Thread: What type of God did Einstein believe?

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

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.

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

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.

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

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."

Spinoza’s God is not the one of the bible, Spinoza’s God was not a personal God.


A further quotation on the subject of Spinoza's God follows. This material comes from G. S. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great.

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. 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 different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement 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. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

Remember this was in an interview. Skeptics say that the part that I underlined was not actually Albert Einstein at all. The only problem with that is everything else seems to be genuine like when he talks about playing the role of a little kid in a library it seems to be authentic Einstein. The end of the quote where he praises Spinoza for his work on body and soul also seems to be genuine Einstein.


Just something to think about.


I have never seen these quotes before. I found them interesting so i thought i would share.

Einstein's idea of God was the mystery of the universe, I think.

A non-dice playing god.

Originally Posted by Xei

Einstein's idea of God was the mystery of the universe, I think.

I believe in that one too. Does that mean I am not an atheist?

It depends on how you define atheist I suppose. Most people when talking about theism are talking about crazy old bearded men in the sky, so to most people I suppose you're an atheist.

A non-dice playing god.

Heh, true.

Niels Bohr/Enrico Fermi:
Stop telling God what to do with his dice.

Albert Einstein was a Deist.

hmmm so it was logical to him for a belief in a type of God, interesting.

Originally Posted by Xei

It depends on how you define atheist I suppose. Most people when talking about theism are talking about crazy old bearded men in the sky, so to most people I suppose you're an atheist.

Heh, true.

But a god of infinite possiblity(humanized version)

Was Einsten jewish by relegion?

Einstein, when someone has no logical anwser they envoke a higher authority. Einstein got many things wrong in his life, most notably Quantum mechanics.

Einstein is dead so you can't really ask Einstein what he mean't by Spinoza god.

Thanks for that post it puts things in perspective. I was just going over the encyclopedia of philosophy of him and it says that he was one of, if not the greatest, defenders of monism.

Not really.
The only thing Einstein wanted to do with this life is find the theory of everything. In that sense he wanted a simple equation.

I once read that Einstein choose the right eqaution that describes special relativity because he believed in simplicty.

The point is Einstein at best has vaguely defined belifes. Even if he did believe in god then it means nothing. Even then his actions contradict his philosophy, if he believed in god then he wouldn't spend the last half of his life coming up with a mathematical formula that describes the universe.

Originally Posted by wendylove

Einstein, when someone has no logical anwser they envoke a higher authority. Einstein got many things wrong in his life, most notably Quantum mechanics.

Einstein is dead so you can't really ask Einstein what he mean't by Spinoza god.


Not really.
The only thing Einstein wanted to do with this life is find the theory of everything. In that sense he wanted a simple equation.

I once read that Einstein choose the right eqaution that describes special relativity because he believed in simplicty.

The point is Einstein at best has vaguely defined belifes. Even if he did believe in god then it means nothing. Even then his actions contradict his philosophy, if he believed in god then he wouldn't spend the last half of his life coming up with a mathematical formula that describes the universe.

I was talking about spinoza as the greatest defender of monism, but thanks non the less.

I thought that the possiblity in that there might be a God because Einstein knew that the universe had a begining is why he tried so hard to come up with a cosmological constant.

When Edwin hubble confirmed that all the evidence leads to a universe that was expanding and had a begining( Hawkings theory is interesting though) thats when Eistein sayed:

"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."

"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 thought it was important to give a vague timeline of those quotes.

Originally Posted by wendylove

if he believed in god then he wouldn't spend the last half of his life coming up with a mathematical formula that describes the universe.

No offense, but that's probably one of the dumber things i've ever read in my life as of yet. What does believing in a God have to do with his ambitions to show the organization of the universe in a mathematical formula?

"I believe in god, and also believe that 2 + 1 will always equal 3"
"No, you can't believe in that math if you believe in God."

That looks basically like what you just said. There are plenty of physicists who do what they do and believe in God at the same time.

Yeah, like god "could" have created the universe, but we still got these things about it. It's not all like....god component that makes the universe. Nobody really takes anything Wendy says seriously, i've never met anyone online as annoying and completly biased in their decisions.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

i've never met anyone online as annoying and completly biased in their decisions.

I just want clarification, was that directed at me?

Wendy.