Believing In God, Like Einstein

EINSTEIN BELIEVED IN GOD. That may seem surprising to those only generally familiar with the famous scientist, to those who associate science, and scientists with a lack of traditional belief. And in fact Einstein was no traditional believer. His family was Jewish, as is well known, but his parents were not observant, and young albert was raised in an atmosphere of learning, not religious indoctrination. Interestingly when he was about twelve, Albert went through a phase in which he became extremely religious, and followed all Jewish religious rituals and behavior to the letter. Maybe this was his way of maturing intellectually, by becoming zealously attached, for a short time, to a cultural intellectual tradition. He later expressed some degree of amusement at his childhood rite of passage. Einstein the adult made two famous comments about his religious beliefs. "My religiosity consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal god who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for mankind, but not for God." Obviously, Einstein was neither Christian nor Jew. If anything, he was a pantheist, or less accurately, a deist. He also said: "everyone who seriously pursues science becomes convinced that a spirit, infinitely superior to mankind, is manifest in the laws of the universe." Such is Einstein's God. Einstein said that the more deeply into the universe his investigations took him, the more he became convinced that the universe the product of a grand design, a master plan, that somebody "built this place". He referred to God as "the old eternal genius who built the world". And, "The ancient one". Einstein was wrong about one thing he said. In fact, a high percentage of scientists are atheists, then, and now. His point is still well taken, though, in that scientists do indeed behold design and intelligent intent in nature's arrangements, both biologically, chemically, and physically, and in the interrelationships between matter, energy, time, and space. Scientists, however, do indeed tend to reject traditional belief and dogma as so much superstition, as did Einstein. For Einstein, and for many philosophers who love science, God is inherent in nature, God is nature, the terms "god", "cosmos", and "universe" are interchangeable. So the difference between scientific atheism and Einsteinian religiosity may ultimately be a matter of definition. When the emerging science of quantum mechanics swept through the scientific world early in the twentieth century, Einstein was, and probably would still be today, appalled. Quantum mechanics, which evolved over several decades of modern research and theory about the sub atomic world and what governs it, simply says that at the subatomic level, the laws of nature which operate in our daily lives no longer exist, and that the tiniest increments of matter and energy everywhere n the universe operate, rather than according to the precise, identifiable laws which govern the macro universe, by the laws of chance: randomly, unpredictably. Another of his famous quotes "God does not play dice with the universe", inspired quantum mechanic chemist Neils Bohr to reply: "quit telling god what to do". Einstein and Bohr were actually friends, though intellectual adversaries. to the end of his life, Einstein remained convinced that the universe, at all levels, operates according to knowable, definite laws, not random, unknowable chance. He would probably feel the same way today. Today, it appears that Bohr and quantum mechanics is correct, but the fight is not yet over. As Einstein said: "we don't know one millionth of one percent of anything". Einstein never replied to Bohr's advice to quit telling god what to do. But if he had, he might have said: 'I'm not telling God what to do, i'm telling you what God does not do. He does not leave his magnificent creation, or any part of it, to mere chance" And although it doesn't seem so now, it may very well be that in the end, Einstein was right. After all, he usually was.