101 replies to this topic

[Moonlight Graham]

Really interesting thoughts/quotes from Albert Einstein on God.

I apologize for the dolt Kirk Cameron and the other dude in the video who are using Einstein's quotes for their own agenda, but the quotes themselves are fascinating perspectives on God.

Einstein on God

[Sir Bandelot]

Really interesting thoughts/quotes from Albert Einstein on God.

I apologize for the dolt Kirk Cameron and the other dude in the video who are using Einstein's quotes for their own agenda, but the quotes themselves are fascinating perspectives on God.

Einstein on God

It is fascinating. Sure, Kirk and the other dude may have taken it a bit too far at the very, end where they mentioned hell. But I don't think you need to apologize.

I am not a christian in the traditional sense of the word. But at the end of the day, I'd rather be in a room full of bible thumpers than one filled with athiests.

Imagine, a room filled with people like Dog On Porch...

[TrueMetis]

Don't you just love quote mining and just plain lying assholes? A lot of those I can't even find a source for, and the ones that do have a source aren't saying what Kirk and Ray claim they are saying.

"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. These [...] interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions 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 also 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." -1954 letter to Eric Gutkind

"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." -a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a conventional god

"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment." -letter to M. Berkowitz

I am not a christian in the traditional sense of the word. But at the end of the day, I'd rather be in a room full of bible thumpers than one filled with athiests.

Imagine, a room filled with people like Dog On Porch...

DOP is nothing like most atheists. Way to generalize.

Edited by TrueMetis, 24 August 2010 - 02:21 AM.

[Moonlight Graham]

Don't you just love quote mining and just plain lying assholes? A lot of those I can't even find a source for, and the ones that do have a source aren't saying what Kirk and Ray claim they are saying.

Like i said, ignore the dumb hosts. Which ones are you referring to. I looked up 2 and found them no problem. One of them, from a 1929 interview, flat-out asked Einstein "do you believe in God?", and the answer was a quote from the vid.

Edited by Moonlight Graham, 24 August 2010 - 03:07 AM.

[TrueMetis]

Like i said, ignore the dumb hosts. Which ones are you referring to. I looked up 2 and found them no problem. One of them, from a 1929 interview, flat-out asked Einstein "do you believe in God?", and the answer was a quote from the vid.

These are some of the ones I'm doubtful about.

"We know nothing about [God and the wold] at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren..."

"I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of the pattern. I see a clock but I cannot envision the clockmaker..."

"I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. 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 arrangement 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. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

Some of these have sources which I'm not sure about the credibility of. There are more as well but I don't feel like writing them out.

[dre]

Einstein was an Atheist with humility and an open mind.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism

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.
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949

[Moonlight Graham]

I actually don't even care if Einstein was an atheist or not, or even if the quotes were 100% fabricated. They are just really interesting quotes.

[ToadBrother]

Like i said, ignore the dumb hosts. Which ones are you referring to. I looked up 2 and found them no problem. One of them, from a 1929 interview, flat-out asked Einstein "do you believe in God?", and the answer was a quote from the vid.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. Einstein was a Deist, or at least that's the position that best approximates what his views were. He also used God at times as something of a metaphor for nature, or the forces of it. He certainly wasn't an atheist, but his beliefs would offer no comfort to religious nuts like Kirk Cameron. He made it very clear that he wasn't one of them.

[DogOnPorch]

It is fascinating. Sure, Kirk and the other dude may have taken it a bit too far at the very, end where they mentioned hell. But I don't think you need to apologize.

I am not a christian in the traditional sense of the word. But at the end of the day, I'd rather be in a room full of bible thumpers than one filled with athiests.

Imagine, a room filled with people like Dog On Porch...

That won't happen as atheist tend not meet in big rooms as a general rule like you God-types. There are no atheist 'leaders' and there are no atheist 'holy books'.

TM: DOP is nothing like most atheists. Way to generalize.

Yeah, right...way to generalize, yourself.

[Remiel]

Einstein was an Atheist with humility and an open mind.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism

Honestly, from the text of the quote it seems to me that you left out an important part of that sentence with your bolding. To me, it sounds as if he is saying that a Jesuit priest would think him an atheist because of his beliefs, but that is not necessarily how he thinks of himself.

[TrueMetis]

Yeah, right...way to generalize, yourself.

Except I wasn't, unless you assume that the choice is being like to you or a single other choice. That's what we who understand fallacies call a false dichotomy.

[DogOnPorch]

Except I wasn't, unless you assume that the choice is being like to you or a single other choice. That's what we who understand fallacies call a false dichotomy.

Oh yeah...deny my existence. Last I checked, we are all individuals.

[betsy]

Einstein was not an atheist....he was a deist.

[TrueMetis]

Einstein was a genius, in the end belief in god or lack there of is irrelevant.

[Remiel]

Einstein was a genius, in the end belief in god or lack there of is irrelevant.

True enough. This whole argument stinks of Appeal to Authority.