By: David Rice To: Rick Gordon Re: what evidence would do? +gt;+gt;JW+gt; I understand tha

By: David Rice
To: Rick Gordon
Re: what evidence would do?

>>JW> I understand that Einstein (sp?) said he believed in a
>>JW> creator of the universe etc.

>CF> I understand you haven't been around here long enough to
>CF> here all there is to here about Einstein's theistical
>CF> perspective; he was an atheist.

RG> Really? What about "Einstein keeps talking about God: what are
RG> we to make of that? It is extremely difficult to imagine that a
RG> scientist like Einstein should have such strong ties with a
RG> religious tradition." Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond:
RG> Encounters and Conversations (New York; Harper and Row, 1971),
RG> p.82

Are you asserting that intelligent, educated people cannot
believe in a god? That is far from the truth. Smart people can,
and often DO, believe in absurdities, impossibilities, and
silly nonsense. The creator and author of Sherlock Holmes
believed in faries!

The following from _Albert Einstein: The Human Side_ which is a
collection of snippets from his archives. Edited by Helen Dukas
and Banesh Hoffman. Published by Princeton University Press.

   "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."

-.--
   "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly
influence the actions of individuals, or directly sit in
judgement on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in
spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain
extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.
   "My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the
infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little
that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can
comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance --
but for us, not for God."

-.--
   "But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved
in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is
manifest in the laws of the Universe -- a spirit vastly
superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with
our modest powers must feel humble. In this way, the pursuit of
science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which
is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more
naive."

-.--
   "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I
consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no
superhuman authority behind it"