Explaining Einstein’s Concept of ‘God’
Did Einstein believe in the existence of God or was he an atheist?
In the years 1905 and 1916, Albert Einstein published his special and general theories of relativity respectively which made him one of the most influential physicists in the history of science. Einstein was a prolific thinker who could thought-experiment complicated physical phenomena and postulate the underlying principles behind those phenomena. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his works on the photoelectric effect and spent the later half of his life visiting Universities and lecturing about his scientific contributions which gave him the image of the most famous physicist to ever exist.
This article is not about Einstein’s scientific contributions though. I shall share about Einstein’s views on Gods and religion. A lot of us have a misconception regarding whether or not Einstein was a believer in the designer, or was he an atheist or an agnostic. What did he think about the supernatural, and what was his take on the holy scriptures? In this story, I shall try to explain God through Einstein’s mind. Y’all must be familiar with this popular quotation of Albert Einstein published in Out of My Later Years, 1950:
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
What one might understand or assume from the above statement is that Einstein was a believer in the supernatural, the conventional God that people think is the creator and destroyer of worlds, the one who observes the deeds and doings of people and favors them with rewards if they do good and punishes them if bad. However, Einstein’s view on God was not really that straightforward. Einsteinian version of God was somewhat totally different from the conventional God. Einstein did not believe in a personal God. Religion for Einstein was the admiration he had for nature, for the structure of the universe and the world which is explainable by the laws of science. In the year 1940, Einstein wrote a paper justifying this statement that he did not believe in a personal God.
In a New York Times Magazine piece in 1930, Einstein also distinctly stated his take on morality. He stated that a man’s ethical and moral values should be solely based upon education, societies, and needs, and not on religion.
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and societies and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
What ‘religion’ does a scientific mind need?
According to Einstein, a scientist should possess a religious feeling which doesn’t require divinity for moral values. He believed that every scientist has a profound religious feeling of his own, a feeling which is different from the religiosity of a naïve man.
In an address at Princeton Theological Seminary, in 1939, Einstein stated his opinions of the concept of God:
“During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man’s own image, who, by operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. “
In a response to the Liberal Minister’s Club of New York City in June 1948, Einstein wrote a letter mentioning about the irreconcilability of science and religion. He stated the aspects of religion which come into conflict with science. He believed that the mythical content of religious traditions, the fixed ideas and statements of religions often come in conflict with science and scientific methods. There are many dogmatically fixed statements, he adds, that fall into the domain of science. The complete address can be studied here:
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