When and where did this happen?
Wait, I thought the story was supposed to be told without names, and then at the end the story teller adds: “… and that student’s name was Albert Einsten.”
Makes for a much better yarn that way.
“And now you know the rest…of the story”
At least now we know the genesis of that story.
Its not clever its true. Its scientific evidence that the unexplainable is somewhat explainable. Regardless who stated these facts they are indeed FACTS. Making the meaning of the words more powerful then who actually said them. And if you read Einsteins “quotes” (which there are many - contradicting other ones often) he expressed belief. He just never specified what is was he believed.
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Less often than not do you see a parenthesized addition to an authors inspirational quote stating when and where those words were said. I assume this debate occurred either in Germany or in the United States (a university). Surely someone (if not the teacher or Einstein himself) journaled this.
Ill admit there are many other similar articles (differing slightly in diction and sequence) some suggest an anonymous author, but there is very little congruency to support any of the opposing claims (most reports recall Einstein to bed the main subject.
Regardless, these articles embody the same subject and concur in cause. Another parallel binding each of these differing articles is that there isn’t ONE single article I have found taking an opposing position or providing support to disprove the ideas collected from the discussion in question.
In other words, popular religious urban legends are popular.
Well, you’re half right.
Evil is not a fact. It is just a term people use to describe each other’s inhumanity.
God is not a fact. God is a religious belief some people need to cope with their own fear of death.
Einstein wrote in 1954:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives - Albert Einstein - Google Books
Even while he lived, he dealt with people who falsely attributed particular religious beliefs to him. Here is Einstein’s response to someone who had heard a report that Einstein had been converted by a Jesuit priest (presumably to Catholicism): Einstein wrote in that case:
“I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.”
http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/einstein-agnostic-atheism-religion
It is only decent to respect Einstein’s beliefs and his disgust at falsehoods by refraining from repeating fake stories.
I’m not sure much of that piece is factual, let alone attributing it to Einstein, especially the problem of evil. And maybe you don’t recognize when Einstein was using metaphor which he often did on religious matters, and especially in public, where he often seemed to be a bit ambiguous which I can’t blame him considering the political and religious climate of the day.
In private, he was a bit more explicit. I’ve read his autobiographical notes, personal letters, and various other places on the net. He drops his religious beliefs at the age of 12. He considered the word god nothing more than the product of human weakness, the biblical stories childish, and the Jewish religion one of the most childish of superstitions.
Einstein, like the vast majority of leading scientists of today, don’t have a belief in any personal god.
But inhumanity is a fact, and thus so is evil. Many of us use the terms as synonyms.
Seriously: how do you arrive at “Evil is not a fact?” School shootings, rape, arson, bombings of hospitals in war zones… Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
If religion were restricted to one urban area Id say you were correct. Only popular would be an understatement. Relevant would be a better word.
You’re being grammatically incorrect. You are saying that an adjective is a noun when you say that evil is or isn’t a fact. It would be correct if something were an evil fact or that our proving the existence of evil relies on fact/s, but they are not one in the same.
Evil can also be a noun.
When a rapist assaults a victim, evil has come into existence.
Einstein formulated an unseen variable (energy). He teetered between doctrinal faith and man’s free will and also searched diligently for universal truth. He argued that sovereignty as a single entity was more likely than that of a personal God. He still gave assertion that God was a deity and a comprehensive truth in nature. Einstein may have abandoned the title God, but he subjectively argued the existence of a deity and directly addressed God many times. Einstein was self proclaimed as a “religious non-believer”. He ignored biblical doctrine by reason of uncertainty and his philosophy was mad relative in terms of an afterlife. He was “agnostic” if anything (because his view of God was based in experience rather than the support of scripture and he denied doctrinal rule).
Science and God are very commonly supportive of each other because a more clear relationship becomes evident when both are defined in parallels.
That is so unlike Einstein that I have to call B.S. (an Einstein scholar who wishes to remain anonymous;)).
Okay, he says it’s another case of lying for Jesus. Lying, to be clear, is the exact opposite of telling the truth, not merely an absence of truth. Whoever told you that story, or whatever book you read it in, is deliberately deceiving you.
Einstein identified with both agnostic and atheist, mostly the former, some of the letters I presented in the link express that, and he was quite adamant in not believing in any personal God. Since you know that, why was you earlier trying to make him out as a believer? He also didn’t teether between faith and free will, he was a determinist. And what he wasn’t agnostic about was the Jewish or Christian religion, he called it for the superstition it was. Nor did he believe in an afterlife, he thought that was merely man’s ego getting in the way.
So you’ve went from Einstein rebutting his college professor, telling us we should seek out his proof of God more (he does no such thing), to now saying basically, regardless of who have said it, these are indeed facts. Which actually isn’t the case either, there are factual inconsistencies and the arguments are specious throughout, mostly playing on semantics.
But since you’ve seem to come to realize now how this story was made up and was attributed to Einstein, ask yourself as a Christian, couldn’t this very thing and the stories attributed to Jesus have been made up too?
Well, then it does exist, no? The same way a pencil exists, as it is just a term people use to describe a wooden writing utensil with a lead core.
I think this is correct. But why is it important that he not be referring to the Western God? The much larger question is the one that goes to a grander philosophy, i.e., an atheistic view vs a God-centric view.
Sure, if you ascribe no more power to evil than as a synonym for the inhumanity of humans. It has no will, it cannot be prayed away, it has no malign plans for people. Unfortunately, some people think it is an sentient force that is out to get them. That does not exist.