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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (5292)	3/10/2003 3:10:23 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 7720

Watch it when you talk about Einstein: "He also commented that one must have a poor moral sense if the only way one could act virtuously is if one expect rewards and punishments after death." what a guy Mysteries of the universe Here's more: What were Albert Einstein's religious beliefs? That is an interesting question because he used the word "God" a lot. As Carl Sagan so truly points out (check _Broca's Brain_), whether or not one believes in "God" depends on what one means by the word "God." When that question was put to him, Einstein once responded, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony in what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings." Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher in the 1600's(?) who used the word "God" to denote some mystical cosmic unity, and who talked endlessly about the "intellectual love of God." However, he was excommunicated by the Jewish community in Holland, who placed on him the curses that Elisha placed on the children who teased him about his baldness. We are told that 42 of these children were killed by two bears. However, no bears attacked Spinoza. He was branded an atheist for the next couple centuries to come. However, in the nineteenth century, some of his admirers started calling him the "God-intoxicated man" Back to Einstein. He wrote an article for the _New York Times_ expounding his religious beliefs (reprinted in _Ideas and Opinions_). He spoke of himself as having a "cosmic religious sense," which knows "no dogmas and no God made in man's image," which he said was shared with the great mystics; he compared himself with the likes of Democritus, St. Francis, and Spinoza. He also commented that one must have a poor moral sense if the only way one could act virtuously is if one expect rewards and punishments after death. In another article (reprinted in _Ideas and Opinions_) stated that the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent being runs afoul of the Problem of Evil. He also stated that the dominant religions of our part of the world could do without this particular concept. He seemed to feel that one could not conclusively _disprove_ the existence of such a being, but felt that there was no positive reason to believe that one exists, so he did not believe in the existence of any such being. All in all, he seemed very tolerant about this sort of thing; he expressed sympathy with someone who considered "religion" a turn-off. His reception from the clergy was mixed. Rabbi Herbert Goldstein, who had popped The Question, seemed satisfied that Einstein was a believer in God. The Rabbi Nathan Krass said that "the religion of Albert Einstein will not be approved by certain sectarians but it must and will be approved by the Jews." However, Cardinal O'Connor of Boston had denounced General Relativity for years, saying that it "cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism" and that it was "befogged speculation, producing universal doubt about God and His Creation." Dr. Fulton Sheen told members of the Catholic Teachers Association that the _Times_ had "degraded itself" by publishing Einstein's views, saying that they were "the sheerest kind of stupidity and nonsense." He asked if anyone would be willing to lay down their life for the Milky Way, and concluded: "There is only one fault with his cosmical religion: he put an extra letter in the word -- the letter 's'" From Einstein: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religous convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."