Albert Einstein’s True Religious Beliefs Revealed

Einstein is often quoted by theists as saying things like “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”, or “God does not play dice with the universe.” – as if the opinion of one (very smart) man might convince atheists to ignore the complete lack of evidence for a deity of any kind and let someone else do our thinking for us.  Guess that’s par for the course for believers.

Recently a letter written by Einstein on January 3 1954 has surfaced, which may settle the matter once and for all.

In the letter, he states: “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.”

and

“For me the Jewish religion like all others 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 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.”

It seems clear from these extracts alone that Einstein held very little respect for religious answers to the question of the origins of the universe and our place in it.  However, I fear many believers will continue to ignore the facts in front of them to maintain their comforting delusions.

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