Einstein's God

[The Laughing Man]

Who, or What, is Einstein's God?

[danlo]

Nature, Einstien's a deist. (sorry I'll delete this if you're trying to merge)

[iQuestor]

based on the link I found, I would agree that Einstein's God was nature (the universe).

[Harbinger]

I didn't see this thread when I posted in The God Fuse.

Einstein wrote:
"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."

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."


Albert Einstein credited Spinoza as the philosopher that most greatly influenced his world view. Spinoza believed that god=nature, that there were two names for one reality that he called "substance".

<edit to note addition>

Spinoza was a pantheist, so it would be reasonable to assume that Einstein was also a pantheist, if we insist on labeling him. Pantheism basically asserts that god is everything and everything is god. So to Spinoza or Einstein it would be substance is everything and everything is substance. Deism is different from pantheism in that it assumes the existence of a god based on reason from observing "design" of the natural world. The design presupposes a designer.

[The Laughing Man]

Nature, Einstien's a deist. (sorry I'll delete this if you're trying to merge)

I'd rather start fresh, even at the risk of repeating myself, albeit in a different way. It's really up to everyone else.

[Harbinger]

I may have jumped to conclusions.

Einstein said:

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

Clearly, Einstein recognized a "harmony" which presupposed a designer. That would make him a deist. Spinoza's view of god=nature was influential to the early European deists.

[danlo]

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modelled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature."

[The Laughing Man]

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details. Albert Einstein

I'm still working on a long take on all this.

[Dromond]

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details. Albert Einstein

I'm still working on a long take on all this.

The Devil is in the details, I've heard...