kinds of talk about how God is so obsessed with our moral beliefs and actions. According to Einstein, that is so because Judeo-Christianity, Islam, etc, have a personal god that has been created out of:

1: The human intellect

2) The model of our purposes

3: A reflection of our own personal frailties

Here are several quotes about morality from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press)

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

There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair.

"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action."

"For the moral attitudes of a people that is supported by religion need always aim at preserving and promoting the sanity and vitality of the community and its individuals, since otherwise this community is bound to perish. A people that were to honour falsehood, defamation, fraud, and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long."

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

If you have ever heard creationist rants against Darwinism, this should ring a bell:

"Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Like Spinoza, Einsteins God was not one with any mind or a 'being' separate from nature itself. The emergence of Deism during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods reveals an interesting convergence of Pantheism, Newton's mechanical universe, and theism free of myth and revelation. It was a natural religion without the superstitions of divine revelation that are found in Middle-Eastern religions. Deists rejected what Jefferson called the corruptions of Christianity by Paul and ultra-Christian sects. Corruptions were: The Bible is the infallible Word of God, the immaculate conception and virgin birth, original sin and atonement, deity or divinity of Jesus, miracles and creation by Jesus, the consubstantial trinity, the resurrection and the ascension.

Again,..."I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

Einstein denied the existence of a God's will, a Gods' plan, a God's aversion to sin, and a God's plans for judging us, his own creations, on our actions, etc. One needs conciousness and volition to plan or have a will. Einstein denied the existence of a personal God, so to him there can be no will of God, plan of God nor any divine concern for our moral actions as far as Einstein was concerned. Einsteins belief are totally contrary to the Christian Dogma of what god is. This "god" of his is not concerned with our actions because it has no intellect or personality. Spinoza's God is a symbolic metaphor. Einstein was slippery like a politician in this sense because most people don't really know what Spinoza believed.

Some have claimed Einstein became a Christian on his deathbed but like the same conversion fables regarding Thomas Paine and Charles Darwin, it is a bogus story with no factual support. No primary sources support any of these claims. In fact, according to Einstein's son, when he was on his deathbed his mind was still busy working on physical cosmology problems and told his son, "If only I had more math"!!.

"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being. (Albert Einstein, 1936) Responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray." Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann

"For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described. For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors." (1941)

"By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life. The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." (1941)

"Religion is concerned with man's attitude towards nature at large, with the establishing of ideals for the individual and communal life, and with human mutual relationship. These ideals religion attempts to attain by exerting an educational influence on tradition and through the development and promulgation of certain easily accessible thoughts and narratives (epics and myths) which are apt to influence evaluation and action along the lines of accepted ideals. It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science." (1948)