Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear

By: hakeem Mood: in love Date: 05/13/2008 11:12:31 Music: None

Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear

"Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said
Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless
debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the
greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own.

A little known letter written by him,
however, may help to settle the argument - or at least provoke further
controversy about his views.

Due to be auctioned this week in London
after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the
document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no
supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as "childish
superstitions".

Einstein penned the letter on January 3
1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his
book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on
public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, he states: "The word god
is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human
weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive
legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Einstein, who was Jewish and who
declined an offer to be the state of Israel's second president, also
rejected the idea that the Jews are God's favoured people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all
others 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.
As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human
groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of
power.

Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

The letter will go on sale at
Bloomsbury Auctions in London on Thursday and is expected to fetch up
to $16,000. The handwritten piece, in German, is not listed in the
source material of the most authoritative academic text on the subject,
Max Jammer's book Einstein and Religion.

One of the country's leading experts on the scientist, John Brooke of Oxford University, admitted he had not heard of it.

Einstein is best known for his theories
of relativity and for the famous E=mc2 equation that describes the
equivalence of mass and energy, but his thoughts on religion have long
attracted conjecture.

His parents were not religious but he
attended a Catholic primary school and at the same time received
private tuition in Judaism. This prompted what he later called, his
"religious paradise of youth", during which he observed religious rules
such as not eating pork. This did not last long though and by 12 he was
questioning the truth of many biblical stories.

"The consequence was a positively
fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth
is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing
impression," he later wrote.

In his later years he referred to a
"cosmic religious feeling" that permeated and sustained his scientific
work. In 1954, a year before his death, he spoke of wishing to
"experience the universe as a single cosmic whole". He was also fond of
using religious flourishes, in 1926 declaring that "He [God] does not
throw dice" when referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory.

His position on God has been widely
misrepresented by people on both sides of the atheism/religion divide
but he always resisted easy stereotyping on the subject.

"Like other great scientists he does
not fit the boxes in which popular polemicists like to pigeonhole him,"
said Brooke. "It is clear for example that he had respect for the
religious values enshrined within Judaic and Christian traditions ...
but what he understood by religion was something far more subtle than
what is usually meant by the word in popular discussion."

Despite his categorical rejection of
conventional religion, Brooke said that Einstein became angry when his
views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism. He was offended by
their lack of humility and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the
world is its comprehensibility."