tr027 0 #1 May 13, 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001 "Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’ Famous scientist also dismisses belief in God as product of human weakness. A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."""The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. " -John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, 1957 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
downwardspiral 0 #2 May 13, 2008 Quote In later life, he expressed a sense of wonder at the universe and its mysteries — what he called a "cosmic religious feeling" — and famously said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." www.FourWheelerHB.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,148 #3 May 13, 2008 Quote Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."" Quote Quote In later life, he expressed a sense of wonder at the universe and its mysteries — what he called a "cosmic religious feeling" — and famously said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Uncertain, eh? Sounds more like Heisenberg than Einstein.Anyhow, a "cosmic religious feeling" is still consistent with believing the Bible to be rubbish.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
downwardspiral 0 #4 May 13, 2008 me? uncertain? No. I was actually agreeing with him. Of course I'm Buddhist so that's not saying much. www.FourWheelerHB.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
krabberkris 1 #5 May 13, 2008 I always remember so well , and have posted this before since these types of threads usually accumulate 500 or more posts and get a little nutty....After reading Origin of Species by Mr. Darwin he famously said about GOD........ "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with it's several powers having been breathed by the CREATOR into a few forms or into one..." Einstein , as mentioned in this MSNBC article, is also famously known as having said... "I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws." They both believed in ´Wisdom´ or ´intelligence ´ That´s a given.The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpin_Jan 1 #6 May 14, 2008 Here are more interesting quotes from Einstein. I did not compile them, I read them on another forum. The thread I swiped them from is... http://forum.darwincentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13397 They were posted by Ichneumon @ Darwin Central This new letter is hardly any big surprise to those who have bothered to dig through Einstein's other available writings on the subject. For example: "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 "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. "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". "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 "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 "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 "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 "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 "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 "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 "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. "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. "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. "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. "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."Dangerous toys are fun but ya could get hurt" -- Vash The Stampede Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rynodigsmusic 0 #7 May 14, 2008 Quote http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001 "Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’ Famous scientist also dismisses belief in God as product of human weakness. A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."" Even Albert Einstein just proved the wisdom of Jesus and probably didnt even know it! Einstein..."I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one." Jesus..."I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven""We didn't start the fire" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pirana 0 #8 May 14, 2008 That is a wonderful collection Jumpin Jan. There has never been any doubt that he was a Naturalist; completely rejecting anything that wreaked of mystical, supernatural, oogie-boogie BS. Leave it to the mainstream media to attempt to whip up hype on a topic long ago settled. They published this in the same manner and for the same reasons they will publish their next Bigfoot story." . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,148 #9 May 14, 2008 Quote Quote http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001 "Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’ Famous scientist also dismisses belief in God as product of human weakness. A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."" Even Albert Einstein just proved the wisdom of Jesus and probably didnt even know it! Einstein..."I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one." Jesus..."I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" You're grasping at straws there, Chief.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #10 May 14, 2008 Quote Quote http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001 "Einstein letter calls Bible ‘pretty childish’ Famous scientist also dismisses belief in God as product of human weakness. A letter being auctioned in London this week adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish."" Even Albert Einstein just proved the wisdom of Jesus and probably didnt even know it! Einstein..."I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one." Jesus..."I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" This is an excellent example of starting with a conclusion and looking for supporting evidence. You just took what Einstein said and twisted it to support your conclusion. Very sad. Like Kallend said grasping at straws. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #11 May 14, 2008 Thanks for the initial link - I probably would have missed the sale. And thanks for the ensemble of quotations. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
