Einstein's God

[sarahmichigan]

I've been listening to "The God Delusion" as a book on CD, and I found the part where he talked about Einstein's "god" to be quite interesting. It would seem that many science-y types have a sense of wonder about the way the universe is put together, and they sometimes refer to the wonders of nature as "god" or their sense of wonder as their "religion." However, Einstein clearly didn't believe in a personal god. I think a lot of my friends who are agnostic/non-believers with a strong science background probably have beliefs very similar to Einstein's version of "god/religion".

Some interesting Einstein quotes on this page:

http://www.2think.org/einstein.shtml

Comments

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Einstein clearly believed in God, though, just not the God that most Christians refer to when they talk about God. Was Einstein's God a conscious agent? I don't know, and none of the quotes on that site are revealing in that regard: Atheists fail to believe in an intercessionary God, but so do many agnostics, Deists, and Eastern spiritualists (as well as others). Effectively, such beliefs are the same: Whether or not there's a conscious agent which created the universe or the laws therein, it's pointless to pray to them if they're not intercessionary.

So the problem (such that it is) is largely a semantic one. Einstein's answer to "does God exist" is largely like answering "do unicorns exist?" with "certainly, if you mean to include rhinoceroses as unicorns*." "Does God exist?" is the question, the answer is, "Yes, for sufficiently broad definitions of 'God.'" :)

* Uni-, one; -corn, horned -- since some rhinos, they're unicorns. ;)

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Einstein clearly believed in God, though... "Does God exist?" is the question, the answer is, "Yes, for sufficiently broad definitions of 'God.'"

Actually, what you're saying above is pretty much what Dawkins says in his book. I couldn't find a link to Dawkins' exact words on the subject, so I just googled up this link (and you're probably objecting to the first line of this link in your comment) because it had many of the same Einstein quotes that Dawkins quotes in "Delusion".

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I'm not really objecting, just commenting. I did find the page you linked to conflated "their God" with "god," but it was a casual commentary, so it's no thang. :D

The semantic thing is continuously problematic. Since most of the complaints about the danger of believing in God are really about the danger of believing in an Intercessionary Monotheistic Petulant God, I vote we talk about the IMP God instead. ;)

[meecie.livejournal.com]

"The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."


Yes. In so many ways, this is a description of my feelings on the matter.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Yep. I was thinking of you when I posted this.

[lefthand.livejournal.com]

Good book. I am currently on the second CD.

The problem of god is frequently a cultural one. We use religious terms to describe wonder or the unknown. I am not religious in any sense of the word and I find myself falling back on these terms simply because there isn't good language to discuss awe without using religious terms.

[scien.livejournal.com]

Right. Those terms have power in a way new coinages intended to replace them often simply don't. I use them too.

[dare2grok.livejournal.com]

Einstein's quotes related to god/religion never struck me as useful. His quotes are just so tautological, really.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

This is a subject close to my heart. I do believe in God, which i accept is definitely an act of faith, as is believing in not-God... but my definition and means of understanding God are definitely not the kinds of things that most people seem to imagine when they hear the term.

My general tendency to find conversations about this with intelligent athetists and agnostics interesting is because i'm very curious as to what definition of God they apply to their beliefs. Often, we find we have more in common than we thought, and that only terminology has been standing in our way. Often i also get to hear new ideas about what God is or isn't, which helps me refine my own views. It's much harder to get that kind of perspective from someone who also believes in God, but simply gives it one of the common cultural "shapes" and/or believes in it because of the more common litergical reasons.

It's my belief that if our culture commonly accepted a far far broader view of God, that (a) many (but not all) people who consider themselves athetists or agnostics would consider themselves at least somewhat spiritual, and (b) many of those who were athetistic might find the idea of people being spiritual less oppressive and/or ignorant. (I would also hope that it might increase tolerance overall between different flavors of people who are already religious, but i suppose that's a lot to hope for...)