A letter being auctioned in London this week is sure to add fuel to the long-simmering debate about the religious views of Albert Einstein.
In the note, written a year before his death, the Nobel prize-winning physicist dismisses the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as “pretty childish.”
In it, Einstein said that “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.”
Illustrating a sharp difference between his public and more politic statements – and what he clearly addressed to his peers.
>>Mustard, so thats what happened to her?
She was chopped up with others in her family and buried on a ranch somewhere in Tejas. Chopped up and buried by Mr. Waters, who was a member of the American Atheists at the time (he worked for her, after beating and urinating on his mother). I believe you’re correct, her son got that old-time religion, and she repudiated him. I guess she had “zero tolerance” for the spiritual folks.
>>I am not attacking you. It is just the way
>>your statement is worded leaves it open for
Got it, “J”. I don’t deny that fundie flakes are weirdos, or that organized “religion” has been responsible for more bad than good over the years. My only point was that the less-holy-than-thou Atheists are not immune to the same kind of late-night talk show punch lines. And I won’t even get into the whole Pol Pot/ Stalin/ Mao thing….
#144
I doubt that anyone has claimed that religion is about pedophiles and hypocrites. That is a strawman argument. However, you must admit that there are far more pedophiles and hypocrites that are religious and that dupe other religious people than atheists. That in no way means that atheists cannot go off the deep end or cannot be pedophiles or cannot be hypocrites. Certainly, they can. The problem that atheists have with religion is that it promotes the idea of accepting ideas without evidence or critical thought. That leads to being duped later such as with people that followed Ted Haggard.
Further, your claim that I have a “flawed” understanding of religion is misplaced. I grew up in a religious family and went to a religious school all the way through HS. I do not remember anyone I knew ever being involved or knew of a story of pedophilia or mass hypocrisies other than the Tammy Faye incident. I knew quite a few that gave money to that snake-oil salesman. On the whole, people were cordial and simply went about their lives. Frankly, it is *because* of my knowledge of religion that led me to atheism. The trick is to continue to question and refine your ability to use the scientific method. It’s not what you know that gets in you trouble; it’s what you think you know that ain’t so.
>>It’s not what you know that gets in you
>>trouble; it’s what you think you know that
>>ain’t so.
Yep. We would ALL be well advised to keep that in mind.
That letter sold for 150,000 pounds. 15 times the original estimate.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2216821/einstein-letter-sells-170