# Einstein's atheism - help me parse some of his letter **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164 "2008-05-13T14:18:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/1 "2008-05-13T14:18:09Z")
My brother has pointed me to a [letter from Einstein](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/13/peopleinscience.religion) published today in the Guardian that lays out the great man’s atheism once and for all. No more “God does not play dice” misinterpretations allowed. However, there’s once segment that neither of us have been able to parse. It is therefore with embarrassement on both our parts that I ask someone else to interpret what the hell he’s saying. Bolded by me: > [@](#): > > In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. **As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one.** And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. WTF, Albert? ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/2 "2008-05-13T16:29:44Z")
For a veeeeerrry simple shorthand that steers around all of Spinoza’s work on modes and substances and such, you can think of this as a matter of free will vs. determinism. I don’t know your background, so sorry if I tread some ground already known to you. Spinoza was a rationalist before rationalism was cool. He was also a Jew, though he was …something like excommunicated…for his views on God. He believed in causality driven entirely by necessity, but he did not deny emotion. But, I’m digressing a bit here. “A limited causality is no longer a causality at all” means either there is a kind of determinist , closed system world where one ball hits another ball and the second ball bounces away and you can’t think your way out of an emotion – you can only “bounce” one emotion off of another emotion and see some pre-determined result. We can’t pray our way out of the pre-determined consequences of systemically pre-determined actions, and God is not going to scoop us up at the last minute. There’s a machine and there’s a God. God made the machine. He is not _in_ the machine. I find the next sentences to be especially interesting: "With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary. " He’s saying that by claiming the special status of monotheism, Gutkind does not rationally undermine, for example – and I think Einstein is just using this as an example – animistic religions (and, perhaps, other “childish superstitions”) The monotheistic status is only special because Gutkind, among many others, claims it to be so. There is no general causality derived from a statement like – the world works in a Jewish way because I am a Jewish person. And to believe this thing that is not rationally true, according (I think) to Einstein, is a self-deception that hampers one’s moral action in (and understanding of) the world. I don’t think this letter absolutely undermines Einstein’s “God does not play dice…” claim, which is a much less sunny, rosy, optimistic claim than some would believe. “God”, there, may be an atheist’s (of some subtle shading) use of the word God. It’s not real optimistic about God, but it could be regarded as optimistic (sorta) about the universe. The universe works a way. We can learn about that way. The exceptions to our understandings suggest that there is more for us to understand, not that God is fucking around with things in the background, changing the rules or creating truly exceptional phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/3 "2008-05-13T17:29:45Z")
I’m not a philosopher, but I don’t see in the letter any argument for atheism. All Einstein is saying is that such human constructs as the word “God”, the Bible and the Jewish religion are limited by having been invented by human beings with a limited understanding. So he presumably doesn’t believe that the Bible or the Jewish religion were revealed by a deity (whatever a deity might mean), but he’s not excluding the possibiity that there is a deity. However a deity which can’t be easily understood, which doesn’t reveal itself to humanity (except perhaps through basic laws of physics), and which doesn’t interfere in human events, is not the sort of deity that most Jews and Christians believe in. So Einstein was either a very unconventional theist, or an agnostic. I don’t think that he was very likely to have been an athiest, because he does seem to feel that there’s something there behind the laws of physics, which might (for want of a better word) be called a “god”. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/4 "2008-05-13T17:32:55Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] I’m not a philosopher, but I don’t see in the letter any argument for atheism. All Einstein is saying is that such human constructs as the word “God”, the Bible and the Jewish religion are limited by having been invented by human beings with a limited understanding. So he presumably doesn’t believe that the Bible or the Jewish religion were revealed by a deity (whatever a deity might mean), but he’s not excluding the possibiity that there is a deity. However a deity which can’t be easily understood, which doesn’t reveal itself to humanity (except perhaps through basic laws of physics), and which doesn’t interfere in human events, is not the sort of deity that most Jews and Christians believe in. So Einstein was either a very unconventional theist, or an agnostic. I don’t think that he was very likely to have been an athiest, because he does seem to feel that there’s something there behind the laws of physics, which might (for want of a better word) be called a “god”. [/QUOTE] He never expressed any belief that there was anything “behind” physics. He used “God” as a figurative description for those laws themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/5 "2008-05-13T17:42:45Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] He never expressed any belief that there was anything “behind” physics. He used “God” as a figurative description for those laws themselves. [/QUOTE] I would like to see something that supports this. Where does Einstein pin down just exactly how figuratively he intends his use of the the word “God”? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/6 "2008-05-13T17:45:36Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/7 "2008-05-13T17:57:12Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa] I would like to see something that supports this. Where does Einstein pin down just exactly how figuratively he intends his use of the the word “God”? [/QUOTE] Did you read the rest of the letter I linked? > [@](#): > > The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/8 "2008-05-13T17:58:17Z")
[QUOTE=Einstein] Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > 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. [Telegram of 1929, in Hoffman and Dukas] > **[News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com](https://www.aol.com/)** > > Discover the latest breaking news in the U.S. and around the world — politics, weather, entertainment, lifestyle, finance, sports and much more. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/9 "2008-05-13T18:00:29Z")
It’s ridiculous to call Einstein an atheist. He said specifically that he was not. [http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections\_volume\_1/torrance.htm](http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/10 "2008-05-13T18:02:43Z")
**mswas** , there is a 25-year gap between the telegram you quoted, and the letter linked to, that has recently come to light. ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/11 "2008-05-13T18:09:44Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Did you read the rest of the letter I linked? [/QUOTE] Yes, but I suspect that, in this case, he is being more rhetorical than revelatory of his inner thoughts, as the passage you quote is inconsistent with many of his other (elsewhere) uses of “God”. I am certainly open to the probability that he had wavering and evolving views on the subject. I believe that in this letter, he wished, even more than to clearly state his own true thoughts (even of the moment) on religion and a deity, to distance himself from Eric Gutkind’s religious and possibly pseudo-religious politics, such as A Biblical Call to Revolt, 1952. ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/12 "2008-05-13T18:11:52Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] **mswas** , there is a 25-year gap between the telegram you quoted, and the letter linked to, that has recently come to light. [/QUOTE] There is, but it is an interesting parallel – that twenty-five years later, he still (or again) refers to Spinoza’s account of an ordered universe to think about a God. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/13 "2008-05-13T18:12:44Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] > **[News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com](https://www.aol.com/)** > > Discover the latest breaking news in the U.S. and around the world — politics, weather, entertainment, lifestyle, finance, sports and much more. [/QUOTE] Also this: “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.** ” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/14 "2008-05-13T18:22:16Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] It’s ridiculous to call Einstein an atheist. He said specifically that he was not. [http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections\_volume\_1/torrance.htm](http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm) [/QUOTE] He didn’t like the word, but that’s what he was, by strict definition. His problem with a lot of self-described athists was that he thought they [lacked “wonder.”](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607298,00.html) > [@](#): > > “What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos,” he explained. > > In fact, Einstein tended to be more critical of debunkers, who seemed to lack humility or a sense of awe, than of the faithful. “The fanatical atheists,” he wrote in a letter, “are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who–in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’-- cannot hear the music of the spheres.” His problem wasn’t really with atheism in the technical sense (I think it’s beyond dispute that Einstein himself had no theistic belief. he was – at best-- quasi -deistic), but with a kind of aggressive cynicism and (what he felt) was a life-negating attitude towards transcendent mysteries. These are not definitional properties of atheism, of course, but characteristics of a certain kind of activist atheism that he did not want to associate himself with. ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/15 "2008-05-13T18:27:54Z")
There are characteristics of a certain kind of activist anything with which many of us do not want to associate ourselves, regardless of our inner concord or dissonance with their beliefs or cause. I’m not sure how one can make an argument that someone is a deist, but not a theist, since deism is a subset of theism. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/16 "2008-05-13T19:37:13Z")
It neeeds more clarity. Einstein 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 never denied this’ but I expressed clearly. If there is something in my which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structures of the world as far as our science can reveal it. ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/17 "2008-05-13T19:44:48Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] It neeeds more clarity. Einstein 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 never denied this’ but I expressed clearly. If there is something in my which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structures of the world as far as our science can reveal it. [/QUOTE] This was quoted in post #13. Do you have something to add to a discussion of the interpretation of the quotation? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/18 "2008-05-13T19:50:30Z")
[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa] I’m not sure how one can make an argument that someone is a deist, but not a theist, since deism is a subset of theism. [/QUOTE] Most definitions of theism involve not just belief in a god, but belief in a personal god…a god with a personality who can interact with his or her worshipers. This excludes both deism and pantheism. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/19 "2008-05-13T19:58:29Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] … but with a kind of aggressive cynicism and (what he felt) was a life-negating attitude towards transcendent mysteries. These are not definitional properties of atheism, of course, but characteristics of a certain kind of activist atheism… [/QUOTE] Wow, [Einstein agreed with me!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=456932) Great minds think alike indeed 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164/20 "2008-05-13T20:19:14Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] Most definitions of theism involve not just belief in a god, but belief in a personal god…a god with a personality who can interact with his or her worshipers. This excludes both deism and pantheism. [/QUOTE] This is an ex post facto application of definitions, at least in the case of Spinoza. It was Kant who first applied something like the definitional distinction you claim, and that was in the mid-nineteenth century, two hundred years after Spinoza. Spinoza would have seen no distinction between two terms similarly derived from parallel Greek and Latin roots. There was only theism until the early enlightenment. Kant’s notion of deism took a while to catch on. Just to complicate matters a little, let’s talk about Jefferson and the other influential products of the Anglo-sorta American Enlightenment. They post-date Spinoza and pre-date Kant and Einstein. Take a look at p. 91 of The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson in a section called “Jefferson was a Theist” for a little background on the evolution of the applicable terms. > **[The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson](https://books.google.com/books?id=BMzIavSRNdEC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=deism+theism+distinction+history&source=web&ots=bkr7bK998G&sig=Xkf2zX_VWvyouqItyODIDGpACUc&hl=en#PPA91,M1)** > > In this new study we have a comprehensive account of Jefferson's religious thought, one that provides information about his beliefs and practices that will help remove any misconceptions about his religious life. Jefferson has long been recognized as... [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einsteins-atheism-help-me-parse-some-of-his-letter/449164.md?page=2)