From Think Progress (h/t Daily Kos) we learn that in the midst of yet another creationist eructation, a Tennessee state representative has invoked the ghost of the good Dr. Einstein to defend the teaching of woo to the unwary:
Rep. FRANK NICELEY (R-Strawberry Fields): I think that if there’s one thing that everyone in this room could agree on, that would be that Albert Einstein was a critical thinker. He was a scientist. I think that we probably could agree that Albert Enstein was smarter than any of our science teachers in our high schools or colleges. And Albert Einstein said that a little knowledge would turn your head toward atheism, while a broader knowledge would turn your head toward Christianity.
I don’t have much truck with the argument from authority, but just this once, let me let it rip.
__
Dude: I wrote the book here.** Well, not the book, but one more in the seemingly limitless pile of Einsteiniana that has chased the poor man through the years.
So, a couple of things. First: Einstein himself was high school and college science teacher. He taught secondary school briefly during the years between his graduation from Zurich’s ETH (1900) and the start of his job at the Swiss Patent Office (1902), tutoring a private student or two as well. He became a university professor in 1908, and taught at that level until his move to Berlin in 1914. He’s part of the set that the Representative — perhaps stunned by a too-prolonged exposure to tangerine skies — would seek to diss.
But the real howler, the grotesque lie, comes with the claim that Albert Einstein, famously Jewish and equally so an atheist by most senses of the word, would suggest that deep learning and understanding would make a person a Christian.
This is, of course, nonsense, and worse that that — a willful deception and one more example of the urge to invent a comforting falsehood when reality bites too hard. Which sums up the whole modern GOP world view, sadly. (Cue the Rogers (kfMonkey) post in 3…2…1)
But for the record: Albert Einstein disdained the notion of a personal god. He was dismissive of god-talk in public affairs. He saw nothing in the acquisition of knowledge that would tend one towards organized faith; quite the reverse. He located the source of knowledge to be material experience, whose signals were to be processed by the 1200cc or so of very intricately organized meat we (most of us) keep in a round-ish vessel above our necks.
And just so we all get our fill of Einsteiniana, here are some supporting quotations:
__
In an autobiographical essay published in 1949, Einstein told of his loss of faith as a child:
“…through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking, coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies.” (in Paul Schilpp, ed. Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist, Open Court, 1949, p. 5)
Of the demand for a personal god, Einstein wrote in a letter to a banker in Colorado that
“I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals….” [taken from Alice Calaprice’s collection The Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 1996 p. 146]
Of the presence of a god intervening in history, he wrote, famously and bluntly to a correspondent calling down divine wrath on the British during World War I:
“I see with great dismay that God punishes so many of His children for their ample folly, for which obviously only He himself can be held responsible…only His nonexistence can excuse him.” [AE to E. Mayer 2 January 1915 Collected Papers of AE vol VIII doc. 44]
Of the independence from divine fetters of human knowledge, he wrote,
“No idea is conceived in our mind independent of our five senses.” [From Quotable Einstein p. 154]
And on the claims to authority of religion in general and his own Jewish heritage in particular, the year before his death he wrote this:
… 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. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.
Enough. As you all know, no doubt, I’m of the John Foster Dulles school of blogging, but I think the point is clear. Rep. Niceley (R-Delusional) is an ignorant and/or deceitful man defending the indefensible by stealing the mantle of someone way too dead to respond for his own part. Niceley does so to support exactly what Einstein would have both loathed and ridiculed. The desire to live in the world one wishes for is human enough — pretty childish, I’d say, following my man Al here. But the indulgence we give children does not extend to granting them power over anything that matters…
__
…which is why the current Republican Party must be not merely defeated, but destroyed and replaced.
Factio Grandaeva delenda est.
*Here I butcher what is still my favorite political debate moment of all time:
<div align=”center”><iframe title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/NRCWbFFRpnY” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
**I kinda made the movie too — writing and jointly producing this two hour NOVA biography. Just sayin: I bin around the Einstein block once or twice, you know.
Image:
“Professor Einstein’s Visit to the United States“, The Scientific Monthly 12:5 (1921), 482-485, on p. 483.
dr. luba
Per Think Progress, the representative seems to have Einstein confused with a 16th century philosopher. Common mistake.
quaker in a basement
Not intended to be a factual statement!
cleek
so where did Nicely get the idea that Einstein said such a thing? is that a mangled quote/paraphrase, a misattribution, or just wishful thinking ?
@dr. luba: ah. there we go.
Omnes Omnibus
So you disagree with Mr. Niceley’s statement? You weren’t completely clear on that.
The Bobs
What Rep. Nicely said was #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement. So, there :P
quaker in a basement
The statement is actually a mangled paraphrase of the 16th century philosopher Francis Bacon,
And who doesn’t like Bacon?
kdaug
Which? At end, I think it makes a difference. Are we rubes, or are they dolts?
BGinCHI
Come on, Tom. It’s all relativity.
Villago Delenda Est
Tom, calm down.
Jeebofascist assholes like FRANK NICELEY (R-Strawberry Fields)wear their boneheaded invisible sky buddy ignorance like a badge of honor.
It’s the way these shitheads are. “That’s in the First Amendment?” “Whaddaya mean, Muslims can hold office in this country?”
David in NY
I had forgotten how hurt Quayle looked after Bentsen eviscerated him. A resemblance to Paul Ryan, actually.
gypsy howell
@cleek:
You left out d)”Complete fucking lie,” which is, of course, the correct answer.
Bullsmith
Correcting Mr. Nicely is both an attack on the impeccable reputation of Francis Bacon and also a typically cynical liberal act of anti-semitism.
giltay
@kdaug: Confront him with the Bacon quote. If he apologizes for misattribution, he is honestly ignorant. If he doubles down or dismisses it, then he’s either deceitful or aggressively ignorant (i.e. deceitful).
Jay C
Aww, gee, Tom: there you go again with all those facts and stuff: C’mon, really?
Who do you quote from to refute that good man’s (I mean, his name is “Niceley”, could he be anything but?) citation of Albert Einstein to bolster his touching profession of faith?
Einstein himself?
What would HE know…..???
kth
Rep. Niceley, definite proof that living is easy with eyes closed.
The Bobs
Wow, so now it’s:
#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement(#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement)
How far can this go?
gypsy howell
re: the Benston -Quayle video — christamighty. I’d forgotten what a complete moron that guy was. We’ve always been ruled by dolts.
Jay C
@kth:
…misunderstanding all you see.
gnomedad
Also, Martin Luther King would be a Republican today. And Gandhi would be leading the Tea Party.
HyperIon
I prefer the pic of Einstein with his tongue stuck out.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Bobs: All the way to the bottom. Just follow the turtles.
Mary G
That Bentsen hit it out of the park on that one. I am so sick of these bozos.
Ruckus
Two points.
Without a reasonable education people don’t have a clue about even the major people in the fairly recent past. And they may not have known/remembered this about Einstein but they might be enlightened enough to think about it and look it up. That might have taken a minute but would expose the lie. The conservatives don’t want everyone to be educated. Because we would all question their lies and they stand no chance when that happens.
I like how religion is used as a tool(sledgehammer) to defend the indefensible. When it is an indefensible system itself.
4tehlulz
Einstein? Not pro-Christian? Why do hate Christianity so? Next you’ll be saying that Christianity led to the Holocaust or something.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i think what einstein was trying to say was…
tl,dr.
just kidding, good post.
Warren Terra
@dr. luba:
And confused “religion” with “Christianity”, another big – and very revealing – mistake.
slag
Please, Tom. We all know he didn’t mean THAT Albert Einstein. He was talking about his pal Al Einstein, founding proprietor of Einstein’s Bay and Books. The only place where you can indulge in your favorite fish filet dinner and the latest from your favorite romance novelist at the very same time! Gotta admit, that place is pretty genius.
Warren Terra
@4tehlulz:
Or saying that the Christians were the real victims of the Holocaust. I’ve genuinely heard claims close to that being made.
john
these two quotes were reputedly said by Einstein (if anyone knows the original source….):
and
celticdragonchick
There is absolutely no damned way I will teach creationism in a geology class. I will not do it, and I would quit any teaching job that demanded it.
Asshole
Einstein wasn’t a believer in organized religion, but it’s not exactly fair to characterize him as an atheist, either. Here are some other quotes of his.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.”
“I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.”
“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of “humility.” This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”
“I 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.”
“It is very difficult to elucidate this [cosmic religious] feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. . . The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it … In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”
“I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?”
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.”
“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support for such views.”
“What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos.”
“When the answer is simple, God is speaking.”
HyperIon
@Ruckus wrote:
These days even with an education.
GWB’s last press secretary did not know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. I’m pretty sure she went to all the best schools.
Omnes Omnibus
@HyperIon: … but you know she only used to get juiced in them.
Chris
Amen (pun intended). I’m sick to death of listening to those jackasses claim that every popular historical figure must’ve been a Christian (the Founding Fathers are another howler).
But I’m even more sick of the arrogant implication that those people (whether or not they were actually Christian) were all their kind of Christians, e.g. people who believed Jesus was a free market fundamentalist who so loved the world that he gave it the United States, so that it might enlighten the masses with Ayn Rand novels and bomb-craters in Vietnam/Iraq.
As far as I’m concerned, whether other people are Christian or not is a moot point – their own Christianity is a barely recognizable bastardization.
cleek
being a real American, i prefer to think of it as 74 cubic inches.
Zifnab
@David in NY:
If Dan Quayle was running for VP again today, do you think the media would have still teased him for being a dolt, or cheered him as the quintessential conservative academic of our time?
jacy
I really try hard not to bash “believers,” after all my husband is a devout Catholic, but one of the things that drives me crazy about a large number of Christians is their endless quest for validation. They need to “prove” they’re right and they need you to agree. They need to manufacture evidence and quote authorities and be shown deference.
We all believe crazy stuff. It’s our right. It’s normal. Sometimes our beliefs make us better people, and often they make us worse people. But the intense need for some people to have everyone else validate their beliefs just makes them look frightened. The more I hear people talk about their religion, the more it seems to me that they’re terrified they’re wrong.
jim filyaw
actually, i think the right honorable legislator may be from strawberry plains, not strawberry fields (i’m a native tennessean and have never heard of the former). strawberry plains is in a beautiful part of the state–deliverance country if you will. i suspect that wherever he’s from, there’s a lot of banjo music around.
Chris
@David in NY:
Heh. Dude looks like he’s going to cry. It’s pretty beautiful.
Cermet
When you say
you are 100% wrong – meat is muscle tissue. The brain is mostly built on cholesterol or basicly a type of fat. So calling some a fat head is a complement … .
Of course for thugs, being a meat head might be the more accurate description … .
Tom Levenson
@jim filyaw: Damn. I hate when those “too good to check” details prove to be….
Cheryl from Maryland
Hmmm, a Republican screwing up a historical reference and ACTUALLY quoting Sir Francis Bacon to promote Christianity and morality. Bacon, who was kicked out of office on 23 counts of corruption and bribery (in the 17th C., when to be corrupt was to really be corrupt)and was known for going both ways sexually (well to be fair, James I enjoyed the favors of both sexes, although he liked young men the best). Yeah, that would be right.
Redshift
A few weeks ago, there was a thing going around on Twitter where people were posting random quotes and attributing them to Albert Einstein, basically to mock those who attribute as quotes sayings and aphorisms that obviously aren’t.
My contribution was:
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.”
— Albert Einstein.
BGinCHI
@Zifnab: Quayle is way too smart to run in the GOP these days.
Bar, lowered.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshift:
Sounds like something he would say.
Tom Levenson
@Cermet: Not 100%. (a) Colloquialism
(b) Head cheese. While the brain is often removed from head cheese prep (as the link notes), it is sometimes used, which puts brains into the category somewhat euphemistically termed “organ meats,” which a friend of mine used to refer to as innards.
Roger Moore
@john:
Wikiquote lists those in the “misattributed” section for Einstein. They are supposedly similar to some of the points he was making but there’s no known source for him actually saying them.
protected static
@Asshole: Einstein valued , well, values. Doesn’t mean he was religious.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Reminds me of Washington’s “It is impossible to govern this country without God and Bible.” And Lincoln’s “you cannot lift up the poor by tearing down the rich.”
priscianus jr
Einstein was not an atheist, but you’re definitely right about the Christianity part.
ppcli
@Asshole:
Yes, and that’s why virtually every one of Spinoza’s contemporaries regarded him as an atheist. If we begin by identifying God with Nature, as spinoza does at the beginning of the *Ethics*, then most atheists are believers in God in that sense.
opie jeanne
Tom, I always read your posts. Sometimes I skim over the headlines of the posts for the day, but I always stop and read yours because they are always so good, plus you include wonderful art in most of them. Heck, I even read the math-ish ones, that’s how much I appreciate your writing.
Just wanted to thank you.
Keith
@dr. luba: Which Bacon (Francis) quote was a convenient aphorism to which to hew in that day. Days when agnosticism or atheism landed you in dudgeons, stocks, at the end of a rope, or the tip of an axe.
Mudge
Damn. Nicely pissed into the wind.
Tookish
Einstein comes the closest to describing the sort of spirituality I subscribe to here:
I have always found his profound commitment to curiosity to be the most remarkable of all his talents.
Tim, Interrupted
@Asshole:
Asshole, thanks for posting these Einstein quotes.
I don’t see why so many people have trouble even considering that Einstein rejected conventional, organized religion in general while also keeping his mind open to concepts of god which include the notion that IT may exist and be something beyond current understanding, and only fumblingly hinted at in texts such as the bible.
Tom’s post here reads like the typical atheist who is as doggedly devoted to the dogmas of atheism as is any fundamentalist xtian or muslim whacko. On both sides, atheists and religious fanatics are too emotionally wedded to the absolute RIGHTNESS of what they claim to believe.
No, Einstein was not a Catholic or LUtheran or Baptist or Muslim or Jew, but that does not mean he did not hold out the possibility that some organizing force beyond our capacity to understand does exist and that it could be called “god.”
Violet
@David in NY:
Paul Ryan perpetually looks like a hurt puppy.
xaneroxane
@opie jeanne: co-sign. This post is brilliant. And that was the very best metaphor for the brain that I’ve seen in awhile–I’m learnin’ it to the young’uns in my comp. classes…
Tookish
Also, as someone who has struggled with math (and now teaches it in a remedial context), I love this quote from Einstein:
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater.
maus
Ungh, why do conservatives make with all these Snopesworthy fabrications?
Gus
@gnomedad: Actually the latest is “MLK WAS a Republican.”
Tom Levenson
@Tim, Interrupted:
I can’t claim that it does not read this way to you, but I can assure you that if you think the above is dogmatic atheism, you don’t get out much.
Tom Levenson
@opie jeanne: Thanks indeed for such kind words!
Sly
My favorite debate moment is still, sadly, fictional. Jon Lovitz was brilliant as Dukakis.
Tookish
@xaneroxane: Yup, i love Tom’s posts and the art he includes. Consider this another thank you! It’s such a gift to read your work.
Asshole
@protected static:
Yes, which is why I said he didn’t believe in organized religion. But if you read the quotes I posted, he talks about “true religion.” He also equates fanatical atheists with fanatical religionists. That was my point.
Martin
ZOMG! Nobama is gonna monitor your every movement and raise your taxes if you go to Redstate or watch porn online! Mark of the beast! Stock up on ammo while you can!
Gus
@maus: The tactic works! Thousands of wingnuts will see this and believe it’s true because they want to, and you will never be able to convince them it isn’t true. It will enter the pantheon of zombie lies along with “Obama spent $2 million to keep people from seeing his birth certificate” and, well, “MLK was a Republican.” One thing Republicans have kept from Ronald Reagan is “facts are stupid things.”
Asshole
@ppcli:
Really? Most atheists are pantheists? I had no idea.
Just because most of your contemporaries regard you as an atheist doesn’t make you one. Einstein didn’t view himself as one, and 20th century understanding of atheism is a bit different from early 17th century understanding of it (in which pretty much any rejection of the Judeo-Christian God was basically a form of atheism or “free-thinking”).
Dork
A Peabody and an Emmy, Mr. L? Nice!
Martin
@Tim, Interrupted:
You gotta be kidding me. You must consider unitarians to be a bunch of hard-liners.
Roger Moore
@Tookish:
I’d think it would have to be well down the list. Every decent scientist I know- and I know a lot because I’m a scientist myself- is committed to curiosity. Curiosity more even than intelligence is the main requirement to be a successful scientist. The thing that really made Einstein stand out among scientists was his ability to see the deep connections between apparently unrelated phenomena. He was uniquely able to kill two birds with one stone by showing that apparent difficulties in two areas could be used to explain each other.
Tim, Interrupted
@Tom Levenson:
Don’t get me wrong, Tom. I have a lot of respect for most of your posts. Could you give me a little bit more about what you’re getting at re “dogmatic atheism.” Thanks.
Southern Beale
Ah yes. Frank Nicely. Know him well. He said he wouldn’t support a ban on mountaintop removal mining because, as he claimed at the time, it’s actually good for wildlife … and people’s health! No, really!:
Yes, he really said “highland balds.” I have to wonder if this was a Frank Luntz approved phrase, it’s just that brilliant.
This is the Tennessee Republican Party. Which sadly looks a lot like the national Republican Party. If you want facts, or sense, or knowledge, or anything resembling a reality-based worldview, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Warren Terra
@Tim, Interrupted:
You have a category error when you say Einstein was not a Jew, in that you mix it in with denying his membership in a bunch or religions. Judaism is not a religion in the same sense as the others you list, because unlike the others in your list Jewishness is also a cultural, ethnic, and sometimes national identity, and in that sense Einstein was proudly Jewish, no matter that he didn’t believe in Jewish theological doctrine. There are a lot of Atheist, Agnostic, Deist, and even Buddhist Jews (some faiths, notably Christianity and Islam, make claims inconsistent with Judmaosm).
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: You are obviously unfamiliar with the Unitarian Jihad.
Tom Levenson
@Dork: NY Emmy, that is — for a doc that aired on WNET’s local broadcast before hitting teh Discovery Channel.
My wife is the one with the national Emmys. ;)
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually, my wife is a platoon leader in the UJ.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I shall take that under advisement.
Svensker
@Gus:
One of my cousins threw that one at me the other day. I don’t know why these folks still surprise me.
Josie
Tom: Thanks for your post. When I read the article this morning, I thought it sounded fishy, and now I know the true story. I always feel better educated, both historically and artistically, after I read your posts.
Edit: I love the debate moment. I watched that debate and enjoyed that part immensely.
eemom
dunno what that means. Something to do with Orange John?
eemom
@Warren Terra:
my favorite is the Jews for Jesus.
General Stuck
@Tom Levenson:
Well, that’s not the definition of “head cheese” I learned from my sex ed class at Willie’s Beer and Pool Hall.
Tookish
@Roger Moore: Sadly, I’ve known too many incurious scientists. Dogma can exist in any arena, religious or no (tho’ if curiosity is lacking, you can’t be practicing actual science–unlike religion which doesn’t require curiosity and is actually threatened by it in most cases).
Maybe it’s more precise to say that many scientists don’t treat curiosity as a practice to be cultivated. They might feel curious about something in their field but don’t extend that to all areas of life. Einstein allowed his curiosity to be a driving force in his life which, I think, perhaps contributed to his ability to do this:
MikeJ
@Svensker:
Here.
eemom
@BGinCHI:
Yeah, McCain pretty much displaced Poppy Bush in the “WTF?” chapter of American electoral history.
asiangrrlMN
Right the fig on, Tom. This shiitake is infuriating, mostly because there is no pushback and even if there were, the people to whom Nicely is speaking wouldn’t give a Fu Schnickens, anyway. Still, it’s grotesque to use the dead in this manner–like necrophilia politics pr0n.
maus
@Tim, Interrupted:
False equivalency, you’d have a great idiot career as a journalist who makes every story “the truth lies somewhere in the middle”.
That is not to say that I’m an atheist, but this criticism is tired and lazy.
Bokonon
Says Representative Nicely – wait, that’s not TRUE?? What do you mean? But … but … I read this story in a chain mail that was passed on from my uncle! And he got it from a pastor from a church in Ohio!!
Who are you going to believe – the received folklore of e-mails, or the lamestream media?
les
@Tom Levenson:
As thin skinned as s/he appears to be, that’s probably wise.
Asshole
@maus:
Don’t forget that shithead Einstein’s false equivalency:
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.”
“The truth, as usual, in somewhere in the middle,” eh, Albert?
Warren Terra
@eemom:
I’m sorry; did you say Jews For Cheeses?
kdaug
@Omnes Omnibus:
Man, I’d forgotten about that. What was it, “Godel, Escher, Bach”? Or an Eco book?
maus
@Asshole: “There are those”
versus “the typical atheist”
HO HO
There’s a difference between say, PZ Meyers and the asshole Christopher Hitchens type.
kdaug
@jacy:
“You are free to believe whatever you want. The universe is not obligated to agree, and the rest of us are not obligated to keep a straight face.” -Solomon Short
Anoniminous
I agree with Nicely-nicely we SHOULD teach more Einstein in our high schools. Especially:
“Why Socialism” by Albert Einstein
For the record, I’m no believer in a “planned economy.”
Bob L
Albert Einstein was a brilliant man with a rational mind who pondered deeply the workings of physics. Why would someone like him NOT believe in God, who is a creature that there absolutely NO evidence for, not even the slightest clue to suggest God’s existence? Clearly Einstein was a theist, like any clear think person.
mclaren
Using the word ‘eructation’ will get the balloon juice commentariat all upset. They’ll think it’s a porn reference.
mclaren
Incidentally, I particularly love the fact that right at the bottom of this article, one of the ads offered LIVE PSYCHIC READING.
(Sigh.)
It would’ve been much more interesting if they were offering a dead psychic reading…
BDeevDad
He probably also believes Gandhi would have supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as any good Christian would based upon the idea of get them before they get you.
Roger Moore
@Warren Terra:
Spectator I: I think it was “Blessed are the cheesemakers”.
Mrs. Gregory: Aha, what’s so special about the cheesemakers?
Gregory: Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.
kdaug
@mclaren:
Kinda how I feel about religion in general – you can tell me what happens after I die when you’re dead.
Just send back a scout or recon party or something.
HyperIon
@maus:
In your mind maybe.
Opinions vary about most things non-mathematical.
Mo's Bike Shop
@gnomedad: And the Boston Tea Party was defending Corporations against Gubmint Socialmalism.
opie jeanne
@asiangrrlMN: I love your phrase: necrophilia politics pr0n. It describes that behavior so very well.
Bruce S
“…and no knowledge will turn your head toward the GOP.”
chopper
Enstein’s entire life was defined by wealth and white Christian
privilege. Fuck em.
maus
@HyperIon: True that, but it is certainly an error to go from “there are some jerks” which I’ll wholeheartedly agree to “most of them are jerks and the exact same as muslim fundamentalists”.
That’s when someone goes over the bounds of subjectivity into ridiculousland.
Mo's Bike Shop
@Tim, Interrupted:
Ockham’s razor?
Perhaps the real problem is the caricature in your head of a ‘Typical Atheist’?
Not to be doctrinaire about it though, we try to hash this out all the time at the Typical Atheists Meeting House (meeting time 12:00-4:00 p.m. every February 30th). We’d probably have something sorted out if we had more time, but the Anarchists Directorate has the room booked immediately following.
chopper
@Mo’s Bike Shop:
Well I’ve always said, There’s nothing an agnostic can’t do if he really doesn’ t know whether he believes in anything or not.
maus
@Mo’s Bike Shop: Besides that they only understand the theist/atheist portion and skip entirely over agnosticism. Oops, see that’s already been replied to.
Mo's Bike Shop
@Anoniminous:
Dude, we have a planned economy.
Anoniminous
@Mo’s Bike Shop:
“Planned economy” as when the state controls and centrally directs the economy, e.g., the Soviet Union.
A political-economy where large corporations and financial interests
bribe“consult,” “advocate,” and “lobby” with the state on matters economic is NOT a Planned Economy.It says so, right on the box. ;-)
Jelebino
If God is omnipresent and also intervenes at historical moments, then what’s His frame of reference?
Because whatever it is, relatively moving observers must necessarily differ on whether He’s made His mind up about distant events.
SR demolishes a whole school of theology right there.
SRW1
@Tim, Interrupted:
Funny thing this. I consider myself an atheist because I no longer subscribe to any form of organized religion, even though I was brought up in a christian tradition. Despite this, I have no problem with your last paragraph. But the most interesting aspect of what you’re saying in that paragraph, is that if that is what one means by ‘god’, there is essentially no authority to be derived from this idea of god to shape the religious believes of others.
Which, I would suggest, is the absolute antithesis of organized religion.
Joel
@Asshole: In this argument, the distinction is semantic at best.
polyorchnid octopunch
@kdaug: Red pill or blue pill… why not both?
Omnes Omnibus
@kdaug: Unfortunately, I don’t remember either.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
I think you’ll enjoy this, then.
Jim, Once
@eemom: I have an acquaintance who’s a member of Jews for Jesus. She’s always trying to convert me, but I keep getting confused about what she’s trying to convert met to.
Tim, Interrupted
@SRW1:
I think I entirely agree with this.
Jim, Once
I would just like to say, I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed a diary more than this, Tom, or the comments. I keep yelling at my scientist husband, “Go to Balloon Juice now, dammit!”
Tom Levenson
@zuzu (not that one, the other one): Awesome. My thanks. I have to get that to my music dept. Chair sister ASAP.
Tom Levenson
@Jim, Once: And thanks for this as well.
tommybones
Just read this Einstein quote from a letter he wrote at an antiquarian book fair:
May 18, 1954
Dear Sir,
It is incomprehensible to me that you connect the lawfulness of the inner structure of the physical world with “God’s love”. Articles of this kind are liable to create confusion in the minds of naive readers.
Sincerely yours,
Albert Einstein
drkrick
@Gus:
His father really was. Said that he couldn’t vote for JFK because he was Catholic. JFK’s reaction? “”Imagine, Martin Luther King’s father is a bigot. Well, we all have fathers, don’t we?” “
Wolfdaughter
@Tookish:
Yes, I find the quote you made to fit in with how I experience the ineffable. I also want to say that I do believe that there is life beyond what we experience on this plane, though I certainly can’t prove it and would NEVER attempt to impose my religious views on anyone else. But if there is more than this plane, I hope that our souls will continue to be curious and will continue to search, explore, and discover.
Actually, I resonate with all the that you folks have posted, attributed to Einstein (relatively speaking, anyway). He was indeed a mensch.
Mo's Bike Shop
Oh, and,
Phlogiston: Teach the controversy!
Wolfdaughter
@eemom:
There’s a new sect in WI. Jews for Cheeses.
jimmiraybob
Dang. Good times. Thanks.
Josh
Thanks to Einstein, I think I’m going to use the term “Professional Atheists” to refer to Movement Atheists of the Hitchens-Myers-Harris sort. Like Russell and Asimov, Einstein proves that atheism doesn’t have to be thuggish or crusadey.
Richard W. Crews
The problem is right-wingers think god and christianity are the same thing. It never occurs to them that Islam’s Allah is the same god. It never occurs to them that TJefferson’s Diest God was the same god but that didn’t make him a christian.
Porlock Junior
@Keith:
“Days when agnosticism or atheism landed you in dudgeons, stocks, at the end of a rope, or the tip of an axe.”
High dudgeons and low dungeons? I think the religious authorities, though, were the ones in high dudgeon.
[Sorry, sometimes overlooking a typo would be just wrong.]
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Warren Terra:
I’m pretty sure this was just a typo, but I’m going to see if I can get my hands on a little red Torah.
PTirebiter
I read your bio after following the link and, well, Smack my ass and call me Nancy. Newton and the Counterfeiter was my favorite birthday present last year. I’d never made the connection. Terrific read on a couple of levels and I say that because I’m anything but a science guy.
Sheesh
@Josh:
Telling theists they are wrong it not thuggish or crusadey. This whole line of argument is such absolute bullshit. Thuggish is punching you in the face. Who even knows what crusadey means in this context (but it sounds good, emotional too).
This whole stereotype of the Militant Atheist is such a lie. It’s about as stupid as the argument upthread about incurious scientists. Oh? You know some, personally? That’s great. The amount of people you know is a fucking irrelevant sample. So sure, there might be militant atheists and incurious scientists somewhere, but parading them around as an argument is such a waste of everyone’s time.
To the point of the thread, Einstein only copped to “believing in God” or “being religious” after redefining those terms to his own meaning nearly every time. Einstein was never a super-naturalist. If your argument that Einstein was religious relies on that kind of cherry-picking and quote-mining you’ve already lost. If “God” is actually Nature or the physical nature of the universe, i.e. not supernatural, as Einstein redefined it, well guess what I believe in reality too. Suddenly I’m theist! But, we all know this is a stupid way to interpret his meaning, which is why most thinking people consider Einstein atheist or agnostic. He’s straight up telegraphing “atheist Jew!” in the politest way possible in all of these quotes when speaking to a religious audience, trying to communicate his awe in language they will understand as deeply and as seriously. He talks about God when he’s addressing theists, not because he is theist.
So to give evidence of the view that Einstein was an agnostic “atheist Jew”, here it is straight from the horse’s mouth:
“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment” Einstein to M. Berkowitz, Oct. 25, 1950. Einstein Archives 59-215
And evidence that he was always redefining what it meant to be religious away from ridiculous authoritarian dogmas: “I
have found no better expression than ‘religious’ for confidence in the rational nature of reality, insofar as it is accessible to human reason.” Einstein Archives 21-474
And that his pursuit of understanding reality was his “religion” and therefore the universe analogously his “God”: “My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the universe which we try to forumlate as ‘laws of nature.'” Einstein Archives 59-797
PTirebiter
@mclaren:
Try applying the long accepted community standards test. It was a porn reference.
DPirate
Einstein begged for a priest to confess to on his deathbed, but the pope said no cause he killed Jesus…
Triassic Sands
How long will we have to wait before a Republican claims that Muhammad converted to Christianity on his deathbed?
Historical Note:
Buddha was also a convert to Baby J-ism. [Intended.]
More Factless Facts from the Party of Insanity.
Snarla
Well, there was a Harry Turtledove novel (Agent of Byzantium) in which Muhammad’s revelations had been assimilated into the Christian church, and that novel was words printed on paper, so it’s only a matter of time before a Republican politician spouts it as fact.
Yeah, I can see it now. Except it’ll get turned around that Muhammad was an apostate Christian, and this explains why we must kill all Muslims. Or something.
Nigel Tufnel
The real scandal here is the misquoting of John Lennon by the author: Strawberry Fields was not the place with “tangerine skies”; in fact no such place exists in the Lennon oeurve. The trees are tangerine, but the skies are marmalade, provided you’re on LSD.
I kid, I kid. Loved the post–here in Texas we have Louie Gohmert and others who are every bit as nutty as Rep. Nicely, but it’s somehow comforting to see other states have them too.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Sheesh: Well…Einstein was wrong about some things.
As it turns out, god does play dice with the metaverse.
@Snarla: Actually, al-Islam incorporated the whole of judaism and christianity. Issa (Jesus) is a prophet of Islam, and the Bible and the Torah are incorporated in the Generous Quran.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anoniminous:
nice catch.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
moderated.
fix.
nice catch.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Tookish:
very nice.
A sufi aphorism.
wa yuzhira bihi sirrahu ilayhi
umm…literally, “it reveals through it its secret mystery to it.” hard to translate to english because we have to choose between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns.
jimbo92107
Tom, thank you for that very reassuring correction of yet another Republican foray into faux history. It is said that funerals are not for the dead, but for the living. In that spirit, it is a moral imperative to prevent such as Frank Niceley from pissing on Albert Einstein’s grave.
We all know that Republicans gleefully invent huge lies in order to defend their corrupt and insane policies. For decades they’ve been pushing false quotes attributed to Abraham Lincoln about free market capitalism.
Now however, Republicans have pushed into a higher gear of lying, the O’Keefe era of doctored videos and whole-cloth fabrications of false facts. Lately they have been pushing false memes about FDR trying to turn America into Stalinist Russia (with Social Security).
They are an intellectually bankrupt party, but their lies and deceptions are amplified enormously by America’s corporate media and corporate religion. One of the first things we need in America is a law against lying on television, like the law in Canada which prevents Fox News from operating there.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Tom Levenson: grrreat post. But doesn’t Darwin’s fantasy deathbed conversion deserve a mention too?
The Right has no scientists or third culture intellectuals. 94% of scientists are NOT conservative. So they do a sort of ideological capture….ideological kidnapping I guess.
The Right also attempts this with Thom Jefferson, an elitist liberal polymath that would have shot teabaggers on sight.
Contrarian
@Sheesh:
Depends on when/how. Same as telling atheists they are wrong. It can be thuggish and crusadey, or not.
I’ve met atheists who cheered on the Leninist/Stalinist mass murder of priests and burning of churches. So clearly, there are some thuggish atheists out there, who are also downright crusadey.
Why? Because it disagrees with your narrative?
Thanks for setting us all straight, there. I guess once you’ve decided what else people should think about everything we can shut the blogosphere down, then, because there’s nothing left to talk about.
Don’t we all?
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
Sure sounds like he’s talking about metaphysics to me- it’s imperceptible and barely comprehensible, but it’s real. That’s metaphysics.
Again- please show that pantheists and Deists are exactly the same thing as atheists. Kthxbai.
If he’d meant he was an atheist, he would’ve said so instead of wasting so much ink berating atheists.
Once again- Einstein was writing in the 20th century. He could’ve embraced atheism if he’d wanted to. No crypto-talk needed. He wasn’t going to get burned at the stake for renouncing the Tri-une God. Yet, he didn’t do this.
The only thing you quoted that would even imply Einstein wasn’t just a pantheist is this:
“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.”
How does this support your claim that he’s an atheist? It directly contradicts it, I should think. But maybe now Deists, pantheists and agnostics are all atheists.
It’s nice that every perception of God other than a Judeo-Christian one is now atheistic. You really are the mirror image of Christian fundamentalists who think that anyone’s who’s not an atheist is a Christian fundamentalist like them.