Albert Einstein – Religious Views

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was the most intelligent person who ever lived.  He is best known for his equation E = MC², which states that energy and mass (matter) are the same thing, just in different forms. The awesome destructive power of the atomic bomb–developed from Einstein’s equation — was seen in the utter destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The speed of light travels 186,000 miles per second. Note that this factor is squared. Einstein is also known for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Einstein was working on the Unified Field Theory when he died. Unified Field Theory was an attempt to reconcile and explain all the forces in physics to one underlying principle that governs them.

Einstein’s Childhood:

Einstein, who was raised by irreligious Jewish parents, wrote: “I came to a deep religiousness, which reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.”

Divine Creator:

Asked if he believed in a Divine Creator, Einstein explained: “May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.” 

Personal God and Afterlife:

“I do not believe in a personal God…I believe in a God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” On the question of an afterlife, Einstein stated, “I do not believe in the immortality of the individual…I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures… An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension.”

Reward and Punishment:

“I do not believe that a man should be restrained in his daily actions by being afraid of punishment after death or that he should do things only because in this way he will be rewarded after he dies …I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of His own creation.” 

On Jesus:

Einstein wrote: “As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.” Einstein was asked if Jesus really existed to which he replied, “Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” He further stressed: “I seriously doubt that Jesus himself said that he was God, for he was too much a Jew to violate that great commandment: ‘Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our God and He is one!’ and not two or three.” 

Christian churches:

Einstein wrote: “The Vatican vaccinated its believers with the idea ‘We have the true God, and the Jews have crucified Him’ …I don’t like to implant in youth the Church’s doctrine of a personal God, because that Church has behaved so inhumanly in the past 2,000 years… Consider the hate the Church manifested against the Jews and then against the Muslims, the Crusades with their crimes, the burning stakes of the inquisition, the tacit consent of Hitler’s actions while the Jews and the Poles dug their own graves and were slaughtered. And Hitler is said to have been an altar boy!”