"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . . Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." (from a letter by Albert Einstein in Time Magazine, Dec. 23, 1940, c.f. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html)

This article that is desperation masquerading as pomposity.

I went to the convention. Despite the author's hope, it isn't a bitter affair. It is about moving past the limitations religious thinking imposes, which the author demonstrates wonderfully.

The idea that creationists stubbornly stick to their beliefs to dig in their heels against contrary ideas and evidence is wrong. Its a manifestation of faith. Just say they are doing it because faith demands and it be done with it.

Quite frankly, if you find atheists being intolerant and 'militant' (when will we tire of that joke?), it may be more than your views simply don't stack up and you 'feel it in your bones'. Perhaps at some level, you realise faith is actually a silly limitation that prevents growth.

Speaking of which, squirming around trying divert away from taking your religious book's claims at face value is poor. Citing some intangible thing that you know about your particular god that both non-believers and those of another religion smacks of complete lack of awareness
What the author feel in their bones about JC, Hindus, Muslims and ancient Greeks feel about their gods. How does the author know that everyone else's are wrong and theirs are right? There is an infinite number of possible gods. It is most likely the author has it wrong. Reason tells you this. Faith tells you to be more faithful to avoid this conclusion.

We all want to know why we are here. History has many different ideas which include philosophies and religions tackling it.
'Why am I here?' is a philosophical question. It is a scientific question in the sense of the mechanics of it. Frankly, it does that very, very well.

Insanely, many of the religious seem to think this is some sort of gotcha. It isn't. More stupidly, the religious think that if science can't answer a philosophical question, then their religious views are automatically valid. A totally false dichotomy.

Ultimately, the author's argument can be boiled down to 'It may be complete bollocks, but I can believe in fairy tales if I want to.'

BAC,
Your post identifies in You a pomposity with the quote, "but I can believe in fairy tales if I want to" which you seek to demolish in others.

Dear George,

In your post you quoted Einstein’s statement: ´”Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.” published Dec. 23, 1940.

At that time Pius XII was pope and reigned from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.

One question about him was the reason for his silence. He even kept silent when the Nazis rounded up Jews in Rome in the sight of the papal palace. I read “A Cross too Heavy: Eugenio Pacelli” by Paul O’Shea, a practicing Catholic. O’Shea mentioned Pacelli’s silence and condemned it. O’Shea speculated that a possible reason for his silence, as near as I can remember, is that he feared and despised the atheistic Soviet more than he did the Nazis.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII the pope was an antisemite:

Pacelli presided ... over the International Eucharistic Congress in ... from 10–14 October 1934, and in Budapest from 25–30 May 1938. At this time, anti-semitic laws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews "whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today".... According to Joseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 "warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, that Hitler was "an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person.

It appears that Pius XII hated both Jews and Hitler but supported the Nazis with a papal concordat and kept silent about the Jews.

During WW2 Hitler supporting states were headed by Catholic clerics or had a strong church connection – Father Tiso’s Slovakia, Franco’s clerical-fascist Spain and Vichy France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II) tells how the Vatican organised escape routes for fascists after WW2.

The Catholic church supported fascists during the war and helped them to flee after the war. It could not have been done if Pius XII had disapproved.

I know nothing that would support Einstein’s statement. Do you?

Actually, there’s good reason to doubt that Einstein even said any of that.

George’s quote didn’t seem, to me, like something that Einstein would say and it appears William C. Waterhouse had the same suspicions. So he embarked on a little investigation of his own and here’s just a snippet of what he had to say afterwards…

“Having a long-standing interest in verifying quotations, I turned to The Expanded Quotable Einstein, but it does not include this statement. So I wrote to its editor, Alice Calaprice. She was unsure about the statement but kindly referred me to Barbara Wolff at the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem. Ms. Wolff was able to answer my question: It turns out that the Einstein Archives contain an unpublished letter mentioning this topic specifically. Writing to Count Montgelas on March 28, 1947, Einstein explained that early in the Hitler years he had casually mentioned to some journalist that hardly any German intellectuals except a few churchmen were supporting individual rights and intellectual freedom. He added that this statement had subsequently been drastically exaggerated beyond anything that he could recognize as his own.” (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-05/)

No wonder the Time magazine article contains no sources.

It looks like this is just another popular Christian beat-up like the whole, “Einstein believed in God”, bit that we hear so often.

>>It looks like this is just another popular Christian beat-up like the whole, “Einstein believed in God”, bit that we hear so often.<<

According to the quick search I've just done Einstein did believe in God: just not in Jehovah. I pulled this quote off Wikipedia:

>>It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.<<

I must say I'm pretty chuffed. My religious views are also somewhere near those of Spinoza. It's nice to be in the company of certified geniuses. I describe my views as pantheistic. In The God Delusion Dawkins describes pantheism as sexed-up atheism. I disagree but I can see where he's coming from: for most practical intents and purposes there's not much difference between the two.

Cheers,

Tony