Heres Einsteins religious beliefs, we must keep in mind he was without doubt, one of the deepest thinkers to ever walk the earth. In his 1949 book The World as I See It, he wrote: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.[37] Einstein referred to his belief system as cosmic religion and authored an eponymous article on the subject in 1954, which later became his book Ideas and Opinions in 1955.[38] The belief system recognized a miraculous order which manifests itself in all of nature as well as in the world of ideas, devoid of a personal God who rewards and punishes individuals based on their behavior. It rejected a conflict between science and religion, and held that cosmic religion was necessary for science.[38] He told William Hermanns in an interview that God is a mystery. But a comprehensible mystery. I have nothing but awe when I observe the laws of nature. There are not laws without a lawgiver, but how does this lawgiver look? Certainly not like a man magnified.[39] He added with a smile some centuries ago I would have been burned or hanged. Nonetheless, I would have been in good company.[39] In a 1930 New York Times article, Einstein distinguished three human impulses which develop religious belief: fear, social morality, and a cosmic religious feeling. A primitive understanding of causality causes fear, and the fearful invent supernatural beings analogous to themselves. The desire for love and support create a social and moral need for a supreme being; both these styles have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, originates in a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, the individual feels the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature ... and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religious belief, but as a partner in the third.[40] He maintained, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other there are strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies as aspirations for truth derive from the religious sphere. For Einstein, science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.[40] He continued: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be...[40] en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:03:44 +0000
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