Einstein's Philosophy

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Charlemagne_II

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In 1930 Albert Einstein published an article in the New York Times which reads in part:

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

How would you answer Einstein’s remarks? :confused:
 
God does not choose our punishment or our reward, we do that ourselves.
 
I don’t go to Scott Hahn to learn about physics, although I’m sure he’s got some opinions.

Should I look to the expert in one field to be an expert in all?
 
Charlemagne_II said:
In 1930 Albert Einstein published an article in the New York Times which reads in part:

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

How would you answer Einstein’s remarks? :confused:
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It has been a widespread problem for some time now that people assume that when human words and emotions are used to describe God (since we can’t use anything else) that they are actually meant to exactly say exactly what God is doing, as opposed to give some sort of framework in which we can try to approach the problem. This gives the impression that God is a scaled up human - which is not at all what we believe, but an understandable conclusion given the way some people talk about Him. (And yes, Jesus is fully human, but God is much more than that.)

These are the issues with taking phrases like “God was angered” literally, and are, I think, and unfortunate consequence of personal interpretation taking off (it says right there that He got angry, he must be angry - with the somewhat implicit assumption that His anger is our anger).

I think that Einstein and many more have been given this false perception of Christianity and other similar religions - this scaled up giant bearded man in the sky with lightning bolts - and told that it is what these religions actually are. And he is right to reject them.

Now as to his nothing survives the death of the body thing - well given that what he has already rejected was absurd, and that he didn’t address anything else, he has no reason to assume that it does, but neither does he have any reason to assume that it does not (or at least if he does, he hasn’t said it). So I take that comment as a completely uninformed opinion.
 
If he can’t imagine a creator who rewards or punishes its creation, then how can he imagine why parents, the ‘creators’ of their children, reward or punish them?
 
bzkoss
**
If he can’t imagine a creator who rewards or punishes its creation, then how can he imagine why parents, the ‘creators’ of their children, reward or punish them? **

And if the parents are made in the image and likeness of God, all the more imaginable a God. 😉
 
I don’t know that Eienstein really said to the media back in his day what he really believed about God. You have that quote and I do believe his most memorable quote is something like God doesn’t gamble with creation, sorry don’t remember exactly what he said. So if he really is stating what he believes, then they seem contradictory, I read an article some time back on what is understood about what he believes in respect to God, but I don’t remember what exactly what that was either (boy I’m full of all kinds of info here 😉 ) but I got the impression that he kept his true beliefs as private as possible and most of the time his comments were directed towards the prevailing beliefs of the day, when it came to media quotes. So I wouldn’t take seriously some of the quotes of Eienstein for press release. People like Gen Patton were victimized by the press and I am sure Eienstein was smart enough to keep the press at arms length on such matters.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
In 1930 Albert Einstein published an article in the New York Times which reads in part:

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

How would you answer Einstein’s remarks? :confused:
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  1. Salvation and creation are the same ACT…(while the nothing-horrors will go back into nothing and nether worlds)…therefore God doesn’t act in a contrary manner.
2)God is not “modeled” on or a “reflection” of us.

3)As regards souls and bodies beyond death…God Himself expresses comfort toward this doubt…(paraphased).“You will truly know that I am God when I raise your bodies from the dust”
 
D Martin

So I wouldn’t take seriously some of the quotes of Eienstein for press release.

Then you might (or might not) be interested in looking at a book titled Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
D Martin

Then you might (or might not) be interested in looking at a book titled Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer.
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I probably wouldn’t, but history has proved that Eienstein was a gift of God to us, and since Eienstein nobody has even come close to his ability to discern, understand and explain the construction of the physical universe at its most foundational level.
 
D Martin

I probably wouldn’t, but history has proved that Eienstein was a gift of God to us

It was Einstein’s letters to FDR that instigated the building of the first nuclear weapon. I don’t think nuclear weapons are a gift of God to us. Let us temper our respect for Einstein’s intellect with some strong reservations about his wisdom.
 
A God who ignored all evil is not a infinitely merciful God. That is not mercy. That is indifference.
 
Einstein said:

"Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

Well, how about through hope and humility? And who is more egotistic; the person who humbles himself before God, or the person who says there can be no Ego bigger than his own?
 
SurprizdbyLewis said:
I don’t go to Scott Hahn to learn about physics, although I’m sure he’s got some opinions.

Should I look to the expert in one field to be an expert in all?
Click to expand...
We ought to remember Einstein made mistakes too, nor did his theories were just thought up by him…

Many of the ideas regarding relativity came also from Lorentz, Poincare and Maxwell
Einstein deserves praise for combining such ideas, I reckon, so I am not claiming we ought not to praise his genious, yet he did not come up with it overnigth by himself.

He said much non-sense about quantum mechanics later on…
He seemed to me stuck on the concept of ‘determinism’ and had an hard time acceptin QM.

He did however do some productive and very interesting work related quantum mechanics, but up to his death he never could accept it…

So he was not perfect. He became an idol for science… but that’s just media hype…

Einstein said:
“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.”

That sounds to me like ignorance of what theism implies, thinking that a ‘personal God’ but be some kind of ‘super-human person’.

In spite of this ‘Dawkins-like’ view on theism he was not as dumb as Dawkins.
Einstein said:

"Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. "

I think he was humble and clearly misinformed regarding all the philosophical work around him. He quotes Spinoza but I question if he ever went deep into him at all.

Hence I would not trust Einstein much on Religion or God at all, but I would respect that a brilliant mind like his at least was somewhat conscious of his ignorance in the subject…
 
Charlemagne_II said:
In 1930 Albert Einstein published an article in the New York Times which reads in part:

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

How would you answer Einstein’s remarks? :confused:
Click to expand...
Um, he wasn’t God or else he would’ve known everything??!!
 
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