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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.

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That's nice. Everyone has the right to their own opinion regarding religion and spirituality. It's just a shame when some non-believers feel superior to religious individuals and treat them like weak, mindless idiots.

yes much like most religious people who treat me with contempt because I refuse to believe in any god or after life..

Apparently I'm going to hell with all the other fags.. AND I'm SOOOOO looking forward to it!

ShawnTO saidIt's just a shame when some non-believers feel superior to religious individuals and treat them like weak, mindless idiots.

It's just a shame when most believers feel superior to every 'other' individual and treat them like weak, mindless idiots.

lilTanker saidApparently I'm going to hell with all the other fags.. AND I'm SOOOOO looking forward to it!

We're all going to be in the VIP line and will have the best seats in the house!

ShawnTO saidIt's just a shame when some non-believers feel superior to religious individuals and treat them like weak, mindless idiots.

I'm not sure who you're referring to, but personally having been both a believer when I was younger and a non-believer now, I don't have contempt for religious believers so much as I have pity.

It really is a childish superstition and it took me more than 30 years to realize that. Those who still fervently cling to religious beliefs have no problem rejecting every other religion and deity except the one they were born into. I find that curious and I find it curious that they don't find that curious in the least.

Buckwheet said
It's just a shame when most believers feel superior to every 'other' individual and treat them like weak, mindless idiots.

Amen to that. But if only it were that innocuous. Most religious believers view atheists as evil and dangerous people, to be avoided, shunned, rebuffed in social and professional matters, and not to be allowed to speak to children.

Personally it seems that it would be foolish of me, and foolish of Albert Einstein also, to have the hubris to think that its impossible for a higher power to exist.

We can't possibly know everything there is to know. So it seems to me that instead of focusing on the beliefs of others, we should focus on their actions.

The problem with "revelations" like these is many of us arrived at similar conclusions when we were like, twelve. It does not take a genius to realize that organized religion as it has unfolded in our world may well be a crock. Chile I knew that before I was ten.

But it does not logically follow that therefore there is nothing more to our "experience" in this narrow manifestation of physical "reality" except what we can observe with "reason" and "rationality." Lovely concepts. I'm sure the ants think they have it all figured out too.

Global_Citizen said[quote][cite]ShawnTO said[/cite]I'm not sure who you're referring to,

I'm referring to some non-belivers that act superior to believers. I said some, not all. And the reverse is true also, as buckwheet pointed out and which I really should have added to my OP.

There have been many discussions here about religion, and I think what I found so surprising is how very similar religious zealots and atheist zealots are. Both sides love to make sweeping generalizations about the other, which drives me crazy. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when people make sweeping generalizations.

Kudos Shawn! I suggested in another thread that atheists sometimes come across like religious fanatics because they believe in their own absolute truths. I'm a non-believer who hedges his bets.

We're all affected by the same virus that is religion
brain washed from the moment we're brought into this world
we're re-infected again and again as children and adults
to the point we believe that certain people are going to be banished to hell because of who they are and what they believe
we believe in some cases that violence against these people is what this blood thirsty man in the sky wants
we believe that men who claim to know this man in the sky know better about what we should do and how to act here on earth
we believe that the belief itself in the very absence of reason is the best form of faith
Earth is infested with this virus... and it very likely will have a lot to do with its end

"Viruses of the Mind" (1991) is an essay by Richard Dawkins using memetics and analogies with biological and computer viruses, and with disease and epidemiology, to analyse the propagation of ideas and behaviours. Its particular focus is on religious beliefs and activities. The essay is included in the books Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind (ISBN 0-631-19678-1) and A Devil's Chaplain. In this essay, Dawkins coined the term faith-sufferer.

And that's the sweeping generalization that makes me want to pull my hair out. I don't know who this Richard Dawkins guy is, but I can't imagine he is educated on world religions. That little quote of his is basically saying all religions belive in a hell and all religions believe in a man in the sky. To me, that just shows a lack of intelligence.

I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. It doesn't offend me as a spiritual person, it offends me as an intelligent person. He's proselytizing his personal truth with as much zealotry as a street corner preacher. They're cut from the same cloth.

ShawnTO saidI don't know who this Richard Dawkins guy is, but I can't imagine he is educated on world religions. That little quote of his is basically saying all religions belive in a hell and all religions believe in a man in the sky. To me, that just shows a lack of intelligence.

Dawkins is anything but unintelligent. On the contrary, he's one of the most witty, insightful, and incisive scholars on the subject of religion. Put his name in Google and spend some time reading up on him.

The real question is, will this be the thread that finally convinces the stupid deists that their make believe fairy tale gods are a lie?

Cause you know, the last sixty threads have been successful intelligent dialogues rather than flame wars.

Global_Citizen said[quote][cite]ShawnTO said[/cite]I don't know who this Richard Dawkins guy is, but I can't imagine he is educated on world religions. That little quote of his is basically saying all religions belive in a hell and all religions believe in a man in the sky. To me, that just shows a lack of intelligence.

Dawkins is anything but unintelligent. On the contrary, he's one of the most witty, insightful, and incisive scholars on the subject of religion. Put his name in Google and spend some time reading up on him.[/quote]

I did not know that. Too bad his writings doesn't show his intelligence (well, that quote, at least).

What? And this from a man who said "God doesn't play dice".

He said God did not play dice because he could not grasp the random chaotic nature of quantum particles that thus far dont mesh too well with relativity which is what his whole life and work was based on.

ShawnTO said[quote][cite]Global_Citizen said[/cite][quote][cite]ShawnTO said[/cite] Too bad his writings doesn't show his intelligence (well, that quote, at least).

Fear, can make intelligent people, say unintelligent things. Just look at GQjock's post

I'm starting to think this keeps Global_Citizen up at night

Mike

ShawnTO said Both sides love to make sweeping generalizations about the other, which drives me crazy. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when people make sweeping generalizations.

Ironic remark, considering that is ITSELF a sweeping generalization.

To me, atheism is not just about not believing in God, it's not giving the existence or non-existence of a higher power more consideration than, oh, about ten seconds in the last three decades.

*phew* At least they'll stop quoting Einstein now as evidence of the ultimate religious scientist, as if that will ever justify blind faith anyway.

And btw, shawn, sweeping generalizations apply when they true to MOST people it's aimed at hehe. Just because SOME here actually only believed in God without the religious trappings and superstitious bullshit doesn't make those generalizations any less true.

What took so damn long to find this valuable circa 1953 quote from Albert Einstein. I am not suprised at Einstein's view on religious belief as chidish superstition. A man with his tremendous, powerful intellect would only reject the ancient religious beliefs as untrue. As for the statements from Shawn TO saying that atheists and non-believers look down on believers like mindless idiots, I say how about these religious, right wing zealots that look at atheists and agnostics like myself with contempt and hatred. You know there are two sides to every story. One I do find highly annoying is when some conservative holy roller tries to tell me that the ancient fairy tale, Adam and Eve is how modern man really originated. I say that is baseless bullshit. Adam and Eve is a fairy tale.

The entire bible and it's so called teachings is entirely made up of fairy tails. Despite the few believers on here that refuse to wake up and see reality. It is always refreshing to see so many people are finally accepting the truth about religion and releasing themselves from that way of thinking.

It's always a laugh to see people who think they know what 'reality' is or isn't.

In my occasionally not entirely humble opinion.

Charlie

CarlosGringo saidIt's always a laugh to see people who think they know what 'reality' is or isn't.

Oh, I think there is such a thing as objective reality. It has nothing to do with SkyThing.

Posts like this are a bit irritating when they take one quote out of context and try to define another person's entire belief system on it. Why don't you actually read what Einstein had to say about religion and then see if you don't agree a little more instead of forming narrow minded opinions on isolated quotes taken out of context. Here is Einstein in his own Words:

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the MYSTERIOUS. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. . . . to know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms, this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and only in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men."

Cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving force of scientific research."

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind

I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe

I want to know God's thoughts,..... the rest are details

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom

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. My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation 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

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."

It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth."

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects

The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat."

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle."

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.


(ME AGAIN): And last the entire premise of this forum is way off base, but rather then rant about it I will let Einstein himself conclude this post, I think he says it all here.

Einstein

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.