the annoying thing
Well-Known Member
Much has been written about Einstein and God. Was the great scientist religious? What did he believe in? What was God to Einstein? In what is perhaps his most famous remark involving God, Einstein expressed his dissatisfaction with the randomness in quantum physics: his “God doesn’t play dice” quote. The actual phrasing, from a letter Einstein wrote to his friend and colleague Max Born, dated December 4, 1926, is very revealing of his worldview:
Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard. But an inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us close to the secrets of the Ancient One. In any case, I am convinced that He does not play dice.
Einstein’s View of God
Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack
Did Albert Einstein believe in God? In 1992 when astronomer George Smoot announced
the discovery of ripples in the heat radiation still arriving from the Big Bang, he said it
was “like seeing the face of God.” A somewhat more modest astrophysicist, whose
theory had correctly predicted the discovery, was quoted as calling the ripples, “the
handwriting of God.” Are these references to the Creator sacrilegious or legitimate
interpretations? Either way, they are part of a search that Einstein began – the search
for language to communicate the sacred dimension of doing science.
When Neils Bohr and others were developing the quantum theory, it was spiritually
unacceptable to Einstein that the ultimate nature of reality was randomness. “The
[quantum] theory yields much,” he wrote to quantum physicist Max Born in 1926, “but
it hardly brings us close to the secrets of the Ancient One. In any case, I am convinced
that He does not play dice.” Generations of physicists have been profoundly influenced
by the faith of the man who wrote, “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever....This is a
somewhat new kind of religion.”
Recently an article in the magazine Nature reported the results of a poll that was first
taken more than 80 years ago and repeated in 1998. Originally 40% of scientists had said
they believed in God. People who assume God is incompatible with science were
surprised that the percentage of scientists who answered yes in 1998 was the same.
They expected far fewer. But if the question had been worded differently, there might
have been even more. Einstein and the many scientists who are his spiritual companions
were excluded, since the poll asked scientists if they believed in a personal God who
answered prayers. To Einstein the concept of a personal God was naïve, and it was the
main source of conflict between science and religion. God was not a father, king, or
confidant. Nor was God the source of morality to Einstein. “The foundation of morality
should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority,” he warned, “lest doubt
about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound
judgment and action.” Ethical behavior, he wrote, “should be based on sympathy,
education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary.”
What kind of God, then, did Einstein believe in? “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals
himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the
fate and actions of human beings.” The rock of Einstein’s faith was that the world is
rational. The fact is, the world doesn’t have to be rational. It can’t be proved to be. But
to Einstein, what made science possible was this faith: causes lead to effects not by
anyone’s changeable will but by the operation of natural laws. For him the greatest
sacrilege was belief in miracles. If miracles were possible then knowledge of truth was
impossible because there would be no truth. He felt no awe for a willful, human-like God
but for the brilliant simplicity of the laws that have guided the evolution of the universe.
“Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in [science],”
he wrote, “is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in
existence.” He named this special reverence “cosmic religious feeling...which knows no
dogma and no God conceived in man’s image.” Cosmic religious feeling he defined as
awareness of a “spirit manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to
that of man.”
Obviously, it can get confusing but to me he believed in some type of cosmic order a unseen creator so to speak . Of course that's what I think opinions will vary
Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard. But an inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us close to the secrets of the Ancient One. In any case, I am convinced that He does not play dice.
Einstein’s View of God
Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack
Did Albert Einstein believe in God? In 1992 when astronomer George Smoot announced
the discovery of ripples in the heat radiation still arriving from the Big Bang, he said it
was “like seeing the face of God.” A somewhat more modest astrophysicist, whose
theory had correctly predicted the discovery, was quoted as calling the ripples, “the
handwriting of God.” Are these references to the Creator sacrilegious or legitimate
interpretations? Either way, they are part of a search that Einstein began – the search
for language to communicate the sacred dimension of doing science.
When Neils Bohr and others were developing the quantum theory, it was spiritually
unacceptable to Einstein that the ultimate nature of reality was randomness. “The
[quantum] theory yields much,” he wrote to quantum physicist Max Born in 1926, “but
it hardly brings us close to the secrets of the Ancient One. In any case, I am convinced
that He does not play dice.” Generations of physicists have been profoundly influenced
by the faith of the man who wrote, “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever....This is a
somewhat new kind of religion.”
Recently an article in the magazine Nature reported the results of a poll that was first
taken more than 80 years ago and repeated in 1998. Originally 40% of scientists had said
they believed in God. People who assume God is incompatible with science were
surprised that the percentage of scientists who answered yes in 1998 was the same.
They expected far fewer. But if the question had been worded differently, there might
have been even more. Einstein and the many scientists who are his spiritual companions
were excluded, since the poll asked scientists if they believed in a personal God who
answered prayers. To Einstein the concept of a personal God was naïve, and it was the
main source of conflict between science and religion. God was not a father, king, or
confidant. Nor was God the source of morality to Einstein. “The foundation of morality
should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority,” he warned, “lest doubt
about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound
judgment and action.” Ethical behavior, he wrote, “should be based on sympathy,
education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary.”
What kind of God, then, did Einstein believe in? “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals
himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the
fate and actions of human beings.” The rock of Einstein’s faith was that the world is
rational. The fact is, the world doesn’t have to be rational. It can’t be proved to be. But
to Einstein, what made science possible was this faith: causes lead to effects not by
anyone’s changeable will but by the operation of natural laws. For him the greatest
sacrilege was belief in miracles. If miracles were possible then knowledge of truth was
impossible because there would be no truth. He felt no awe for a willful, human-like God
but for the brilliant simplicity of the laws that have guided the evolution of the universe.
“Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in [science],”
he wrote, “is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in
existence.” He named this special reverence “cosmic religious feeling...which knows no
dogma and no God conceived in man’s image.” Cosmic religious feeling he defined as
awareness of a “spirit manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to
that of man.”
Obviously, it can get confusing but to me he believed in some type of cosmic order a unseen creator so to speak . Of course that's what I think opinions will vary
