Poirot,

Sagan thought well of Dawkins, classing him with Gould and Weinberg in assisting others in the appreciation of the genuine wonder of the universe. (Demon Haunted World, 1996, page 316).

Dawkins rightly criticises "creationism", as did Sagan, as being a force that throws ordure on the very windows you claim to admire.

Rusty

Einstein was a brilliant, articulate man who greatly expanded the boundaries of physics and our knowledge of the universe. He was also taken by the wonder of the physical world and the relations of matter.

However, none of that means that he had any particular insights as to the existence of any kind of God. IMHO God is one of the great human inventions to deal with the mysteries of the universe. It seems to me there can be no experts in that area – only opinions which are based on our exposure to the surrounding culture and our resistance or acceptance of it.

Much more significant to me about Einstein is that he resisted the militarism of his society in the excitement building up to WW1. He was one of the few voices of sanity who saw what it could lead to and spoke out against it. I think that is much more meaningful and important than his speculations about deity.

Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein spoke against the insanity of militarism. Russell wound up in prison, and Einstein in disfavour.

His saying “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” is to my way of thinking worth far more than his observations on our imaginary companion.

He also said, “This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.”

Einstein concerned himself with brutality and cruelty on earth. I don't think his definition of deity is particularly important.

Dear david f,
Thank you for your sincere words. I think there are no “authorities on faith”: There are authorities in this or that field of knowledge - and I respect them the more, the less I myself am knowledgeable in that particular field - however I don’t think one can talk about authorities of faith, since I think faith (in the widest meaning of the word, including Einstein’s) is a personal matter. There are also moral (or political, etc) authorities, however they apply only to those who are part of their Church, religion, country, political party or so. (I note now that you yourself wrote “It seems to me there can be no experts in that area”).

I think what Einstein, you, I (or whoever) believe about human condition and existence (I am not defining either of the terms) is a result of our education, of our life experiences, emotional and rational evaluations of these, which are all highly personal determinants of our world-view. One can, and should, communicate with others in order to enrich one’s own world-view, but being personal, world-views are never completely exchangeable. Even a convert will have remnants of his pre-conversion times form part of his/her life experience, hence world-view.

I admire Einstein as a philosopher of science, and I have learned a lot from him. I see, so do you, although there are parts of Einstein’s insights that we cannot share with him (those parts are albeit different in your and my case). And I have learned a lot from you, mainly because I can understand you, which I cannot say about some atheists here.

>>We will all be memories, and finally even the memory of us will disappear.<<
Well Einstein is one of those who became an exception. Very few of us are granted this kind of immortality.

Sorry about your first wife. Being “surrounded by descendants” is probably a consolation I’ll not have since I live in Cologne and my only daughter in Melbourne. Nevertheless, I shall have my faith (hopefully), so I do not complain.

Rusty Catheter,

The question is not whether you are right or wrong about Einstein not being “unaware of the religious hysteria” or “socialised” when expressing his views. The question is, why do you have to engage in this kind of speculations instead of accepting what he wrote. Why can’t you accept that Einstein was more of an authority on these matters than you or I, even if you don’t agree with this or that of what he said, like david f and I (and many others) do?

>>knowing what is now known about quantum processes, he could not help but retract one of those statements<<
I don’t know what is your understanding of quantum processes, but I do not think a serious physicist - atheist or not - would be disrespectful enough to impute to Einstein a retraction of his clearly expressed views on whatever, unless Einstein himself announced such a retraction (c.f. the cosmological constant).

>>Einstein might not use the terminology of Dawkins … If someone had approached Einstein and daily berated him for not being a flat-earther or some other physical nonsense, I am not certain of the extent of his patience.<<
Who is it who approached Dawkins and “daily berated him for not being a flat-earther or some other physical nonsense”? And if, how does that justify to twist or qualify what Einstein himself wrote?

Grim,
There is not much to be added to what you wrote in this “duel” of Einstein quotes (and their taylor-made reinterpretations) that I unintentionally seem to have started. I thought it was obvious that Einstein was not a Christian churchgoer, and that he contributed to the understanding that being loyal to this or that Church or other denomination, and being religious in the psychological meaning of the word (whether or not connected with the belief in a God with a supernatural dimension), are not one and the same thing.

No, I actually wasn’t, Grim.

<<Putting words into Einstein's mouth, AJ?>>

And if you’d re-read my posts for what they say rather than how you’d like to interpret them, you’d see that I wasn’t either.

<<This does not automatically make them theists or atheists; merely people capable of appreciating something greater than themselves; struck at the same time by how peculiarly explicable (through mathematics) the universe appears to be, while at the same time tantalisingly unknowable.>>

Well, yeah, I know. But there are many ways to appreciate the wonders of the universe and be awe-struck by it, and far better ways, too, than borrowing unhelpful words that have deeply religious connotations that are open to misinterpretation.

<<Science may have progressed since Einstein's day, but I really don't think the theist/atheist argument has come up with anything earth shatteringly new lately; certainly nothing which would overcome Einstein's “childlike awe”.>>

And I never said it had either. But there is no denying that the more educated and knowledgeable we become, the less religious we are and the less generous we are to religious ideas; especially since our improved means of communications have made us far more alert to the dangers and hazards of religion. These same technological improvements give us a better knowledge (than we would have had in Einstein and Sagan’s times) of how others are misinterpreting us and using what we say to bolster bad ideas.

Nothing has to be “Earth-shattering” either. You made this same mistake in our last discussion when you questioned my use of the term ”enlightened”; seemingly under the impression that we need major breakthroughs to become more enlightened... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13036#226495

Now that IS a legitimate parallel with the way theists think - with their insistence on using absolutes (e.g. absolute certainty) when criticising atheists - unlike your point about me allegedly putting words into Einstein’s mouth like a theist would God’s.

All I did was point-out something that was being over-looked - context. You don’t get to put words in my mouth just to accuse me of doing the same simply because you don’t like it.

Rusty,

There is in man a persistent psychological recourse to mysticism and metaphysical expression. Einstein believed it was the finest emotion we possessed.

I often wonder if man had never embraced mysticism and religious expression, if the sublime quality of the kind embodied in sacred architecture would ever have emerged. These monuments most surely represent the pinnacle of man's potential and progress down through the centuries.

Just musing, of course. I'm essentially an atheist, but I'm with Einstein who recognised that: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."