I agree with you. Whether it be a belief in God or a belief in some Scientific Theory, it’s better to study about it yourself and come to a personal opinion then it would be to take somebody else’s belief without knowing the complete basis for their opinion or belief.

your friend forrest

I agree with the definitions that Forrest posted; I still refer to God with a capital “g” because it is a specific god that I am referring to.

The existence of God and the opinion of a well-known genius… I hope people are battling to clarify his statements rather than battling and twisting words to get Einstein’s opinion onto their side. I find it silly that people care so much about his ultimate stance on the matter. Why not just look at his reasoning and decide for yourself what seems more logical? If I looked at his evidence and concluded that God exists or doesn’t exist, then I wouldn’t change my mind just because he concluded something different.

Just saw on the internet today that the owner(s) of the letter above got $404,000. U.S. at auction today for the letter.

your friend forrest

It would be an accurate statement that the “word of god” means religious texts, indicating such works as the Torah, Bible, and the Koran.

Due to the fact that these works were written by people, regardless of what divine inspiration they claim to have been following, they must surely carry within them the personal bias of their writers, therefor flawing the purity of their “message.”

The belief in god, and the dogmatic following of a religious text not necessarily one in the same- as all too often differing interpretations of such texts have been used by charismatic people as justification for horrific tasks.

With all of that in mind, it should be easy for us to analyze his statement and regard it not as being one of religious intolerance, but a warning against faith in religious texts. Being a man of reason, I can easily see why he would fear the thought of “the masses” adhering strictly to outdated and often nonsensical ways of life simply because they were “the word of God.”

I think that this other quote from Einstein ties in quite nicely in relation to this topic:

“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.” (Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

So to answer the question, “…for the sake of our own conviction, one way or another, will it make us feel better if we can pin him down on one idea once and for all? Will that validate our own conviction?” I would have to say, no. Both sides are deadset with what they believe and both sides will argue that Einstein sides with them. We will never be able to pin him down. As for validation for our convinctions, we find and sometimes make things validate what we believe, if his name is Einstein or not.

Either we’d be able to pin Einstein down on his position, but not on his speed; or we could pin him down on his speed, but not on his position…

I like the pun you laid down on Nina concerning Einstein.” To pin him down on the idea we would have to bring him back from the dead. We would all be excited about that”. But remember it would take God or his son to do that, as the story goes.

But you’re right Dwight, everyone would be exited, especially us non-believers. Something like listening to a lecture concerning quantum theory, unbelievable. But if you show me the math, I can deal with it.

your friend forrest

From Webster’s New World English Dictionary” The distinction between the words “god and God”:

The word “god”: is any deity which possesses supernatural powers and is worshiped for its ability to control some part of the world or some aspect of life.

The name “God”: refers to a single deity believed by monotheists to be the supreme reality, and the power that was the sole creator of mankind and the universe.

Non-believers, sometimes have used the small “g” to signify any belief in a god, to emphasize that the Judo-Christian-Moslem belief in a single God is just one of the many deity ideas that have been promoted by man for all of recorded history, as seen from archaeological evidence.

The first known monotheists were the Egyptians when they worshiped Rah, the god of the Sun (the belief in any other god was outlawed), maybe a thousand years before the Old Testament was supposedly written.

your friend forrest