Einstein's Religion

[Oreoracle]

I’m afraid you haven’t made a convincing case that science was not a willing participant in the creation of the Bomb following the discovery of nuclear physics.

This is a strawman. I said that the motivation for the war wasn’t science. It wasn’t intended to spread scientific theory, nor was science used to justify the war.

To put this into perspective, you wouldn’t argue that sports are about spreading religion just because people sometimes pray for their teams.

Yes, religion starts wars. It also prevents wars.

Honestly, I can’t think of a single example in which a nation passed up the opportunity for a profitable war because of the religious convictions of its people. It’s not enough to say “This religious nation hasn’t had wars in a while”, because correlation is not causation. No, I want an example where it would have been in their best interest, but they refrained due to religion.

But don’t feel too bad though. This isn’t a criticism of religion so much as the nature of war. Wars are fought either in self-defense or for economic interests. The difference between religion and science as far as war is concerned is that you can’t convince naïve young men to join the military for science’s sake.

I think I would have, unless I had been a Sadducee.

But I’d have been compelled to believe if I had seen him after the resurrection, as Thomas did…

That would have been a jaw-dropper!

Such a shame that you’ve already heard of the “real” Jesus story, because it would have been easy enough to arrange such a hoax. I could pay some people to follow me: a few would be my disciples, and one would be the “blind” woman. I could have a magician teach me how to exchange water for wine discreetly, and tell my “followers” to attest that I arose from the dead.

The “miracle” of healing the blind woman would be especially easy to pull off. For proof, just look at all the supposed faith healing done on television. People will gobble anything up, especially if you whip a crowd into a frenzy and let mass hysteria take over.

 

[Ion]

Such a shame that you’ve already heard of the “real” Jesus story, because it would have been easy enough to arrange such a hoax. I could pay some people to follow me: a few would be my disciples, and one would be the “blind” woman. I could have a magician teach me how to exchange water for wine discreetly, and tell my “followers” to attest that I arose from the dead.

The “miracle” of healing the blind woman would be especially easy to pull off. For proof, just look at all the supposed faith healing done on television. People will gobble anything up, especially if you whip a crowd into a frenzy and let mass hysteria take over.

You forgot to pay them so to kill you and then tell everybody that you ascended into heavens…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Honestly, I can’t think of a single example in which a nation passed up the opportunity for a profitable war because of the religious convictions of its people. It’s not enough to say “This religious nation hasn’t had wars in a while”, because correlation is not causation. No, I want an example where it would have been in their best interest, but they refrained due to religion.

So I guess your real argument is that the Vatican started World War II? The Vatican was behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The Vatican was behind the Russian Revolution? The Vatican was behind the mass murders in China by Mao?

Oh, and the Vatican persuaded Einstein to promote the invention of nuclear weapons?

I don’t think Einstein needed the Vatican’s permission to do that. It was probably his idea!

 

[Oreoracle]

You forgot to pay them so to kill you and then tell everybody that you ascended into heavens…

But people were convinced of Jesus’ divinity even before his supposed resurrection. That is presumably the standard to which he held his followers.

Personally, though, I find it more likely that Jesus was killed, his corpse was moved, and his followers (who were obviously biased by this point) attested that he had resurrected. If this story unfolded today, that is what any sane person would expect.

 

[Oreoracle]

So I guess your real argument is that the Vatican started World War II? The Vatican was behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The Vatican was behind the Russian Revolution? The Vatican was behind the mass murders in China by Mao?

Oh, and the Vatican persuaded Einstein to promote the invention of nuclear weapons?

I don’t think Einstein needed the Vatican’s permission to do that. It was probably his idea!

Again with the strawman. Firstly, religion never starts wars; as I said, they are sometimes used to justify them. Secondly, our participation in World War II was for self-defense purposes. Recall that I said wars start either for economic interests (in the case of Germany) or self-defense (in the case of the U.S.).

This really isn’t difficult to grasp. Wars start for material reasons, are sometimes justified with religion, but are never (to my knowledge) justified for the sake of spreading science.

 

[Ion]

But people were convinced of Jesus’ divinity even before his supposed resurrection. That is presumably the standard to which he held his followers.

Personally, though, I find it more likely that Jesus was killed, his corpse was moved, and his followers (who were obviously biased by this point) attested that he had resurrected. If this story unfolded today, that is what any sane person would expect.

Can you present the all the facts as you think it happened?
With crowd and times and important events?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

This really isn’t difficult to grasp. Wars start for material reasons, are sometimes justified with religion, but are never (to my knowledge) justified for the sake of spreading science.

Somehow we got off track. If I ever said that the purpose of science was to spread wars, I never meant to say that. What I meant to say was that science has helped in spreading the horror of wars. You certainly know that the letters of Einstein to FDR urging the A-bomb were his letters, not the Pope’s.

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” — Albert Einstein, Telegram (24 May 1946) sent to prominent Americans. Quoted in New York Times (25 May 1946).

So also the purpose of religions is not to spread wars. Even if some religious leaders have contributed to war movements from time to time, the main purpose of religion is to spread love and peace. Certainly far more good in that department has been done by religion than any other institution. Science has also done its great share of good, not so much in spreading love and peace, as in discovering ways to make life more comfortable and more secure from the ravages of illness and disease.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But people were convinced of Jesus’ divinity even before his supposed resurrection. That is presumably the standard to which he held his followers.

Personally, though, I find it more likely that Jesus was killed, his corpse was moved, and his followers (who were obviously biased by this point) attested that he had resurrected. If this story unfolded today, that is what any sane person would expect.

No, actually what you are really saying is that his followers were liars because they never really saw the risen Christ.

But can you get off this straw man argument which really has nothing to do with Einstein?

 

[Oreoracle]

Can you present the all the facts as you think it happened?
With crowd and times and important events?

I don’t care to, because no matter how many details I supply, you’ll always nitpick and want a few more.

The point is that if the Jesus story unfolded today, and you had no previous bias regarding stories similar to it, you would dismiss the story as a hoax. Either that, or there would be nothing preventing you from accepting similar messiah stories. As I noted earlier in this thread, there are many religions professing a messiah born of a virgin on December 25 who had 12 disciples, performed miracles, raised the dead, was crucified, was raised from the dead 3 days later, and did all of this to atone for humanity’s sins. Some of these religions predated Christianity by centuries.

So also the purpose of religions is not to spread wars.

I never said they had such a purpose. That is roughly the converse of my argument, which isn’t the same thing. I’m saying wars are sometimes used to spread religion, not that religion is sometimes used to start wars. Wars are never intended to spread science. In fact, if science is involved at all, it’s usually the opposite; such wars are meant to inhibit the propagation of science, such as the attempt to seize the “weapons of mass destruction” that were supposedly in the Middle East.

No, actually what you are really saying is that his followers were liars because they never really saw the risen Christ.

Not necessarily. They could have been delusional or meant that he was still alive symbolically. And even if they were lying, their lies would be understandable if they genuinely believed Jesus’ teachings were good and that rumors of his resurrection would validate them.

So don’t think my goal is to vilify the disciples. I am simply stating the fact that you would not believe a modern day version of this story if you didn’t have the bias of your religion already in place. When I bring up this point, suddenly our 40+ post discussion needs to be brought back to Einstein. Suspicious timing there, don’t you think? Why tolerate our tangent that long if staying on topic is so important to you?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

When I bring up this point, suddenly our 40+ post discussion needs to be brought back to Einstein. Suspicious timing there, don’t you think? Why tolerate our tangent that long if staying on topic is so important to you?

Throughout that 40 post discussion, as you call it, I kept trying to tie everything into Einstein, and you kept wanting to go back and talk about the New Testament’s credibility. Naturally, when you make charges against credibility they need to be challenged. But please at this point can we get off this bizarre talk about how I would respond to Jesus if he had appeared today instead of 2,000 years ago? You have to admit it’s not really relevant to a discussion of Einstein’s religion, unless you have quotes of Einstein about Jesus that make it relevant.

Do you?

I gave you one earlier that showed Einstein was sensitive to the New Testament account of Jesus being an authentic historical figure as described in the NT. Jesus was not invented, or lied about as to his personality, according to Einstein.

 

[Ion]

I don’t care to, because no matter how many details I supply, you’ll always nitpick and want a few more.

So you provide none… Probably you did not even bother to read the gospels.
But you want us to accept what you suggest.
You said that Jesus paid his followers, and you gave up this line.
You came with another one:

But people were convinced of Jesus’ divinity even before his supposed resurrection. That is presumably the standard to which he held his followers.

Personally, though, I find it more likely that Jesus was killed, his corpse was moved, and his followers (who were obviously biased by this point) attested that he had resurrected. If this story unfolded today, that is what any sane person would expect.

I invited you to write the whole story from your point of view so you will be able to see by yourself your contradictions. You should start a new thread if you want to be edified on this subject, with capital importance for your soul.
Can you imagine 13 men in their primes begging for food in a village? And they’ve got their meals! Do you think that food was so cheap that all you had to do was to ask and get it? It would be hard even to get something to work because people organize everything from sowing to harvest without anticipating such crowd in their village.

The point is that if the Jesus story unfolded today, and you had no previous bias regarding stories similar to it, you would dismiss the story as a hoax. Either that, or there would be nothing preventing you from accepting similar messiah stories. As I noted earlier in this thread, there are many religions professing a messiah born of a virgin on December 25 who had 12 disciples, performed miracles, raised the dead, was crucified, was raised from the dead 3 days later, and did all of this to atone for humanity’s sins. Some of these religions predated Christianity by centuries.

We discuss Catholic Christianity only.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Robert Oppenheimer, who had been the director of the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bombs, by the 1960s had come to terms with a late blooming conscience about the whole affair. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki greater bombs had been invented, and Russia was also building them. He said at a public seminar in the 1960s:

“I find myself profoundly in anguish over the fact that no ethical discussion of any weight or nobility had been addressed to the problem of atomic weapons… What are we to make of a civilization which has always regarded ethics an essential part of human life, and which has always had in it an articulate, deep, fervent conviction, never perhaps held by the majority, but never absent: a dedication to Ahimsa, the Sanskrit word that means doing no harm or hurt, which you find in Jesus and simply and clearly in Socrates; what are we to think of a civilization which has not been able to talk about the prospect of killing almost everybody, except in prudential and game-theoretic terms?”

Clearly Oppenheimer is wondering why he and his brilliant colleagues had never looked ahead to see the possible dire consequences of nuclear weapons. It would have been interesting to know if Einstein had had such thoughts as these before he died. Had science unleashed its dark side upon the world?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I am now looking at an essay Einstein published in the 1930s for the Living Philosophies volume.

It is a hard hitting essay against the existence of a personal God.

He says:

“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.”

This strikes me as an interesting revelation about Einstein’s callous regard for the feelings of others, including fellow scientists who may have had contrary convictions. To be called “feeble souls” seems not only a stretch, but a direct insult to most of humanity.

Well, perhaps not so strange a development, as he had said earlier in the same essay:

“My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years…”