Einstein on Religion and Science

Einstein was rigid rationalist when it came to interpreting empirical data and and he was somewhat naive and unrealistic when it came to his assessment of human nature and purpose of life.

But all in all, he was Einstein so I think it may be worth of our time to read what he thought of the subject matter and hear some of the fellow readers opinions as well.

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Religion and Science

Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with
the satisfaction of felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep
this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and
their development. Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human
endeavour and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may
present itself to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men
to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little
consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside
over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is
above all fear that evokes religious notions--fear of hunger, wild beasts,
sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal
connexions is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates for itself
more or less analogous beings on whose wills and actions these fearful
happenings depend. One's object now is to secure the favour of these beings
by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the
tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make
them well disposed towards a mortal. I am speaking now of the religion of
fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the
formation of a special priestly caste which sets up as a mediator between
the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In
many cases the leader or ruler whose position depends on other factors, or a
privileged class, combines priestly functions with its secular authority in
order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the
priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.

The social feelings are another source of the crystallization of
religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities
are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts
men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of
Providence who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes, the God who,
according to the width of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the
life of the tribe or of the human race, or even life as such, the comforter
in sorrow and unsatisfied longing, who preserves the souls of the dead. This
is the social or moral conception of God.

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the
religion of fear to moral religion, which is continued in the New Testament.
The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the
Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of
fear to moral religion is a great step in a nation's life. That primitive
religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples
purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The
truth is that they are all intermediate types, with this reservation, that
on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their
conception of God. Only individuals of exceptional endowments and
exceptionally high-minded communities, as a general rule, get in any real
sense beyond this level. But there is a third state of religious experience
which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form,
and which I will call cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to
explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as
there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the
sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in
the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison
and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The
beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of
development--e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the
Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of
Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind
of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's
image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on
it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men
who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many
cases regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists, sometimes also as
saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and
Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to
another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology?
In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken
this feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it.

We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion
very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically
one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable
antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. 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--that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously.
He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or
moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for
the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external
and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than
an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through. Hence
science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is
unjust. A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment
and hope of reward after death.

It is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science
and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic
religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific
research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the
devotion which pioneer work in theoretical science demands, can grasp the
strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from
the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the
rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a
feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must
have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labour in disentangling
the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with
scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily
develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who,
surrounded by a sceptical world, have shown the way to those like-minded
with themselves, scattered through the earth and the centuries. Only one who
has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what
has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their
purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that
gives a man strength of this sort. A contemporary has said, not unjustly,
that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are
the only profoundly religious people.

 

I don't find his assessment of human nature or religion naive or unrealistic. It is basically a critique and dismissal of religion and religious morality. He doesn't claim to believe in any supernatural forces. What he means by "cosmic religious feeling" is a sense of awe at the complexity of nature and a yearning to understand it.

 

I would want to note that to say "assessment of human nature and purpose of life" is not the same thing as to say "assessment of religion" or of "religious morality".

So, I did not say that I found Einsteins' assessment about religion or religious morality naive.
That would require separate, additional statement which is not in a sentence you replied to.
Additionally, scope of the meaning of the word "religion" is so wide in the context of Einsteins' essays that I would need to first break it down into particulars before I could address each and every one separately, which , again, I didn't do in a single sentence you referred to.

But I did say that I found his assessment of human nature and purpose of life somewhat unrealistic and naive.
I had reasons to say so about the author of quote [even though I didn't get into details of why I thought so] based on my knowledge of the collection of his statements, quotes and letters on human nature and the purpose of life.

And I still maintain that his assessment of "human nature and purpose of life" are "somewhat unrealistic and naive" [too idealitic, too rosy and too nice, far removed from what we observe in the world of living things, in social hierarchy, disregardful of Natural causes necessiating it and etc.] , but that is another subject of discussion.

Whether this man was or was not naive in his assessment of human nature and purpose of life, he was still an Einstein and
thus I believe is very much worthy of the reading, focusing and reflecting on his thoughts, particularly ones that can be found very ineteresting and or convincing irrespective of any other thoughts, quotes or essays about any other subjects he may have had.


What do you think?

 

Oh ok. Well I thought he was very astute in his observations on both human nature and the origins of religion. Maybe you could elaborate on what exactly you disagree with. You did start the thread after all.

 

There were times in past when I did indulge in giving serious thought to these subjects and contemplated at length , going through mountains of written material, carefully analyzing, meditating and reflecting on it, for days, months and even years in the row.
Nowdays I mostly amuse myself when speaking of such matters, unwilling to engage in useless debates or stirring any passions beyond what they are.
These days I am more concerned with my and my loved ones' immediate existence and what it will be tomorrow, rather than who thinks what.

To give you very short answer, when I refer to Einsteins' naivette on assessment of human nature and his expectations of what it should be, I mean his high and unrealistic hopes of possibility of existence without struggle as we observe through human history and among all other living creatures of life,
hopes that contradict the very essence Nature, of how existence of living things is made possible in the first place, which is through constant struggle and existence at the cost of the other.

I still find some of his thoughts to be very profound, deep and convincing, irrespective of his naivette when it comes to what I mentioned above.

 

Jumbuli55=I refer to Einsteins' naivette on assessment of human nature and his expectations of what it should be, I mean his high and unrealistic hopes of possibility of existence without struggle.

I didn't get that form the essay at all. Im wondering where this came from.

 

Read the book "The World as I see it" you will see what I am referring to.
Very short book, compilation of his essays, letters, quotes and etc.

Alternatively you may check this forum at some later time , I may post some of referred quotes as well.