The way Einstein saw God

[Bill Ryan]

.
I came across this wonderful short piece this morning, and felt I had to share it.

(My view is not identical to his, but the way he expressed his view is quite marvelous.)

It comes from this excellent TIME article on Einstein: 20 things you need to know about Einstein. All of it is well worth reading.
http://content.time.com/time/special...936743,00.html

The page that I stopped and marveled at is this one:
http://content.time.com/time/special...936862,00.html


Did Einstein believe in God?

Yes. He defined God in an impersonal, deistic fashion, but he deeply believed that God's handiwork was reflected in the harmony of nature's laws and the beauty of all that exists.

He often invoked God, such as by saying He wouldn't play dice, when rejecting quantum mechanics. Einstein's belief in something larger than himself produced in him a wondrous mixture of confidence and humility.

As he famously declared: "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. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort."

When asked directly if he believed in God, he always insisted he did, and explained it once this way:

"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

[spacejack]

I've read lots of quotes from Einstein about his views on god. One that is subtle but very strong:
God does not play dice with the universe.

That says a lot about how he thinks about it.

[joeecho]

Wonderful article, Bill, thanks for the links.

I agree, God doesn't play dice with the universe but the universe certainly plays dice with itself.

[lake]

Well lets see ....
If god is, then god created man as a freewill being ....... if god is good, then god would not create evil .... so then man must have created evil, as a freewill choice ....... but if man is a part of god, then the sins of the father must reign true and god is teaching evil to the son?
Else man is not a part of god or man has no freewill!
If you state that satan creates evil and not man /god .... did not god create satan?
Is not satan gods child the same as man?

god it would seem does play dice ....... in fact it plays a vastly more risky and complex game

[CD7]

Man plays dice...not creation

[Violet]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
(...) The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."[/I]

I think Maxwell may have pointed in the same direction with his belfry metaphor:



(from: The Symbolic Universe: Geometry and Physics 1890-1930, p.11)

(...) Yet Maxwell developed a qualitative theory of spectra. The sharp spectral lines came from the resonant vibrations of molecules excited during their mutual collisions. He used the analogy of the resonances of bells in a belfry, whose structures were hidden, but set in motion by pulling on the bell ropes.

(from: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.o.../366/1871/1697)

[OneLittleFrog]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
When asked directly if he believed in God, he always insisted he did

Really? A quick search reveals many quotes to the contrary - such as,

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

I would be a little wary of Time Mag as a source, because they've done this before. In the early 40's Time Mag printed a similar article, quoting Einstein in praise of the Catholic Church:

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."

This "interview" was used extensively to further the Church's agenda. However Einstein later wrote:

"The wording of the statement you have quoted is not my own...I cannot in good conscience write down the statement you sent me as my own. The matter is all the more embarrassing to me because I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy."

In 1954, he wrote 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.

But he followed that flat statement with this:

"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."

Einstein was a Humanist, and an early member of the First Humanist Society of New York. A very, very spiritually complex man, for sure. My favorite of his quotes:
"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."
...and, perhaps, that beauty was what he meant when he used the g-word....

[joeecho]

Posted by OneLittleFrog (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
When asked directly if he believed in God, he always insisted he did

Really? A quick search reveals many quotes to the contrary - such as,

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

That is the problem with the written/ recorded word....

I would lay bet that if most of the words ever written or spoken regarding spiritual matters were permanently recorded and digitally searchable on anyone, one could find contradictions in 100% of the people.

Posted by CD7 (here)
Man plays dice...not creation

So man and creation are separate?

[Bill Ryan]

.
@ All: fascinating little thread I accidentally started here.

@ OneLittleFrog — thank you! (I was impressed with your research. All noted with great interest.)

[Carmody]

I always find it interesting that the next layer up in dimensional clarity is one of responsibility. It appears as if its it some form of responsibility to those who still live mentally, in the 3d time-space world... but it is not that at all.

Not as forced, or directed (this given 'responsibility').. but 'is'... due to knowing of the depth of connectivity. To harm other is to harm self, not because the self is intimate with other, but that ultimately other is self.

Grappling and wrestling with other and self will still and does exist when in that state... but that the knowing... takes the given interactive(s) to a different state and condition of analysis and logic. The shape and character of what is personal and important changes dramatically. It is not the commonly known change in self with age from ego to balanced overview, but something more, something wider and with more depth. To not just hear or read of 'other' existences but to live and protrude it into 'here' in a state of knowing and being. That, in a nutshell, is the next change in humanity. To sum it up in a few words, 'No more secrets'. Our science fiction dream of the future will not take place, the unfamiliar unknown will be - exactly that.

I find it interesting, or more..revealing in that eastern societies know more about such mind, such condition... than that of the western mind. 'Western barbarian' as a term did not come about without good reason. As a modern comparative in this sort of analysis, neocon types should be more careful when they play games with the east. they may achieve visceral results with their visceral acts, but those are merely surface conditions; the eastern people behind the scenes have values and levels/states/conditions that the power structure of the west has little understanding of.

In conclusion, This is similar to the complexity of Einstein's retorts, acts, statements, etc, about his connections to the universe and 'god'.

One may discern a thing in what Einstein says, regarding his position...but it may be only one aspect, one point, one direction, one shade... when the true complexity of it really lies on a different level and it is similar to those ropes Maxwell speaks of.

This is similar to the eastern interactive coming out of the west, and it is similar to the ET issues, and so on. pulling on ropes when one has no idea of the hidden clockworks. Conclusions in such environments can be highly erroneous.

[Fellow Aspirant]

In my signature quotation ...

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness."

Albert E.

... I was attracted to Einstein's expressed view of human consciousness, as a part of our makeup that is 'deluded' by the notion of us being separated not just from each other, but from the universe itself. That he believed we were all parts of a universal unity that is unlimited in time and space matches my (our?) beliefs as well.

Furthermore, when he claims that this delusion is optical in nature, I like to think that he was alluding to the universe's holographic nature, an ultimate reality construct that our consciousness is, so far, 'blind to'. Whether this was much later in his thinking than his famous "God doesn't play dice with the universe", in which he rejected the ramifications of quantum theory, I don't know. But clearly when he attributes our ignorance of the truth to a fault in our consciousness, he is heading down the path of the mysticism of the ancients - and the moderns.

He is expressing a spiritual belief.

Namaste all,

and thanks especilally to Bill for starting this thread!

Brian

[Innocent Warrior]

Eintsein was correct, God doesn't play dice with the universe.

If God were to throw seven billion die (or many more, choose a number), all at once, God would know what number would be rolled for each and every one. Child's play, God is infinite. There is no trace of not knowing or doubt in God. Man doesn't play with dice either (other than literally throwing the little cubes), we simply don't have the power to. In this analogy, man would be the dice that is thrown.

[amor]

Pondering the reasons why God would make a creation, I have come up with the following: 1. He was lonely and wanted to create companions of his own caliber. 2. He wished to create depths of knowledge to keep boredom at bay and so started the creation of a construct which would feed upon itself and grow eternally as long as he wished it to do so. 3. One Jewish man suggested his creations, unendingly engaging in sex would guarantee him eternal climaxes. I thought this was crude, but we should not exclude any possibilities. A subheading under one might be that good and evil exist to teach the right path. The Bible says that God will expunge the Evil, death and hell, in the lake of fire (dissolution) at the end (of the experiment.)

[GMB1961]

My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe
I remember the late Robin Williams said that on one of his records.........I can dig it!

[Baby Steps]

In a way, we all create God for ourselves in that we look at the all, within the limitations of our imagination and perceptual constructs. We might wish to reduce the idea of God from 'all of it' to an aspect of the all, if we wish to define an aspect of it that we wish to promote as an ideal or sign post for developing souls. In that context I think Einsteins definition is very very beneficial for us to contemplate!

I used to go to a Conversations with God discussion group and caught myself almost taking an atheist stand point because people's take on God can be loaded with religious clap trap. Not sure now of the value in challenging this.

I think Einstein disliked a quantum universe where particles behave randomly and are hard to place. They are not a closed system, but what we see is just a slice through a greater reality, or a set of parallel realities all operating simultaneously.for someone like him this set of untied loose ends would have been a great quest to investigate.
God bless

[bogeyman]

How can man who is like an ant on a very tiny ball floating in space know even a fraction of what this creator is? Even these visitors of ours are still learning, remember this Einstein was just a human being like everyone else, and there are many equal and even beyond his very focus knowledge, and out side that framework many are just as unwise, and unknowledgeable as everybody else. We covet knowledge in scientific understand yet these individuals who have learnt this very limited knowledge and very limited view in compared to the infinite universe, are outside this knowledge just as unknowing and lack of understanding in many other areas including the most important of which is knowledge of the spiritual some of which has to be given and cannot be learned.

[Agape]

There is no shortcut to eternity .. between You and Eternity it's a Process , a Way .. the 'lasting' of existence is what defines the meaning of life and existence as a whole .

Between 'now' and 'then' there's an array of knowns and unknowns , destiny to unfold , truths to be discovered ..
but who ever can claim he's discovered the Whole universe . Would such an adventurists not explode to quanta of information traversing the time-space ,
on still greater journey of discovery .

How big is That form of Life ? How pervasive is such consciousness ?


Is not all we seem or see .. but a dream within a dream the same way your visible sparkle of Light is but one phenomenon on long EM spectrum curvature .
Do you 'end' with the visible world and its phenomena , no you don't .

To the Sun we are but a Firefly so what does it matter ..


Imagine : scientist in 3000 AD and what way does he explain 'God' .

[johnh]

What can be known of God is done through the heart, the mind is left behind, then catches up momentarily to organize some kind of order, and that's OK as long as you know the dynamic. There is a perspective though in which there is only observation, but not fullness. Some things cannot be known while encased in a human body, anyway, and that's OK, too.

All of the great Teachers have stressed the cultivation of the virtues, the here and now practical aspect of God. Freedom and responsibility are intertwined or life is destroyed, or at least minimized. Prison. In ancient times humans were not willing to be responsible enough for themselves or for the small part of the creation within their sphere of influence. Still happening today. Decline into apathy.

Tragic that there is much discussion tantamount to how many angels will fit on the head of a pin "while our beds are burning."

Goodbye, Einstein, and BTW thanks for the bomb in as much as you (fraudulently?) contributed to that horror. Couldn't care less for your opinions about God.

God has been speaking, few are listening. "You people had better get responsible and clean up your mess."

[greybeard]

"‘The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation."

’ Einstein.

Chris

[Cardillac]

I dunno, guys and dolls, I think the Hermeticists had the story right: mind is not 'local' in our heads but exists in everything in creation (obviously we cannot yet communicate with rocks among other things); but if one has read the'70's book "The Secret Life of Plants" not to mention the info about the various animal experiments where dogs above all sensed when their masters left their work places to come home let alone the documented research of the German Aerospace Institute which proved that water has memory I think we can all believe that religious dogmas (all of them, regardless of religion) are bogus-

please be well all-

Larry in Germany