More quotes from Einstein

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Pamho, agtSP!

 

By analyzing the following quotes from Einstein we can see that he was

religious. He believes in God and often refers to Him in a personal way.

However, in later quotes he denies that he believes in a personal God, and

he says he has always stated that clearly. So either he's lying and/or he

changed his mind or he's just contradicting himself without noticing it.

Anyway, he's not completely foolish, and we can definitely refer to him as a

person who saw that there's more to life that just matter. And, as we can

see from the first quote, he also doesn't see any contradiction between

science and religion, but thinks they should go hand in hand.

 

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

 

"God is subtle but he is not malicious."

 

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates

empirically."

 

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior

spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive

with our frail and feeble mind."

 

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be

counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

 

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

 

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of

life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

 

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own

reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the

mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is

enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity."

 

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

 

"I believe in a Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that

exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of

human beings." Telegram to a Jewish newspaper, 1929; [pg.147, Calaprice].

(Spinoza believed the more one studies and understands the universe the

better one understands God)

 

"I can not accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear

of death or blind faith. I can not prove to you that there is no personal

God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar." [pg. 58, Mayer,

Bite-size Einstein]

 

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes

convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit

vastly superior to that of man...In this way the pursuit of science leads to

a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from

the religiosity of someone more naive." [Letter to a child who asked if

scientist pray, January 24, 1936; pg. 152 Calaprice]

 

"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. I am

satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness

and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together

with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of

the Reason that manifests itself in nature." [Albert Einstein, The World as

I See It American Institute of Physics Online]

 

"In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the

stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that

source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the

hands of the priests." [pg.153 Calaprice]

 

"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. If something

is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration

for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

[Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by

Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]

 

"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the

actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of

his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic

causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.

[He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.]

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior

spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and

transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the

highest importance -- but for us, not for God."

[Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen

Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]

 

"What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for

me higher than all the achievements of the inquiring and constructive mind."

[pg. 56 Mayer]