What about Einstein’s frequent use of God language?
What Einstein said, in a note to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, whose book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt Einstein was reviewing, was nearly as scathing as any contemporary critique of religion you might hear from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens. “The word God is for me,” Einstein wrote, “nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.”
It is no wonder why, for decades, Einstein’s views on religion became muddled in the popular imagination: The inconsistency is clear. Here, God means one thing; over there, another. Just going off his letter to Gutkind, Einstein appears to be an atheist. But read Einstein in other places and you find him directly declaring that he is not one. “I am not an Atheist,” he said in an interview published in 1930. “I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.
Brian Gallagher, “How Einstein Reconciled Religion to Science” at Nautilus
Actually, despite the article’s title, Einstein didn’t reconcile anything. He said different things at different times to different people. And it didn’t matter. People took what they wanted from it. It sounds as though he didn’t really have a firm opinion.
Einstein’s ‘biggest blunder’ was premature capitulation.
In part due to lack of Torah study.
His ‘last regret’ was that he had not studied more Torah.
Now Torah study while discounting that study is like a hamster running on a wheel.
Lack of Torah knowledge is like driving blind.
As Torah revelation is the ‘owner manual’ that provides context for the science.
Thus Einstein contributed a lot to science, but missed much of the fat science dividends he sought.
reference http://www.academia.edu/44176808
in volume II of the YeC Moshe Emes series for Torah and science alignment.
Einstein was not raised in a religious household, which did impact his view on various religions later in life. Anyone who believes his parents were anything other than atheists who wanted nothing to do with Judaism should look into why they named their son Albert.
Einstein’s view on God was simple. God exists, since it was the only explanation for seeing order in the universe. He did not care about anything other than determining how God created the universe.
From the article, Einstein declared his lack of belief in a ‘personal’ God as such
And also from the article, Einstein declared his lack of belief in the ‘personal’ God of the Bible as such
It is also important to realize the context in which Einstein wrote that statement. Einstein wrote that statement in 1954, not long after the holocaust in Germany had occurred. ,,, Might Einstein be forgiven for thinking that God was not concerned with “the fate and the doings of mankind” after witnessing such cruel inhumanity unleashed upon his own people?
I know that I would certainly have a very hard time reconciling any belief in a personal God to the fact that over 6 million of my own people had just been mercilessly killed in the concentration camps of Germany.
And yet, regardless of what Einstein’s, or my, personal feelings may be about the holocaust, the fact of the matter is the holocaust itself, as unimaginably horrid as it was, reveals that God in indeed concerned about “the fate and the doings of mankind”. Moreover, the holocaust itself reveals that the Bible is certainly NOT “an incarnation of the most childish superstition.”
No matter what our personal feelings about the holocaust may be, the fact of the matter is that the holocaust, as horrid as it was, served as the driving catalyst for the fulfillment of one of the main, and most amazing, prophecies in the Bible.
The present day existence of Israel is rightly considered a stunning confirmation of numerous biblical prophecies that predicted exactly that.
Here is an article that goes over the numerous Biblical prophecies in the Old Testament that prophesied the regathering of the Jewish people into Israel from the nations of the world,,
And in the New Testament, we find that Jesus Himself predicted the dispersion of the Jewish people from Israel into the nations “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
Thus, regardless of how Einstein may have personally felt about the holocaust, and regardless of how the holocaust may have effected his own belief in a ‘personal’ God Who concerns Himself with “the fate and the doings of mankind”, (and regardless of the fact that Einstein thought that the Bible was “the most childish superstition”,,), besides all that, the fact of the matter is that the holocaust itself, as horrid as it was, served as the main catalyst for the fulfillment of one of the most amazing and miraculous prophecies in the Bible. i.e. The regathering of Israel as a nation!
For instance of one prophecy, out of many, from the Old Testament..
In spite of our personal feelings about it, it is simply a ‘miraculous’ fulfillment of prophecy that the Jewish people should be dispersed across the globe for 2000 years and yet somehow be able to maintain their cultural identity, and even retain their language, and then regather as one people in the nation of Israel after two thousand years of not having a nation to call their own.
And besides the restoration of Israel as a nation, the Bible also has numerous other prophecies that have been fulfilled,
For instance fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament, the Old Testament prophets made some insanely accurate predictions concerning Tyre and Sidon, Thebes and Memphis, Babylon and Ninevah that can be verified as being true,,,
Thus the Bible, directly contrary to Einstein’s claim that it is “the most childish superstition”, is in fact a uniquely amazing and stunning Book. There simply is no other book like it in the world. A uniquely amazing and stunning Book that has a remarkably accurate track record in regards to numerous fulfilled prophecies.