So Richard Dawkins insists that Albert Einstein was an atheist and a pantheist. In fact, he says,
So there you have it. In Dawkins’ world, there’s not a single Einstein quote which suggests other than that Einstein was an atheist and a pantheist.
So then, we might ask, what about this quote:
To me, that quote suggests that Einstein was not an atheist, nor should he be called an pantheist. Of course I may be wrong. It’s possible that I’m just misinterpreting it. Perhaps top scientists have a secret code in which “I am not an atheist” means “I am an atheist.” That’s about the only circumstances in which Dawkins would not be an outright liar. One must also wonder what coded message is contained in this:
And in this:
So, to conclude, Einstein believed in a thinking being who created the universe and established the laws of nature. Sounds like a God to me.
That quote alone does not support your argument. At the least, you need to provide a quote showing which side of the argument Dawkins thought Einstein came down on.
I do not presume to know Einstein’s views on religion to any great extent, however I do know that he disdained the concept of a personal, interventionist god:
So it seems a bit simplistic to me to claim that ‘Einstein believed in god’, just as it probably was to Einstein to call himself an atheist, or pantheist (though I seem to recall him expressing sympathies for Spinoza’s kind of pantheism). The clearest we can say is probably that he had his own views on the matter, and was reluctant to align himself with pre-existing philosophies, which seems well in keeping with what little I know of him. To try to settle this debate either way in absence of a reliable means to contact the dead seems hardly doable, and if we had such a means, we probably wouldn’t have a reason for this debate.
It’s still valid to debate his beliefs, however, even if they are entirely and totally inconsequential to the issue as a whole; he has certainly said a lot of things that show what an incredible amount of careful thought went into his personal beliefs, and I can’t help but admire that.
Besides, if I only discussed things of consequence on here, I’d probably have just short of five posts by now.
No he didn’t, and a few minutes of Googling would bring up the Einstein quotes where he explictly rejects conventional notions of “God”.
Whatever Einstein was, he was not a theist, and anyone with a passing knowledge of Einstein would know this. Why is it that you somehow didn’t know this?
Yes, but despite your screen name, you do not make a practice of opening threads with arguments so specious they smack of either utter disingenuousness or … well, never mind, this isn’t the Pit.
I’m not an expert on Einstein’s intimate religious beliefs but I’ve read 2 biographies (and watched several lectures on him.) Einstein said he believed in “Spinoza’s God” which is a non-interventionist type of god. It’s an idea that’s closer to “deism” that Thomas Jefferson believed.
Therefore, I think you’re stretching the truth by inserting the phrase “thinking being” into your conclusion. I think it’s intellectually dishonest to say Einstein anthropomorphised God into a “thinking being.”
Also, why does any of this Einstein trivia matter at all? Virtually all cosmologists today studying the origins of the universe and dark matter dark energy are atheists. I don’t think their scientific progress would be affected by their religious beliefs or absence of it.
I think we all realize that whether he believed in God or not isn’t evidence either way about the existence of God (that would be the “appeal to authority” fallacy IIRC).
It’s still interesting in and of itself to some folks (me included). If you don’t care, well, then I’m not sure why would one open this very clearly-titled thread.
Ah, this changes things. Obviously Einstein is a racist pedophile Commie, and General Relativity should be replaced with a Theory of Intelligent De-time.
Yes. If the OP is correct in his characterization of what Dawkins (who clearly set out to pick fights) said about Einstein (and I have not checked whether he’s accurately characterized Dawkins), Dawkins seemingly invoking Einstein’s beliefs in support of Dawkins’s own theories, then the OP is not appealing to Einstein’s authority to prove theism, but calling Dawkins out on his own appeal to authority in support of atheism.