Einstein on Science and Religion

I would disagree. As we've argued before, I feel that religion's positive effects on people in today's age outweigh the bad. For every few million that follow by the "book" and better their lives by it there are a few extremists that make it as a whole look bad. Freedom of thought and freedom to believe in whatever people want to should never be done away with.

Whether or not religion is a positive or negative force is irrelevant. When I say it's a relic I mean from a purely epistemological standpoint. The fact that after all we know people still believe "magic man done it" is pathetic. I will concede that I don't know how everything started. That does not mean that the God hypothesis has any real merit behind it. That does not mean we shouldn't excoriate such puerile beliefs. If you want to believe something it should be justified with evidence. Otherwise, society should ostracize you if you're over...five.

Of course, you know how I feel about this. I post these little articles because I find them amusing, and exhilirating, at times. But you don't need me to go over this with you again, I doubt, nor do you probably want me to. I am, however, interested in why you would continue believing. You're a fairly smart guy. What makes what I see as a delusion so persistent for you?

I choose to believe because man cannot now describe how everything started, and it will probably not be in my lifetime, nor will it ever. I feel that it is great you do not believe in God, we need to have people questioning everything if we are ever going to progress. Me personally, I do not loathe religion like I was brought up, I've become more self-spiritualized as I feel I don't need to go to church to pray, if I want some alone time to be spiritual, more so than not I need to be alone and solve my own problems.

I don't agree what you said. What you believe doesn't seem delusional to me, actually it's the opposite. But my personality I love to question things and i've been taught from a young age to always question everything and never agree until you know for yourself what is to be true. As for Religion, I agree there are plenty of probelms with it, but concerning God I still feel that our existance can not have just started from nothing, I feel there are different levels of conciousness that obviously we cannot see because they are on a different 'plane' of time itself, a plane where time does not exist.

I love a good majority of these articles you post as I feel I can get into them equally and love to find out viewpoints from other people as I form my own opinion. But basically, where i'm getting at is that being delusional isn't always a bad thing. It helps people get by, if they want to be afraid of death and use religion to justify living a good life, then be it. I don't think religion or religious people should be castricized because of them believing in something, because that would be hypocritical and very similar to different religions fighting with each other because the other person doesn't have the same beliefs as them, that's what it boils down to.

I know this seems very jumbled but I just peiced together a few thoughts at work, I'll try and re-elaborate once I get a moment.

Einstein was an atheist for most of his life (or a type of person who is "neutral" about religion, or can't prove god exists and can't prove god exists) up to a point in his science career when he realized that the universe (he looked at religion in a cosmic sense) could not exist without some Hierarchy or order governing the things existant in it. That's when he came to the conclusion that god did exist, or at least some sort of supernatural being or system.

Einstein was an atheist for most of his life (or a type of person who is "neutral" about religion, or can't prove god exists and can't prove god exists) up to a point in his science career when he realized that the universe (he looked at religion in a cosmic sense) could not exist without some Hierarchy or order governing the things existant in it. That's when he came to the conclusion that god did exist, or at least some sort of supernatural being or system.

Einstein vehemently denied the existence of any sort of anthropomorphic God through his whole life. Where did you hear otherwise?

Einstein vehemently denied the existence of any sort of anthropomorphic God through his whole life. Where did you hear otherwise?

Some accurate sources. Maybe you're taking his quotes a little too literally and maybe you should take them a bit more symboligically (like the bible). No offense by the way

Some accurate sources. Maybe you're taking his quotes a little too literally and maybe you should take them a bit more symboligically (like the bible). No offense by the way

Reliable sources...kay.

I have read a lot on and of Einstein...I'm not misinterpreting. This is not quotes I'm going off of. The whole point of this post was to put his quotes in context...

Maybe you missed it.

And what am I misinterpreting from the bible? When it says that you should stone your kids for adultery, quite dictatorially, how else should I interpret that?

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/einstein.html

It is however, interesting how he arrived at that conclusion. In developing the theory of relativity, Einstein realized that the equations led to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning. He didn't like the idea of a beginning, because he thought one would have to conclude that the universe was created by God. So, he added a cosmological constant to the equation to attempt to get rid of the beginning. He said this was one of the worst mistakes of his life. Of course, the results of Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe was expanding and had a beginning at some point in the past. So, Einstein became a deist - a believer in an impersonal creator God:

"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 languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements 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."

It is the second part of the quote that reveals the reason Einstein rejected the existence of a personal God. Einstein compared the remarkable design and order of the cosmos and could not reconcile those characteristics with the evil and suffering he found in human existence. How could an all-powerful God allow the suffering that exists on earth?

All very, very excellent points from Einstein...

And what am I misinterpreting from the bible? When it says that you should stone your kids for adultery, quite dictatorially, how else should I interpret that?

Where does it say that? Also, I agree that these "poetic" quotes are taken too literally.

I'm sorry, but after reading through that I must say it's full of trivializations, distortions, and exaggerations. I have 2 consecutive exams coming up, so I don't have time to elaborate, but in general I would be weary of apologist websites. I mean, this site actually denies evolution. I'm sorry, but when my job involves me working in a laboratory where the basic principles of what I'm doing simply would not work if evolution was false renders me incapable of having any bit of patience for these morons.