Why Religion Fails
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Wha?Lot of good arguments on both sides...
My biggest beef with the general public though is that they treat religion like a software license... Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I agree'.
I would agree with that. Many followers of religions don't dig as deeply as they should into the details and doctrines of the religions that they are members of. I find it disappointing, but understandable. We live in a complex world with only so much time and resources to devote to various pursuits. I am the same way with computers.Lot of good arguments on both sides...
My biggest beef with the general public though is that they treat religion like a software license... Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I agree'.
But you would think that people would put a better effort into what potentially is the most important decision they can make.
There are other famous scientists who believed in some form of God: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.htmlAt this rate you guys are going to make me go out and buy a quality Einstein biography to try and figure this out.
Some pretty big names on that list. Of course skeptics will question the source of that website and claim bias of some sort
I have no problem with scientists believing in God and I have heard some of their points, but your last slew of posts have been on Einstein's beliefs and that position is questionable.There are other famous scientists who believed in some form of God: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html
Some pretty big names on that list. Of course skeptics will question the source of that website and claim bias of some sort
I noticed you like to cherry-pick Einstein's quotes. And also you dont like to answer any of my questions (see post# 396 one page back, there are 2 questions there). So why should I bother answering any of your questions?!I have no problem with scientists believing in God and I have heard some of their points, but your last slew of posts have been on Einstein's beliefs and that position is questionable.
Lets try it again, does the quote below not prove at some point Einstein at least believed in some type of creator??
^^ I even bolded the relevant parts for you since you seem to have reading comprehensionI want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
I'm not sure 50+ quotes can be called cherry picking, or quotes from several sources.I noticed you like to cherry-pick Einstein's quotes. And also you dont like to answer any of my questions (see post# 396 one page back, there are 2 questions there). So why should I bother answering any of your questions?!
Lets try it again, does the quote below not prove at some point Einstein at least believed in some type of creator??
^^ I even bolded the relevant parts for you since you seem to have reading comprehension
As far as the bolded parts, that's more for making a point in a discussion. I use the term God in many posts, but that doesn't mean I believe he exists. You final quote on its own seems to hold up, but I'd like to see the context as you've thrown so many around in this thread and this is the first one that holds up to a certain degree.
He saw the universe and the laws of physics as spiritual in essence, and that doesn't imply supernatural in any sense. He felt that those who simply used science without feeling were missing so much.
Scientific knowlege is uninspired without that sense of awe that Einstein felt so keenly. It is also of little help to us in living our lives e.g. morally or when facing death, suffering, change etc. Hence it is lame without religion.
Religion without science is blind - it cannot tell the real from the unreal, and test it's beliefs. Creationism is a case in point.
For someone who didn't believe in a personal God, he was unusual in recognising the purpose and value of religion in our collective and personal lives. Lesser men - the atheist inquisitors of the modern age: Dawkins, Dennett, Stenger et. al. would do well to pay.
Three more quotes that fly in the face of your argument;
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious 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."
— Albert Einstein
"I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him."
— Albert Einstein
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
— Albert Einstein
The more complete Einstein quote you last posted;
From Wiki;
"I came - though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents - to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve.[30]
I do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a very close connection between the two. Further, I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind. Both are important and should work hand-in-hand.[31]
A Jew who sheds his faith along the way, or who even picks up a different one, is still a Jew"
I think that's your full quote. He didn't believe in the typical definition of God, Christian/Muslim/Jewish, he simply used God as a sort of metaphor for the universe or nature. If you weren't trying to get him to be on your side you'd probably just consider him an atheist.
Expanding on that;
"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man.
For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
From Wiki;
"I came - though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents - to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve.[30]
I do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a very close connection between the two. Further, I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind. Both are important and should work hand-in-hand.[31]
A Jew who sheds his faith along the way, or who even picks up a different one, is still a Jew"
I think that's your full quote. He didn't believe in the typical definition of God, Christian/Muslim/Jewish, he simply used God as a sort of metaphor for the universe or nature. If you weren't trying to get him to be on your side you'd probably just consider him an atheist.
Expanding on that;
"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man.
For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."
and now the complete article that it comes from; http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/ae_scire.htm
Science and Religion
By Albert Einstein
This article is taken from:
Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium,
The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion
in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc.,
New York, 1941.
It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.
At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.
For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.
Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required--not proven. It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial successes. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact that on the basis of such laws we are able to predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in certain domains with great precision and certainty is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the modern man, even though he may have grasped very little of the contents of those laws. He need only consider that planetary courses within the solar system may be calculated in advance with great exactitude on the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In a similar way, though not with the same precision, it is possible to calculate in advance the mode of operation of an electric motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless apparatus, even when dealing with a novel development.
To be sure, when the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity. One need only think of the systematic order in heredity, and in the effect of poisons, as for instance alcohol, on the behavior of organic beings. What is still lacking here is a grasp of connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order in itself.
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.
If it is one of the goals of religion to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in yet another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusions. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. In this sense I believe that the priest must become a teacher if he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational mission.
There doesn't seem to be any commitment to a belief in God there.
Science and Religion
By Albert Einstein
This article is taken from:
Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium,
The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion
in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc.,
New York, 1941.
It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.
At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.
For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.
Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required--not proven. It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial successes. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact that on the basis of such laws we are able to predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in certain domains with great precision and certainty is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the modern man, even though he may have grasped very little of the contents of those laws. He need only consider that planetary courses within the solar system may be calculated in advance with great exactitude on the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In a similar way, though not with the same precision, it is possible to calculate in advance the mode of operation of an electric motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless apparatus, even when dealing with a novel development.
To be sure, when the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity. One need only think of the systematic order in heredity, and in the effect of poisons, as for instance alcohol, on the behavior of organic beings. What is still lacking here is a grasp of connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order in itself.
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.
If it is one of the goals of religion to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in yet another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusions. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. In this sense I believe that the priest must become a teacher if he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational mission.
There doesn't seem to be any commitment to a belief in God there.
Ah, but thats YOUR interprtation of what you THINK he meant.Scientific knowlege is uninspired without that sense of awe that Einstein felt so keenly. It is also of little help to us in living our lives e.g. morally or when facing death, suffering, change etc. Hence it is lame without religion
Can you provide a quote where Einstein said exactly that??
Doubt it. Not asking much, are you. You're asking for an interpretation from Einstein about Einstein.Ah, but thats YOUR interprtation of what you THINK he meant.
Can you provide a quote where Einstein said exactly that??
You're taking a page right out of the the Pillow Pals, Fuji and Flubadub. That's not a good thing.
Thats what I thought, you cant. Its your interpretation of what Einstein meant vs mineDoubt it. Not asking much, are you. You're asking for an interpretation from Einstein about Einstein.
You're taking a page right out of the the Pillow Pals, Fuji and Flubadub. That's not a good thing.
This whole BB is full of interpretations. That doesn't make them all wrong. I'm guessing you didn't read the article. So why should anyone offer you up expanded quotes, as opposed the cherry picked edited quotes. You don't use/read them.Thats what I thought, you cant. Its your interpretation of what Einstein meant vs mine
Chen-Ning Yang the prominent Chinese physicist and Nobel
Laureate not too long ago got remarried a few years after his wife passed
away. His new bride was more than 50 years younger and that caused
quite a stir in the Chinese community. "......God's benevolent last gift to give
my old soul....." was a delightful remark made by Yang openly on his young
bride. So I guess certain evangelical theologians would be eager to
take this as evidence that Professor Yang, who can easily
rank among the top 20 physicists of the last century, is
a believer of God.
Great physicists when pondering on nature's greatest mysteries
sometimes find it convenient to make reference to God to make a point.
I think it is Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Nobel laureate) who once made a sarcastic
remark that goes like 'God is not left-handed' on Yang and Lee's discovery of parity
non-conservation to express the implausibility of the violation
of the principle of parity conservation. I also remember reading one
mention of God in Stephen Hawking's discussion of
the origin of the Universe. Unless these remarks are deliberately taken
out of context no readers in their right mind would
consider them as evidence of belief in a deity.
I think it is a good thing that believers of God look to Einstein for
an understanding of religion from a physicist's standpoint. But please
be truthful to the great man's true identity. I mean his identity as a
humanist which he definitely was.
Laureate not too long ago got remarried a few years after his wife passed
away. His new bride was more than 50 years younger and that caused
quite a stir in the Chinese community. "......God's benevolent last gift to give
my old soul....." was a delightful remark made by Yang openly on his young
bride. So I guess certain evangelical theologians would be eager to
take this as evidence that Professor Yang, who can easily
rank among the top 20 physicists of the last century, is
a believer of God.
Great physicists when pondering on nature's greatest mysteries
sometimes find it convenient to make reference to God to make a point.
I think it is Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Nobel laureate) who once made a sarcastic
remark that goes like 'God is not left-handed' on Yang and Lee's discovery of parity
non-conservation to express the implausibility of the violation
of the principle of parity conservation. I also remember reading one
mention of God in Stephen Hawking's discussion of
the origin of the Universe. Unless these remarks are deliberately taken
out of context no readers in their right mind would
consider them as evidence of belief in a deity.
I think it is a good thing that believers of God look to Einstein for
an understanding of religion from a physicist's standpoint. But please
be truthful to the great man's true identity. I mean his identity as a
humanist which he definitely was.
Using the term humanist does not help us much at all. One could be a humanist and be religious or not.Chen-Ning Yang the prominent Chinese physicist and Nobel
Laureate not too long ago got remarried a few years after his wife passed
away. His new bride was more than 50 years younger and that caused
quite a stir in the Chinese community. "......God's benevolent last gift to give
my old soul....." was a delightful remark made by Yang openly on his young
bride. So I guess certain evangelical theologians would be eager to
take this as evidence that Professor Yang, who can easily
rank among the top 20 physicists of the last century, is
a believer of God.
Great physicists when pondering on nature's greatest mysteries
sometimes find it convenient to make reference to God to make a point.
I think it is Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Nobel laureate) who once made a sarcastic
remark that goes like 'God is not left-handed' on Yang and Lee's discovery of parity
non-conservation to express the implausibility of the violation
of the principle of parity conservation. I also remember reading one
mention of God in Stephen Hawking's discussion of
the origin of the Universe. Unless these remarks are deliberately taken
out of context no readers in their right mind would
consider them as evidence of belief in a deity.
I think it is a good thing that believers of God look to Einstein for
an understanding of religion from a physicist's standpoint. But please
be truthful to the great man's true identity. I mean his identity as a
humanist which he definitely was.
I think, that despite the fact his exact view of spirituality or God remains unclear, that he was surely not an athiest and particularly not a Dawkins/Hitchens/CM type...
Very true. Although I basically agree with the details of what Blackrock13 is saying, it really does not affect the basic question regarding the existence of a god..Why the argument over whether Einstein was a theist or not? Whether he believed in a god doesn't make god's existence any more true or false.
An idea and its veracity should stand regardless of who made the claim or how many billions of people believe in it. Sadly, most people's notion of truth are heavily influenced by those very things.
Because the issue of whether or not there is a god is not being debated on this thread. I can't imagine us sorting that one out!Why the argument over whether Einstein was a theist or not? Whether he believed in a god doesn't make god's existence any more true or false.
An idea and its veracity should stand regardless of who made the claim or how many billions of people believe in it. Sadly, most people's notion of truth are heavily influenced by those very things.
The drum the OP likes to beat is that religion is overall bad for mankind, and religious people are more likely to be bad.
The discussion of prominent positive individuals who may have been religious fits that question quite nicely.
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