Einstein letter - Belief in God ‘childish’
13 May 2008 by StardustEinstein’s views on religion have been the subject of much debate, and several of his quotes have been used to back up arguments in favor of faith. However, in a letter to be sold in London this week clarifies (once again) the scientist’s views on god belief.
Belief in God ‘childish,’ Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter
LONDON (AFP) - Albert Einstein described belief in God as “childish superstition” and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.
The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fueled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.
As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they “have no different quality for me than all other people”.
“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
“No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.
The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house’s managing director Rupert Powell.
In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel’s second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s chosen people.
“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” he said.
“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”
And he added: “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”
Previously the great scientist’s comments on religion — such as “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” — have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.
Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein’s real thoughts on the subject. “He’s fairly unequivocal as to what he’s saying. There’s no beating about the bush,” he told AFP.
I think it’s safe to say, as has been said here before…Einstein was an atheist.
This is pretty cool:
Albert Einstein
Adobe Photoshop time lapsed art speed painting Speedpainting
Martin Missfeldt
13 May 2008, on 11:33 pm
I’m glad the contents of Einstein’s letter have been released. Great to know his thoughts align with mine.
And thanks for the speedpainting vid Stardust! I’ve watched several of them on youtube, and I just can’t get enough of them!
13 May 2008, on 11:51 pm
You are welcome, Karen. I could watch those again and again. I love how they started this one out with E=mc…
14 May 2008, on 12:35 am
YEAH!…Stardust…Cool!
Man!…Einstein was a REAL cool cat…
Cool video art, too…with some really tasty, cool Jazz!
I dug the whole concept…like…really nice Tenor sax licks, too!
And the singer was no jive ass square, either!
Some minor intonation flaws; ya dig?…but, hey man…nice concept, overall!
OK…
Pardon my falling back into my long ago…almost forgotten…late fifties, early sixties…kinda ‘beatnik’…musician speak! Sorta, old school Bebop-like!
I was really surprised to see this story amongst today’s news list. It sure tends to further undermine the Fundie’s persistent attempt to co-opt Einstein’s reputation as some sort of believer in their contrived…
totally UN-cool version of ‘Intelligent Design’.
14 May 2008, on 1:24 am
I think that Einstein, like so many others, was compromised by his benefactors. The USofA. How could he really present his knowledge and understandings except as beliefs that where surprisingly similar to those of his American hosts.
14 May 2008, on 2:01 am
On his deathbed, Albert Einstein had buttsex with Charles Darwin, the both of them screaming, “Take me, Jesus!”- though being on their deathbed, the screams was more of a death rattle variety. This was immensely pleasurable to the Vultures of Christian Apologetix- both because of the presumed highly-lustred reflection on their particular strain of googoo-eyed ignorance and that they were currently ringing the king-sized deathbed holding a full-on seventeen man circle jerk peeping the dying that was happening. Unbeknownst to these blurfisted agents of the Lord, the scientists, in Dueling Deaththroes- was actually calling for one last piquante cornholing by their shared Panamanian batman, Jesus. The Vultures were reminded of this individually and from behind soon thereafter.
No, but you have one!
Because I don’t know how to make the video play here- or even if it can play here, here is the actual video.
This is our most recent driveby fundie troll, Teresa Lopiccolo(not to be confused with our driveby and stay fascist troll, JH Bowden) singing an old bluegrass standard popularized by Ralph and Carter Stanley, “Angel Band,” accompanied by Charles Manson on guitar and some other girl(both of whom may actually be Teresa’s offspring). Teresa’s brother is an institutionalized, equal opportunity rapist of at least five children and she likes long walks on the beach.
Teresa is on the left. Honestly, they’ve almost got that lonesome mountain harmony down- credit where credit is due.
14 May 2008, on 5:39 am
Yay, finally fundy’s will stop misquoting him.
14 May 2008, on 6:00 am
wait a sec…no they wont.
14 May 2008, on 6:11 am
Arrrrggggghhhhh! RDZ! I just had a terrible flashback from those couple of years my parents made us to go to a Baptist church! Regular members of the congregation jumped at the chance to do their own little version of American Fundie Idol. They always had Hymnertainment stuff like this and sounded exactly the same. (My sister and I even gave it a shot a couple of times, I’m embarrassed to say.) Yes, the harmony here isn’t too bad…but still *shiver*
That I should not have listened to at 5 a.m. Makes my coffee taste bitter.
So, that’s Teresa the troll….scary offspring. Yikes! And is that another fundie bun in the oven, or just the shape of her? I wonder if the “six little ones” she talks about are hers?
14 May 2008, on 11:19 am
From the age of her chil’run, I’m guessing a bun in the oven is a physical impossibility and that plain old body fat has kept her skin inflated, rather than it falling to wrinkles with advanced age. Okay, that was mean. Nevermind.
14 May 2008, on 12:09 pm
OW, OW OW!!!! I didn’t think it would ever end! And I think that bulge in Teresa’s stomach is the alien trying desperately to get out.
14 May 2008, on 12:37 pm
I bet it’ll come down the chute wearing a shirt that says “ET loves Jesus!”
14 May 2008, on 12:45 pm
now that I have listened to that shit…er I mean “worship” music, it’s time for the atheist Simon Cowell in me to come out…
The guitarist is playing as stiff as a board. His rhthym is choppy and abrasive. That waltz style of bass-strum-strum isn’t supposed to sound so robotic. But I’m nit-picking…
They can harmonize because they’re related…siblings and what not usually tend to blend better than most (at least that’s what I was told) however it sounded like everyone was fighting for volume supremacy.
*in a smart-assed English accent*
“That was the worst gospel I have ever heard…do the rest of us with functioning ears a favour and never sing again. Sell the guitar. Better yet, duct tape your mouths shut just to make sure…”
14 May 2008, on 12:50 pm
I bet it’ll come down the chute wearing a shirt that says “ET loves Jesus!”
The Vatican would welcome it with open arms
Vatican scientist says belief in God and aliens is OK
More beings to brainwash. If we found alien life forms the fundies and other god botherers will be plotting how to “save” them before we even meet them.
14 May 2008, on 12:57 pm
I saw that article, too and I just laughed. I just hope that the pope and his minions are the first to recieve their interplanetary communion, lol….
14 May 2008, on 1:03 pm
Yeah, Raindogzilla…
echoing Karen’s reaction:
(sorta Mel Brooks-like): “OWIE-OW-OW-OW!”
Actually…
I, myself, might describe that kind of agonizing “music” as a perfect soundtrack for…
“Sucking on the end of a double barreled shotgun”…
OK…or a deer rifle…if you prefer!
What’s that?…whilst reading Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”?
Coitenly!
And I’m certainly no gun aficionado…
Well, to be honest…I DO have an M1 carbine replica BB gun in one of my closets!…
Hmmm!
14 May 2008, on 1:04 pm
What I love about the Vatican article on ETs is that “some may even be without original sin” part! LMFAO!!!!
14 May 2008, on 1:07 pm
Yes, ChuckA, I think it’s your moral imperative to go find those, erm, harmonizers, and put them out of our misery!
14 May 2008, on 2:19 pm
In defense of the Lopiccolo Trio- yeah, I know, why?- Charles Manson’s lead on the first verse is actually almost dead on mountain tenor, piercing as much as pitch perfect. If you factor in the poor sound quality of the video camera, I’d give him an A. His guitar playing, if it were in a full bluegrass string band, would be seriously substandard but, seeing as how he was forced to provide both the tune and the rhythm alone, it filled the bill. The female singing was nothing to write home about, no better or worse than most church soloists across the land.
American Idol has us convinced that the ability to carry a tune is somehow special when, in fact, most people can. Adding to that, the cojones- or stupidity depending, to actually get up in front of others to carry that tune, and you weed out a bunch of them. But neither quality automatically makes you a singer or a vocalist- or at least not a good one.
I’ve been a singer- slash guitar/bass player for almost two decades and I can sing the shit out of rock. But, in my side project bluegrass band, I have to sit back, strum and sing harmony because my voice isn’t cut out for the lead. Like so:
The Stanley Bros.- Ralph and the long departed Carter.
Ralph and the Clinch Mountain Boys with Patty Loveless.
and just for shits and grins; Steve Martin?
(okay, with Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, and a bunch of others who’s names I can’t call to mind)
15 May 2008, on 7:44 am
ChuckA:
So, an old beatnik guy is in a cafe and has lunch. After eating his bowl of chili and BLT he asks the much pierced and seriously inked young waitress if he can have dessert… perhaps a piece of apple pie.
The waitress says, “Oh, the apple pie’s, like, gone.”
He replies, “Cool. I’ll have two slices!”.
Maybe if Einstein were alive today he could be writing formulas like, “Religion=stupidity”.
15 May 2008, on 9:11 am
democommie, ^^ good one!
15 May 2008, on 12:25 pm
Like…democommie?
Yeah man! I dig!
And…RE…
“After eating his bowl of chili and BLT he asks the much pierced and seriously inked young waitress”…
“Like…Miss?…that must have hurt, huh?
Hey babe…Whatever turns you on!…dig?
And speaking of “piercing”…By any chance; is Stan Freberg’s “Banana Boat Song”…you know…like…”Day-o!”…still on the Jukebox?
“Oh…one more item…You wouldn’t be hip, by any chance, considering your age, to…like…you know…
Jack Kerouac?
On those notes:
For a bit of Freberg/beatnik era nostalgia? At least the soundtrack is authentic…ya dig?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qFRN_0qtmc
As to Jack Kerouac…like…Here’s a rather cool little YouTube about the Beatnik Era…
“Beat Generation”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxeLmIwnHYw&feature=related
16 May 2008, on 12:17 am
Pardon a little “steam letting”?
Ummm…
I’m guessing that I may not be the only one to have noticed how this Post’s original story was completely ignored in the cable media.
In light of today’s most recent brouhaha regarding Bush’s speech in Israel; it’s too bad that SOMEONE in the mainstream media didn’t make a reference to Einstein’s comment about the Jewish notion of “Gob’s Chosen People” being “childish superstition”.
Let’s face it, folks, the whole Middle Eastern conflagration rests on the humongous “Abrahamic” ancient delusional lie which originated with the Jewish tribal claim about a voice in a burning “bush”.
So today, we had another voice from a sort of burning, hotheaded “Bush” starting another conflagration…this time stirring up a whole other load of bullshit in the US political landscape!
Yeah…again…Religion LITERALLY poisons everything; but nobody…on ANY side of the equation…really gets it!
It’s sorta like “The Three (Abrahamic) Stooges” of the bone-headed Sky Daddy club.
Except the finger pokes are much more dangerous. Instead of “Nyuk-Nyuks” it’s “Nuke-Nukes”!
Only us totally ignored atheists (NON-800 lb. gorillas in the room?) seem to be able to discern the true facts underlying the interminable, Age-spanning, senseless warring over a steaming pile of desert dried crap. Ancient tribal crap…that is…made up by some, most probably psychotic and/or schizophrenic, totally self centered, ultra-delusional, Bronze Age…desert brain fried…ignorant morons.
And here we are today; with the current, self centered, manifestly delusional, brain fried, lame duck representive of the Rethuglican’s high profile…zama, zama…Moron club!
I guess, from here on, in…it’s going to be something like that old Betty Davis line…
“Strap yourselves in, folks…it’s going to be a REAL bumpy ride!”
Nothing new, of course…i.e…”The more things change; the more they remain the same…?”
16 May 2008, on 7:55 am
Stardust:
I bask in the glow. If you stay in the “batting cage” long enough, every once in a while you get to “go yard”.
ChuckA:
I used to live in Lawrence, MA (briefly), which is close to Lowell and I did read “On The Road” (I think Dr. Hunter S. Thompson may have done so, as well) and so, yes, I am hip to Jack Kerouac. Oh, I almost forgot, I used to get blind drunk on a regular basis (gave it up around the same time I stopped seeing the “Light”).