Albert Einstein"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" from "Physics and Reality"(1936), in Ideas and Opinions, trans. Sonja Bargmann (New York: Bonanza, 1954), p292. Cited by Frank Turek in "Stealing from God", pg 36 "I want to know how God created this world .. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Quoted in Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, (New York, Morrow, 1988), 177. "I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call my self a pantheist. 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. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations." Letters to Solovine"You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowedge expands." p 131. Letter to R. A. Thornton"I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today, and even professional scientists, seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge f the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insights is, in my opinion, the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth."A. Einstein to R. A. Thornton, unpublished letter dated 7 December 1944 (EA 6-754), Einstein Archive, Hebrew University, Jeruslem cited by Don Howard, "Albert Einstein as Philosopher of Science", Physics Today, December 2005, p.34. Einstein and Religion, Max Jammer, Princeton University Press, 1999In a discussion on science and religion in Berlin in 1930, he said that our human sense of beauty and our religious instinct are "tributary forms in helping the reasoning faculty towards its highest achievements. You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn round and speak of the scientific foundations of morality." He proceeded to point out that science cannot form a base for morality: "every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulae must fail." [ This was used by Lennox in "God and Stephen Hawking", p20. He also cites it in his morality chapter, p99, in "Gunning for God" It is also cited on p46 of "Can science explain everything?"] "the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble." "Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is , comprehensible to reason. I cannot imagine a scientist without that profound faith. This situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."p94. Letter of 24 January 1936 to a schoolgirl, Phyllis Wright."Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, 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, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.""Einstein, the Life and Times, Ronald W. Clark, 1971, p425."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." "The World As I See It", Ideas and Opinions (1954) trans Sonja Bargmann"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."The following are quotes of Einstein on ideas related to faith. They are from a website of the Divine Life Society and are presented without detailed sources, so they should be checked before use in any referenced paper.
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