Originally Posted by tiger777

Do more research before you start name dropping. Clearly if Einstein believed in some type of supernatural power it wasn't any God in any religion I've ever seen. It's clear many people misunderstand what Einstein is meaning when he uses the oh so loaded word God. He appears to use it to try to encompass the seemingly intelligent properties of the universe, the order and various universal laws that allow for life on earth to prosper.

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts."

'The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. … The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events. … A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him … .'

'During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image. … The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. … In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God … .'

'Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza).'

And this came from a Christian site I think, so there! As for Newton you're correct he was religious.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/crea...1/einstein.asp

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Yea I was going to post it but no need to be that harsh. Religious groups have been trying to tie in Einstein into this sort of things for years, perhaps the worst example I read was in a work of fiction by Frederik Pohl where a computer Einstein personality went temporarily insane when he discovered that the universe was pretty much standard science fiction like with no apparent need/place for God. Apparently even Pohl bought into the concept that Einstein was some kind of strong believer, when while he was alive Einstein was often criticized by religious groups for his apparent lack of faith.

So its understandable that a lot of people assume Einstein was somehow religious, I think its been a conscious goal of some groups to try to tie into the one scientist/genius everyone knows of. Its also dishonest of course.

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Being the genius that he was, it is difficult to pigeonhole Einstein's mind into one classification. He thought a lot about God, religion, and science and how they all interacted in the universe. Whether he believed in a figure that we could call God is irrelevant. He was keen on viewing the universe and how it worked. To say Einstein was non-religious would be false. To say he believed in a personal god would also be false. He criticized indoctrination of the church, but saw the value of pursing the "laws of God." He criticized both religious institutions and atheists:

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indocrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

—W. Hermanns, Einstein and the Poet—In Search of the Cosmic Man (Branden Press, Brookline Village, Mass., 1983), p.132, quoted in Jammer, p.123.

I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.

— Einstein to an unidentified adressee, Aug.7, 1941. Einstein Archive, reel 54-927, quoted in Jammer, p. 97

How does this apply to this thread? Well, this thread is about theism. I suppose it depends on how you apply it. Is it the theism of church dogma, or is it the theism of religious truth as applied to the pursuit of scientific truth?