Thread: How Scientists Really Feel About God

I like it how theist quote mine Einstein to justify there belife in god being logical or intelligent. Sadly, Einstein is dead so you can't really ask him do you believe in god and to be more specific and not vague.

Originally Posted by wendylove

I like it how theist quote mine Einstein to justify there belife in god being logical or intelligent. Sadly, Einstein is dead so you can't really ask him do you believe in god and to be more specific and not vague.

Thats what my point was. I'm not really a theist, unless you count pantheism. I just think that there is more to nature than can be percieved through science.

I used to be an aetheist, then I read some Spinoza and it completely changed my perspective. It may just be semantics, but it makes a hell of a lot of difference. I personally find pantheism to be very different then aetheism, because of semantics. It has to do with the significance of existing. I personally think you lose some of the meaning when you look at things from an aetheist perspective, but thats just what I conclude from my experience.

If you take a pantheist perspective and apply the ideas of karma to it, you start to understand why people would beleive in God.

Edit:
Pantheism

Originally Posted by stonedape

I personally find pantheism to be very different then aetheism, because of semantics. It has to do with the significance of existing. I personally think you lose some of the meaning when you look at things from an aetheist perspective, but thats just what I conclude from my experience.

Trying to give meaning to existence by calling it god is like trying to give good taste to tomatoes by calling them donuts.

Truth.

Einstein didn't believe in any God at all anyway, he made that very clear in some letters that were recently released.

Einstein really knew how to make up one-liners. To bad some people don't get that the metaphorical stuff is metaphorical when it comes to Einstein talking about 'god'.

Anyhow, mad props for Einstein. Also nice of someone to show that there are extremely few Christian Nobel-prize winners. I wonder why that is. No I don't. Almost all Nobel-prize winning scientists are smart people, you see.

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human understanding, 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."

- Albert Einstein

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human understanding, 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."

- Albert Einstein

Yep yep, there's even a statement where he says he's not an atheist. Einstein did believe in God, I don't know how though. He was probably a deist.

And where does the above infer that Einstein believed in God?

Here's a less vague quote of his:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish... for me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people".

Now stfu.

Originally Posted by Xei

And where does the above infer that Einstein believed in God?

Here's a less vague quote of his:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish... for me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people".

Now stfu.

I find it funny how most people usually try to infer that someone not agreeing with the bible means they must be atheist/agnostic. Just because Einstein, or anyone else doesn't believe in the bible or Jewish religion doesn't make him atheist/agnostic. I don't believe a lot of stuff in the bible, so am I a borderline atheist/agnostic now?

Einstein's antipathy towards Atheism.

Originally Posted by Einstein

In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human understanding, 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 Einstein

I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.

A Statement Against the Church and a Personal God.

Originally Posted by Einstein

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. 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.

Einstein says he believes in Spinoza's God (God is nature).

While the argument over his birthday present had been going on, the theory of relativity had been used to pull him into a religious controversy from which there emerged one of his much-quoted statements of faith. It began when Cardinal O'Connell of Boston, who had attacked Einstein's General Theory on previous occasions, told a group of Catholics that it "cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism" and "befogged speculation, producing universal doubt about God and His Creation." Einstein, who had often reiterated his remark of 1921 to Archbishop Davidson-"It makes no difference. It is purely abstract science"-was at first uninterested. Then, on April 24, Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, New York, faced Einstein with the simple five-word cablegram: "Do you believe in God?"

Originally Posted by Einstein

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

Spinoza on Wikipedia.

The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and He has no personality.

The God of Einstein and Spinoza.

When its author sent a book There Is No God to Einstein, Einstein replied that the book did not deal with the notion of God, but only with that of a personal God. He suggested that the book should be titled There Is No Personal God. He added further:

Originally Posted by Einstein

We followers of Spinoza see out God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists and in its soul as it reveals itself in man and animal.It is a different question whether belief in a personal God should be contested. Freud endorsed this view in his latest publication. I myself would never engage in such a task. For such a belief seems to me to the lack of any transcendental outlook of life, and I wonder whether on can ever successfully render to the majority of mankind a more sublime means in order to satisfy its metaphysical needs.

Einstein says he's not an atheist.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by About the above quotation.

Is the quotation something that Einstein really said? Maybe not — at least not exactly in the words that Viereck attributes to him. Nevertheless, the quotation seems to be consistent with Einstein's views. Certain elements of the quotation could come from no one but Einstein. While the statement may not be exactly verbatim, it cannot differ very greatly from what Einstein actually said.

Einstein's short comments about God.

Spinoza and Einstein.

So there you have it, Einstein believes in God. He believes God is nature.

At nitsuJ (Justin) :

Well, at least atheists that quote Einstein to underline that Christians and other personal-god monotheist are stupid, aren't really misusing Einsteins words. Einstein did think Christians (and Muslims, and Jew, ect) were silly, and that is at the very least an interesting fact in a discussion about the truth of monotheistic religions.

However, nice that you found the quote where Einstein said this:

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.

What kind of is the opposite of what people like Chayba and really are saying. Since wishful thinking about and making heavily morally loaded claims about some sort of spiritual ascension or whatever.

Basically, the fact that Einstein did not believe in an (immortal) soul kind of rules out 'using' Einstein in favor of your arguments if you are anything but a deist with an extremely uninvolved god or an atheist.

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.

- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

Appeals to authority are stupid...

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=58808

I refuse to accept quotes from Einstein as evidence of what he said when the context is not provided. That is why I made the thread I just linked a while back.

The use of out of context quotations is highlighted by a few people in that thread ironically.

Originally Posted by Neruo

At nitsuJ (Justin) :

Well, at least atheists that quote Einstein to underline that Christians and other personal-god monotheist are stupid, aren't really misusing Einsteins words. Einstein did think Christians (and Muslims, and Jew, ect) were silly, and that is at the very least an interesting fact in a discussion about the truth of monotheistic religions.

However, nice that you found the quote where Einstein said this:



What kind of is the opposite of what people like Chayba and really are saying. Since wishful thinking about and making heavily morally loaded claims about some sort of spiritual ascension or whatever.

Basically, the fact that Einstein did not believe in an (immortal) soul kind of rules out 'using' Einstein in favor of your arguments if you are anything but a deist with an extremely uninvolved god or an atheist.

Well, I really see no reason in an atheist quoting Einstein when he's clearly not atheist. He may think theists like Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. etc. are silly, but he also probably thinks atheists quoting him are silly also.

Originally Posted by Einstein

In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human understanding, 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.

So it seems to me, neither a theist or an atheist should use quotes from Einstein to try and solidify their claims.

Originally Posted by nitsuJ

So it seems to me, neither a theist or an atheist should use quotes from Einstein to try and solidify their claims.

Lol of course it is usually the religious who bring it out first...and we have to try to explain the truth...I don't like when people lie about scientists.

OMGZ EVEN DARWIN AND EINSTEENSSSS CONVERTED ON THEIR DEATH BEDZZ!!!!!1

Originally Posted by nitsuJ

Well, I really see no reason in an atheist quoting Einstein when he's clearly not atheist. He may think theists like Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. etc. are silly, but he also probably thinks atheists quoting him are silly also.

So it seems to me, neither a theist or an atheist should use quotes from Einstein to try and solidify their claims.

Well, yes, Einstein might have found it silly to be quoted by atheist. But in a discussion about (multiple-party) politics, you can as political party A quote the good points made by party B about a certain subject you agree about, to try and convince party C of that point. You might disagree completely on all other subjects with party B, but a good argument in favor of a certain position is still a good argument in favor of a certain position. For instance, using Einstein (and the founding fathers) that the scriptures aren't probably infallible pieces of god-send literature.

I do agree that it shouldn't be made to look as Einstein was a complete self-proclaimed atheist. (As some atheist indeed to.) However, one might even present the theory that in fact Einstein was in practical ways an atheist. The same is said of Spinoza, who was, for it's time, pretty much as atheistic as was possible. However it would still be silly to propose it is completely certain that Spinoza or Einstein were, either secretly or without knowing it themselves, atheists.

Making an argument for atheism hardly ever is solely about atheism as a whole, in which case you can't properly use Einstein, but about certain points (like evolution/creationism, the (non)existence pf history evidence, ect). For which you can use everyone: pantheists, deist, nazis, communists, idealists, and even theists with a non-typical view on a certain point. Quite some Christians believe in Evolution, and they are of course capable of making valid points in favor of it, which can be quoted by atheists. As a part of their discussion about why the whole of religion and theism is silly.

-

Addition. Especially in regards to Chabya quoting Einstein.

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.

- Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921

I love Einstein. ^_____^ <3

Why is it that everyone tries to make it sound as though Einstein believed whatever it is they believe? Was he really that much of an authority that his influence carries over into areas that he had little interest in long after he's died? The truth is, you don't know what he believed, and its really irrelevant either way because he wasn't a religious man. Some among us might think that a background in theoretical physics might give one license to act as an authority on any subject but it doesn't. No matter what Einstein believed or didn't, his agreeing with you or disagreeing with you does not help or hurt your cause in the slightest.

Either way, if you have to make an appeal to any authority to give weight to your arguments, then you have already lost.

I only look to Einstein because I came to an epiphany about what I beleived while reading one of his books. I read Spinoza only after einstein mentioned him, and all of this has a great effect on what I beleive spiritually, as I had never even thought about the concept of pantheism.

I'm just trying to say he wasn't an aetheist and pantheism is not aetheism.

Originally Posted by stonedape

I only look to Einstein because I came to an epiphany about what I beleived while reading one of his books. I read Spinoza only after einstein mentioned him, and all of this has a great effect on what I beleive spiritually, as I had never even thought about the concept of pantheism.

I'm just trying to say he wasn't an aetheist and pantheism is not aetheism.

He also said he wouldn't call himself a Pantheist.

Originally Posted by stonedape

I only look to Einstein because I came to an epiphany about what I beleived while reading one of his books. I read Spinoza only after einstein mentioned him, and all of this has a great effect on what I beleive spiritually, as I had never even thought about the concept of pantheism.

I'm just trying to say he wasn't an aetheist and pantheism is not aetheism.

I agree that pantheism is not atheism, but from what I know about it; Einstein didn't ponder to long on the subject. Spinoza would be a much better advocate to turn to, as he actually uses strict logic to arrive at the conclusion that God must exist, and that God must be cognizant and conscious.

Einstein may not have believed in God.

So what?

Originally Posted by stonedape

I only look to Einstein because I came to an epiphany about what I beleived while reading one of his books. I read Spinoza only after einstein mentioned him, and all of this has a great effect on what I beleive spiritually, as I had never even thought about the concept of pantheism.

I'm just trying to say he wasn't an aetheist and pantheism is not aetheism.

Nice that you read Spinoza, he was pretty awesome for the 1700s.

However, you should read Hume and Nietzsche, far more awesome pre-1900 philosophers. (materialism ftw. Spinoza was cool, and had some great insights, but in his pre-Kantian ways pretty... non-scientific. And thus isn't an authority in Philosophy these days, just interesting history)

People seem to be making a big deal over Einstein. When talking about God, he was speaking metaphorically. He was an athiest. Is there anything more to this?

I'm just trying to say he wasn't an aetheist and pantheism is not aetheism.

I would disagree there. Pantheism is sexed up athiesm. Pantheism is saying there is no God in the common sense (i.e. Christianity); but that the laws of nature and physics can be interpreted as god in a sense.

I for one think this is silly. Why refer to the laws of nature and physics as God? It just causes a lot of fuss and confusion. Why can't we just call the laws of nature and physics the force than drives the universe and existence, without having to bring religion into it?

He said quite a few times specifically that he was not an aetheist, but I do agree that it is ridiculous for us to make such a big deal about Einstein.

A lot of people(like myself) who have complex beleif structures don't like to get lumped in with people who believe something different. For example, I try to follow the way of Christ, but my beleifs are not Christian in nature, so I don't like to be called a Christian.

Semantics are very important. The word God has the meaning of a force more powerful than oneself. Many of the religious leaders came to the conclusion that God is Existance. LIke Moses claim of "I AM".

There are many reasons not to just abandon spirituallity. Thats what I see many aetheists do. Even if you only think that the mind is the soul and there is nothing beyond what we percieve. God is not just the laws of physics, but all that occurs in nature, even that which we don't understand.

The main reason I use the word God is to try to understand what other people are talking about. I personally think it's important to try to see things from others perspective and not just call them idiots. We are all idiots. None of us really know that much about how the universe works. Once you start to study the spirit(even if its just the mind and I'm mistaken) you start see how one can find spirituality in almost anything. You start to understand why they might beleive something that at first sounds stupid in your opinion. Understanding is a great virtue.

Silly aetheists.

Originally Posted by Neruo

Nice that you read Spinoza, he was pretty awesome for the 1700s.

However, you should read Hume and Nietzsche, far more awesome pre-1900 philosophers. (materialism ftw. Spinoza was cool, and had some great insights, but in his pre-Kantian ways pretty... non-scientific. And thus isn't an authority in Philosophy these days, just interesting history)

Have you read Spinoza yourself? Please if you will, find a logical flaw in his Ethics and in particular, the 14 propositions.

Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

People seem to be making a big deal over Einstein. When talking about God, he was speaking metaphorically. He was an athiest. Is there anything more to this?

Yes. I have made a thread about it to end this diversion that is irrelevant to the current conversation.

Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

I would disagree there. Pantheism is sexed up athiesm. Pantheism is saying there is no God in the common sense (i.e. Christianity); but that the laws of nature and physics can be interpreted as god in a sense.

I for one think this is silly. Why refer to the laws of nature and physics as God? It just causes a lot of fuss and confusion. Why can't we just call the laws of nature and physics the force than drives the universe and existence, without having to bring religion into it?

Have you ever heard of Biblical Pantheism? You speak rather authoritatively on the classifications of beliefs you do not hold despite your obvious ignorance on the subject.