Subtle are Einstein's thoughts

Physics World via PhysicsWeb ^ | September 2005 | Alan H Batten

[FireTrack]

Exactly!

[Right Wing Assault]

Sure he was a babe magnet because he was a famous, quirky looking guy. What real babe wouldn't want to be with the most famous scientist in the world? She could brag to her babe friends that SHE slept with Albert Einstein. But being a magnet is different from 'personal relationships'. I wonder how long each babe stayed with him?

[bondserv]

God is unknowable. That's the honest truth.

You won't understand God by reading a book. That's the honest truth.

Despite Einstein's unbelief, God is such a personal and knowable God, He chose to become a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. It doesn't get any more personal and knowable than that.

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

It has been traditionally thought by the originators of Western Civilization that the Holy Spirit inspired and preserved the Old and New Testament. It has been taught by the vast majority of the founders of our American Universities that the only valid revelation from the Creator is the Old and New Testament.

Mat 13:58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Mat 8:7-10
7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this [man], Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth [it].
10 When Jesus heard [it], he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

This guy didn't fight authority as Americans with our "fairness doctrine" do.

Modern people are to full of ourselves to have the humility to accept God's authority. If we aren't the prime mover in our lives, it isn't fair. Glorifying victumhood is Academia's pride and joy (God isn't good to me therefore he doesn't exist).

Think it through; I know I need to regularly!

[Dimensio]

Despite Einstein's unbelief, God is such a personal and knowable God, He chose to become a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. It doesn't get any more personal and knowable than that.

Your assertions != evidence.

[Zechariah11]

Thus: anti-commies like McCarthy were bad, fellow travelers were the good, noble, misunderstood? You provide a link for Freepers to buy this book? Are you sure you are on the right website?

[Oztrich Boy]

Brilliant physicist, amateurish theologian.

And the same can be said about Isaac Newton. At least Einstein wasted very littke time on theology.

[bondserv]

Your assertions != evidence.

There is this pesky thing called the Resurrection, which permenantly changed mankind like no other event in history. The miracle of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ proved to the world the authority of His words.

The Scribes and Pharisees Ask for a Sign

Mat 12:38-41
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You."

39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

[bondserv]

Mat 12:39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

The word adulterous here is refering to those who are breakers of the First Commandment. Adulterous towards our Creator.

Scientism replaces the Creator.

Exd 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"There is this pesky thing called the Resurrection, which permenantly changed mankind like no other event in history. The miracle of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ proved to the world the authority of His words."

Your assertions!= evidence.

[FireTrack]

"Thus: anti-commies like McCarthy were bad, fellow travelers were the good, noble, misunderstood?"

Wow, what a stretch... You obviously didn't read the entire post.

You provide a link for Freepers to buy this book?

Yea, it is pretty well researched/interesting reading for those who might wish to learn Einstein's economic leanings and of little known problems with the FBI. Keep in mind that his passion was mathematics/physics but his speaking truthfully of what was on his mind often got him into trouble.

Are you sure you are on the right website?

As long as this site upholds the freedom of religion, of thought and of expression I am. I see I been here a couple of years longer than you. Reading posts more thoroughly and without jumping to conclusions helps to cut down on the misunderstandings.

:-)

[bondserv]

Your assertions!= evidence.

History asserts.

If you want to revise it, be sure to include disclaimers.

[Quark2005]

It has been taught by the vast majority of the founders of our American Universities that the only valid revelation from the Creator is the Old and New Testament.

I don't think it's possible to study science & nature without being moved by it. The Bible is an awesome book; but you can't convince me that the universe is not also a revelation of God. Nothing teaches man greater humility before the Infinite than to see his insignificant place in the midst of time and the cosmos.

It looks to me as if Einstein shared the same humility before God as you, even though his reasoning towards that end was different than yours.

[bondserv]

I don't think it's possible to study science & nature without being moved by it. The Bible is an awesome book; but you can't convince me that the universe is not also a revelation of God. Nothing teaches man greater humility before the Infinite than to see his insignificant place in the midst of time and the cosmos.

I agree with what you are saying. I should have clarified my remarks by saying, "The Bible is the only Holy Book that is a valid revelation from God."

Thank you for making that distinction. Clearly I believe that God also reveals his ways through His creation; as my tag line indicates.

[hosepipe]

[ for whatever it may be worth. We get more than enough strident theological proclamations by people who have no clue about anything. ]

Or lots of clues about everything..

[Ichneumon]

I am not worried what Einstein thought about God.

Well, the point is that a lot of creationists are. They're quite fond of quoting Einstein out of context (creationists disingenuously using quotes out of context? What a surprise! [2]) in order to bash people over the head by saying in effect, "if this really smart guy sees God in the universe, how can you be dumb enough to disagree with the genius?"

That would be a sleazy, fallacious argument even if Einstein *had* actually believed in a "personal God", but it's even more slimy when, in fact, Einstein did *not* actually subscribe to the kind of God the creationists say he did, and in fact Einstein found the creationists' idea of God to be, in his words, "naive".

Here's a perfect example from a recent FreeRepublic thread -- along with my response:

What are you so afraid of that you would say such a thing so obviously at odds with the "gods" of your profession? [...] And dude, seriously, Einstein believed in God, too. That the universe was His creation. He saw God's hand in even the "slightest details" as he put it.

Just not *your* God. Creationists like to selectively quote Einstein out of context to make it appear that he endorsed *their* notions of God, but as even your own next quote hints, he actually found that notion of a "personal God" to be childish:

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man.... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive. [Albert Einstein]"

Let's have a look at some of the quotes that the creationists like to sweep under the rug, shall we?

"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.

And:

"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, letter dated 24 March 1954, included in "Albert Einstein: The Human Side".

And:

"It is quite possible that we can do greater things than Jesus, for what is written in the Bible about him is poetically embellished."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in W. I Hermanns "A Talk with Einstein," October 1943

And:

"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, letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950

And:

"To assume the existence of an unperceivable being ... does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to an Iowa student who asked, What is God? July, 1953; Einstein Archive

And:

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.... This is a somewhat new kind of religion."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to Hans Muehsam March 30, 1954; Einstein Archive

And:

"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. 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."
-- Albert Einstein, 1954 or 1955; quoted in Dukas and Hoffman, Albert Einstein the Human Side

And:

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls."
-- Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, Secaucus, New Jersy: The Citadel Press

And:

"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve."
-- Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797

And:

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems."
-- Albert Einstein, 1947; from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel, New York

And:

"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."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a Baptist pastor in 1953; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 39.

And:

"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, quoted in The New York Times obituary, April 19, 1955; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Thoughts, New York: Ballantine Books, 1996, p. 134.

And:

"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 hopes of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees."
-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," in the New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930, pp. 3-4; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 205-206.

And:

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one."
-- Albert Einstein, to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949; from Michael R. Gilmore, "Einstein's God: Just What Did Einstein Believe About God?," Skeptic, 1997, 5(2):64.

And:

"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, to Guy H. Raner Jr., July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; from Michael R. Gilmore, "Einstein's God: Just What Did Einstein Believe About God?," Skeptic, 1997, 5(2):62.

Einstein's "God", his "religion", was the deep spiritual awe he felt in contemplation of the majestic breadth and depth and orderliness of the Universe itself:

"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a Rabbi in Chicago; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 69-70.

Ya see, pal? He believes in a God-created universe? INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED BY GOD! What part of that ain't ya gettin'?!

The part where you grossly misrepresent the nature of Einstein's "God" -- the part where *you* "ain't gettin'" the first thing about what Einstein actually believed. Einstein believed in "God" as the humbling scope of the Universe *itself*, absent any anthropomorphized "intelligence", absent any conscious "designer". In short, Einstein's God was Nature, in all its awe-inspiring glory.

From Einstein to Hoyle to Hawking, a great number of the world's top physicists beleive or are amenable to the idea that the UNIVERSE has been intelligently designed.

You're wrong about Einstein, Hoyle was a crank, and at best Hawking leaves room for the possibility while also pointing out the possibilities of natural origins.

So where are you going with this, if anywhere?

Consider yourself skooled.

In order to "skool" me, you would have to know more about the subject than I do, which so far seems highly unlikely, since much of what you "know" is distorted, fallacious, or outright incorrect.

Goodnight and goooooooooood riddance.

You would do well to use less adolescent "attitude" and more substance and research. Cutting-and-pasting stuff from creationist websites leaves you at a huge disadvantage. Try expanding your horizons with a broader range of sources and, you know, that "education" thing.

[Old Professer]

All these quotes are taken from his writings during the "middle-age-crisis" time of his life; do any more exist from his mid-fifties to his death at 76?

[longshadow]

And the same can be said about Isaac Newton. At least Einstein wasted very littke time on theology.

And even less than his predecessor did on alchemy!

[Old Professer]

"When will I ever learn to read all the posts before piping up?," Old Professer says shamefully.

[FireTrack]

Well said.

Ever delve into entanglement?

[Ichneumon]

There is this pesky thing called the Resurrection, which permenantly changed mankind like no other event in history.

Yes, yes, mankind no longer engaged in wars, stopped sinning, and treated each other with love and respect.

Oh, wait...

Okay, I give up -- what actually *did* "permanently change"? To the degree of being "like no other event in history"? Frankly, the world seems the same as it always has.

The miracle of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ proved to the world the authority of His words.

Then why does the majority of "the world" remain unpersuaded by this "proof"? Something appears to be wrong with your presumptions.