http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7r57oCT2cU
The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about
Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or
not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S.
Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the
lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with
the fate and the doings of mankind." [Spinoza viewed God and Nature as
two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning
"to stand beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the
universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or
modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and
cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only
understood in part. That humans presume themselves to have free will,
he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being
unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#Philosophy]
In a 1950 letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position
concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid
consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the
betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-
giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and
punishment." Einstein also stated: "I have repeatedly said that in my
opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me
an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the
professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of
liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in
youth," and "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my
limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say
there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me
for the support of such views." Einstein clarified his religious views
in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he
worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "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. 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." In
his book The World as I See It, he wrote: "A knowledge of the
existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of
the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only
accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this
knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious
attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious
man."
Einstein published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled "Science and
Religion" which gave his views on the subject. He says that: "a person
who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the
best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish
desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to
which he clings because of their super-personal value … regardless of
whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being,
for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as
religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in
the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-
personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of
rational foundation … In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour
of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values
and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argued that
conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal
errors." "[E]ven though the realms of religion and science in
themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong
reciprocal relationships and dependencies … science without religion
is lame, religion without science is blind … a legitimate conflict
between science and religion cannot exist." In Einstein's view,
"neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent
cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God
interfering with natural events could never be refuted … by science,
for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific
knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–
607)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
