The above unreferenced quote was from Albert Einstein. O.

oh-liver..you know..how..contextual/quotes..set me-off

what..follows..is/all..alberts..words

<<.."the assimilative-power..of the human-intellect..is/and..remains..strictly-limited....Hence it/was..inevitable that/the..activity-of..the individual/investigator..should-be..confined to a smaller/and..smaller section/of..human-knowledge.

Worse/still,..this specialization makes/it..increasingly/difficult..to keep..even our general/understanding..of science..as a whole,..without which/the..true-spirit..of research is..inevitably handicapped,..in step/with..scientific..progress.

Every..serious/scientific-worker..is painfully/conscious..of this involuntary/relegation..to an ever-narrowing/sphere..of knowledge,..which threatens/to deprive..the investigator..of his broad-horizon..and degrades/him..to the level-of..a mechanic...

It-is..just/as..important/to..make knowledge..live..and to keep-it..alive/as-to..solve specific/problems...(Albert/Einstein,..1954)

The individual..feels the/futility of human-desires/and aims..and the..sublimity and marvelous-order..which reveal themselves..both in nature/and..in the world/of thought.

Individual-existence..impresses/him..as a sort-of..prison..
and he/wants-to..experience/the universe as-a..single significant/whole.

The beginnings/of..cosmic-religious/feeling..already appear..at an early stage of development,..e.g., in many-of..the Psalms of David..and in some/of..the Prophets...(Albert/Einstein,..1930)

The religion/of the future...should-be based/on..a religious-sense..arising from/the experience of..all things natural..and spiritual..as a meaningful unity...

In my/view,..it is..the/most-important..function..of art/..and science..to awaken this religious-feeling..and keep-it..alive..in those who/are..receptive to-it...(Albert/Einstein,..1930)

Science/has..there-fore..been/charged..with undermining-morality,..but the/charge..is unjust...A man's ethical/behaviour..should-be/based..effectually on..sympathy/education,.and social-ties and needs;..(Albert/Einstein,..1930)

For the..scientific/method..can teach us..nothing/else..beyond how..facts are/related..to, and conditioned..by,..each other...The aspiration/toward..such/objective-knowledge..belongs to the highest/of-which man..is capable,..

and you/will certainly-not/suspect-me..of wishing to belittle..the/achievements..and the heroic-efforts/of man..in this sphere...Yet-is..equally-clear..that knowledge/of what-is..does not/open..the door..directly to/what should-be.

One can/have..the clearest..and most complete-knowledge..of what is..,..and yet/not..be able-to..deduct from that..what should-be..the goal of/our..human aspirations.

..the ultimate/goal..itself..and the/longing..to reach...it..must/come/from another-source...And it-is hardly/necessary..to argue/..for the-view..that our/existence..and our/activity..acquire meaning..only-by..the setting-up/of..such a goal..and of corresponding-values...(Albert/Einstein,..1939)

To make clear/..these fundamental..ends and..valuations,..and to/set..them/fast..in/the emotional-life..of-the..individual,..seems to/me..precisely/the most-important/function..which religion/has-to..perform..in the social-life..of man

And if/one,.asks..whence/derives.the authority-of..such fundamental ends,..since they cannot be..stated/and..justified..merely-by..reason,..

one can only/answer:..

'they/exist..in a healthy-society..as powerful-traditions.. which act/upon..the conduct/and aspirations//and judgments..of the/individuals;..they-are/there,..

that is,..as something living,..without its/being..necessary to/find..justification/for..their existence...(Albert/Einstein,..1939)

.. free/and responsible-development..of/the individual,..
Are we/not..all children of/one father,..as/it..is/said..in religious-language..(Albert/Einstein,..1939)

For science/can-only..ascertain what/is,..but/not..what should-be,..and outside of/its domain..value judgments of/all-kinds..remain necessary...

Religion,..on the other-hand, deals..only/with..evaluations of human-thought/..and action:..it cannot/justifiably-speak..of facts and relationships..between facts...

According to/this..interpretation the well-known/conflicts..between religion/and..science..in the/past..must all-be/ascribed..to a misapprehension..of the situation/which has-been described...

These/conflicts..have all sprung/from fatal-errors...(Albert/Einstein,..1941)

But..science..can/only-be..created by/those..who are thoroughly/imbued..with the/aspiration toward..truth and understanding...

This source/of feeling,..however,..springs/from..the sphere/of..religion.

To/this..there also..belongs..the/faith..in/the..possibility/that..the regulations..valid for/the..world of..existence/are rational,..that is,..comprehensible to/reason.

I cannot/conceive-of..a genuine-scientist..without/that..profound-faith.

The situation..may/be expressed-by..an image:

science/without religion..is lame,
religion/without..science..is blind...

(Albert/Einstein,..1941)

If it/is..one of the goals/of..religion to..liberate/mankind..as far as/possible..from the bondage of egocentric-cravings,..desires and fears,..scientific reasoning..can/aid..religion in yet..another/sense...

Although it/is..true..that it/is..the goal/of science..to discover rules..which/permit..the association/and foretelling..of facts,..this is/not..its only aim.

It..also/seeks..to reduce the/connections..discovered..to the smallest-possible/number..of mutually..independent..conceptual/elements...By way/of..the understanding..he achieves..a far-reaching/emancipation..from the shackles-of..personal hopes and desires,..

and thereby attains//that humble/attitude..of mind toward..the grandeur/of reason-incarnate..in existence,..and which,..in its profoundest/depths,..is inaccessible/to man.

This attitude,..however,..appears to/me..to/be..religious,..in the highest/sense-of..the word...And so/..it seems to/me..that science..not/only purifies..the religious/impulse..of the dross of/its..anthropomorphism..but also contributes/to..a religious/spiritualization..of our/understanding..of life.

The further..the/spiritual-evolution..of mankind advances,..the more/certain..it/seems..to me..that..the path/to genuine-religiosity..does not/lie..through the fear of life,..and the fear/of death,..and blind faith,..but through striving/after..rational-knowledge...(Albert/Einstein,..1941)

all quotes..extracted/from
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einstein-god-religion-theology.htm

Dear Oliver,

>>Maybe the Christian Church was not the main cause of the Dark Ages, yet it played a significant role in sustainng it.<<
What is referred to as Dark Ages was the period when, what was left of once powerful and civilised Rome and now dominated by the Church, was slowly “culturally digesting” the “barbarians” before Europe could attain levels of civilisation of pre-Christian Rome and beyond. (I am not defining what I mean by levels of civilisation). So I agree, even without “maybe”: during those times the Church played a significant, even decisive, role in everything.

>> I see you not only post-Enlightenment but also post Hiensenberg <<
Who/what is Hiensenberg? If you mean Heisenberg, I still do not understand what you mean by post Heisenberg, actually neither what by post Enlightenment; post-modern?

My distinction between Christianity and Christendom reveals not so much “acceptance of history” (whatever that means), as “acceptance” of dictionary definitions.

Hello George,

Heisenberg. I wrongly decided on "i" before "e, which is, of course, an English rule. It didn't look right I should have checked.

Regarding the Enlightenment you agree to its significance in a facourable way. Regarding, Heinsberb, I was saying that you are one that sees beyond the classically mechanical, which was largely the direction of science until the c. 1920s. I think I have said this before, I think Einstein had one foot in the nineteenth century, despite his brilliant work. Heinsberg and Schrodinger seemed the new generation. I see you in the new generation.

"My distinction between Christianity and Christendom reveals not so much “acceptance of history” (whatever that means), as “acceptance” of dictionary definitions."

Acceptance of history, as best we can reconstructs events, would be that a Jew we called Jesus was born c. 6 BCE during the reign of Herod the Great. He seemly cam from the House of David, he taought about the Kingdom of Heaven, may have had a brother, James, whose legitimacy would have been more recognised my the various Jewish sects of the period. From an OT perspective he could have been relieving the Jews of the Laws of Moses: The rationale being that the burden of the Law was prime Jews to seek something spiritual and closer to God. For whatever reason Jeses suffered a horrible death. There was a generation of oral lore, afterwhich, various gospels were written. Originally, there was house worship and bishops. Paul started to institutional the Church. Circa 190 the bishops started take on administrative duties over larger congregations. In 325, Constinatine was follower adoped Christianity, furthered the insitutionalisation and produced, Creed. Somewhere, in the middel of this, the Latinisation process came about because of (a) the inclusion of gentiles and (b) separation from the mother faith (Judaism) in response to conflicts between Judaism and a Rome.

/cont.

.../

A dictionary is a lexicon of the every day use of words. Sometimes, etymologists disagree being more interested in the root of a word.

The Oxford dictonary would in the main associate Christianity with "belief" and Christiandom as a designation of all Christians or Christian countries. In the context of the thread I saw you separating "Christians" (including very early Christians (people) from Nicaea (unifying as "Christian", Rome).

On the otherhand, the beliefs of early (Jewish) Christians may have different from those Christians in fourth century. The expectaion would have been an OT Messiah.

Regards.