Einstein wrote:Science Fan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2018 6:42 pm Nick: No, Einstein is not in agreement with her. Not even close. Einstein specifically mentioned that what he thought of religion was dramatically different from what most people meant by the word religion. For him, religion was more like philosophy. Einstein did not believe that any supernatural being existed. He was an atheist for all practical purposes and specifically rejected any claims regarding a personal God. When asked by a rabbi if he believed in a God, he took a tactful approach and said he believed in the God of Spinoza. That's a purely atheistic conception of God. Einstein''s God had all of the following characteristics: 1. It had no will of its own. 2. It had to obey all of the laws of physics. 3. It did not intervene in human affairs. 4. It did not care about morality. 5. It did not provide any life after death. This is simply atheism. The reason Spinoza said he was not an atheist? Because during his time the name atheist meant more than a lack of belief in a God, it meant that the person was immoral. Spinoza rejected any claim that he was an immoral person, hence, he played a sleight-of-hand with the meaning of the word God. Einstein did the same thing because he felt a little sheepish admitting to a rabbi that he was an atheist.
What is this spirit superior to man? What is intelligence in relation to that which is superior to man?Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
Why does Einstein believe intuition is superior to logical analysis for discovering elemental laws?
Would Einstein IYO disagree and assert that intuition could never verify a conscious source for creation?I believe that one identical thought is to be found—expressed very precisely and with only slight differences of modality—in. . .Pythagoras, Plato, and the Greek Stoics. . .in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita; in the Chinese Taoist writings and. . .Buddhism. . .in the dogmas of the Christian faith and in the writings of the greatest Christian mystics. . .I believe that this thought is the truth, and that it today requires a modern and Western form of expression. That is to say, it should be expressed through the only approximately good thing we can call our own, namely science. This is all the less difficult because it is itself the origin of science. Simone Weil….Simone Pétrement, Simone Weil: A Life, Random House, 1976, p. 488