Comment by Nelson on December 26, 2009 at 12:38am

regarding the Einstein quote, you should be careful with resting your argument on a single quote as there are plenty of quotes that can be adduced in order to argue that Einstein was a deist or pantheist (or panentheist for that matter). only one example being, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists..." furthermore, the quote you did use in your argument needs to be understood in the context of the time. deists and pantheists had, from the beginning of the enlightenment, been called atheists by their religious attackers. once that's understood you can see that Einstein was saying that in the eyes of a Jesuit priest he, Einstein, had always been an atheist. it's highly doubtful, given the context and the wording, that Einstein was professing atheism there.

in truth Einstein's religious views are hard to discern. they may have changed over time from deism to atheism or he may have remained a deist all his life. he may also have understood the concept of the statement "i believe in Spinoza's god..." in a way that refers only to the universe and its inherent mysteries, not as a deity and so may have been an atheist all his life (this, for my part, is my own view, though i don't hold that view too tightly). what he absolutely did not believe in was any kind of personal god- "I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation."- nor in any kind of afterlife- "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it." (for a fantastic compilation of Einstein's quotes on religion see Christopher Hitchens' (ed.) The Portable Atheist.)

regarding the claim "evil is the absence of god", it's a non-sequitur as far as i'm concerned. there's no reason to think that there exists an Evil (capital /e/) and not simply evil in the sense of malicious immoral acts that humans do to each other. if the person making such an argument is claiming that malicious immoral acts are the result of the absence of god then you're right when you point out that it's unclear what is meant by god's absence. absent by virtue of god having abandoned someone or absent by virtue of a personal decision taken by an individual to live apart from god? unless the person arguing such a thing is a staunch Calvinist it seems that they would be arguing the latter, in which case we have what amounts to the free will defense of the existence of evil, notably defended by Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom, and Evil) and requiring much more space than available right here to cover (Quentin Smith, Hugh LaFollette, Richard La Croix, Richard Gale, Graham Oppy, plus A.M. Weisberger would be my suggestion for reading the critical treatments of the free will defense).

Comment by Melissa on December 26, 2009 at 9:51pm

Thanks for you comment Nelson. Regarding Einstein, I am aware of the confusion surrounding Einstein's personal mystic beliefs... but I have never come across a quote of his that I haven't been able to read as if it had come from an atheist's lips. To Einstein, I think "god" encapsulated this romanticized view he had of the universe. Religious people cannot understand the language Einstein uses because their definitions of "god" are too entangled in doctrine, and most always misinterpret Einstein's true intended meaning.

I do think my quote served the purpose of the argument though. A better one could have been:

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

I hate the fact that some dishonest asshole thinks he can make Einstein puppet whatever he wants without any citation to prove his claim.

With the "evil is the absence of god" argument, I really couldn't do anything but try and use their own logic to contradict their claim... being that is was completely irrational to begin with. My point was that god says he will never leave, regardless of a person choosing to leave god for a time to do bad things. I came from a denomination that believes "once saved, always saved," so my rationale was more geared toward that mentality.

Comment by Nelson on December 26, 2009 at 10:16pm

well, his professing belief in Spinoza's god is not something that can readily be read as having come from an atheists lips. though as i said i tend to the view that he identified Spinoza's god as The Universe and the mystery it contains, to speak as if it is a fact that he was an atheist, as opposed to merely our opinion that he may indeed have been, is going too far.

the quote you give here is a much better one to offer in support of his having been an atheist but it's still not perfectly clear in light of the statement of his comparing his beliefs with Spinoza's. by all accounts Spinoza did believe in a deity so either Einstein didn't realize this or or Einstein's views evolved over time. it's important to note that the "Spinoza quote" was in response to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein asking Einstein if he believed in god. and this is the reason why there's cause for caution when making claims of his atheism; if he didn't believe in god at all would he not have said so in response to the direct question, "do you believe in god"? difficult to say.

in my opinion it's better to argue that he was not a classical theist of any stripe than to argue that he was definitely an atheist. that he was not a classical theist is the definitely defensible claim while that he was an atheist is a bit more speculation and interpretation. after all, plenty of his quotes make it crystal clear that he wasn't a classical theist but all of his quotes taken together make it hard to say if he was necessarily an atheist. let's also note that he could have been an agnostic too- "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic." (letter to M. Berkowitz, Oct 25 1950)

and yeah, there's not a lot that can be done with the absence of god nonsense. you did well just the same. :)

Comment