Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake7
An acknowledgment of a scientific THEORY is what I'm sure you meant to say.
Einstein openly acknowledged that it was absurd to think all the complexities of life happened purely by chance. If you disagree that's the belief in intelligent design, what would you classify that as?
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I would classify it as some guy on the internet interpreting Einstein from a narrow point of view.
One famous quote, "God does not play dice with the universe," is often cited as a belief in intelligent design, but it was actually a specific reference to quantum theory, whose reliance on the notion of unpredictability offended Einstein's deep love of the order of the universe.
Einstein said a lot of seemingly contradictory things about God and religion. A few examples:
"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."
"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details."
"To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
"It is very difficult to elucidate this [cosmic religious] feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. . . The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it ... In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."
Many people interviewed Einstein about his religious beliefs, as if they expected him to issue a definitive statement about the meaning of life or whether God existed. People still quote carefully selected bits and pieces of his writings in an attempt to justify their own beliefs. Einstein was a scientist and human being with his own personal beliefs. His concept of godliness seems to me to be embodied in the laws and order of nature, not as a separate being but as nature itself. But that's just my interpretation. I think it's wrong (and pointless) to try to use him as a mascot for any particular mythos.
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