SECTION X
Chapter 10.  Albert Einstein

"Strange is our situation here upon earth.  Each of us comes for a short visit, 
not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose."    
                                                      -- Albert Einstein

"It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that 
your work may increase man's blessings.  CONCERN FOR MAN HIMSELF AND HIS FATE 
MUST ALWAYS FORM THE CHIEF INTEREST OF ALL TECHNICAL ENDEAVORS ... in order that 
the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.  Never 
forget this I the midst of your diagrams and equations." --Albert Einstein


"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of 
physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the 
evil from the spirit of man."   -- Albert Einstein 


"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."

                                        -- Albert Einstein (The Human Side)
Albert Einstein

   From the time his name caught the popular imagination of the public in 1919 
until his death in 1955, Albert Einstein became synonymous with the word 
"genius.  Revered as a person who had a deep insight into the secrets of the 
universe, he occupied a place in the imagination usually reserved for wonder-
workers and prophets.  The public was fascinated by the theories and beliefs of 
the purportedly world's greatest intellect-and he was sought after for his 
views, ranging from everything on the "fourth dimension" and curved space to 
human ethics and morality.  Reporters would follow him around, trying to 
transform even the most casual utterance into a statement of deep meaning.

Champion of Democracy and Freedom of the Individual Intellect

   In addition to being a brilliant physicist, Einstein was a passionate 
spokesman for the ideals of democracy in society.  Experiencing first hand the 
horrors of German Nazism on the Right, he warned early on, of the equal horrors 
of Leftist Authoritarian regimes:

   "I am convinced that degeneracy follow every autocratic system of violence, 
   for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors.  Time has proved that 
   illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels.


   For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to such regimes as 
   exist in Russia.  The thing which has discredited the European forms of 
   democracy is not the basic theory of democracy itself, which some say is at 
   fault, but the instability of our political leadership, as well as the 
   impersonal character of party alignments.


   What is truly valuable in our bustle of life is not the nation, I should say, 
   but the creative and impressionable individuality, the personality-he who 
   produces the noble and sublime while the common herd remains dull in thought 
   and insensible in feeling.

   This subject brings me to the vilest offspring of the herd mind-the odious 
   militia.  The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of   
   music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake-the 
   spinal cord would have been amply sufficient.  Heroism at command, senseless 
   violence, the accursed bombast of patriotism-how intensely I despise them! …I 
   had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings."  (Albert 
   Einstein, c. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (first published in 'I 
   believe', ed. Clifton Fadiman by Allen & Unwin UK and Simon & Schuster US)

Einstein wrote that he never seriously considered himself a Jew, until after the 
anti-Semitic outbreak that occurred following WWII.  Before this, he had 
denounced Zionism as a throwback to regressive attitudes of nationalism.  
However, he later came to view Zionism as a necessary expression of the Jewish 
community's will to survive as a people, in a world where Jews were despised and 
repeatedly persecuted.    He went on lecture tours around the world to raise 
funds for the Jewish University in Jerusalem.  When the idea of a Jewish state 
in Palestine began to become more widely discussed, Einstein stressed the 
importance of bringing together both Jews and Arabs into a pluralistic, peaceful 
society that would be a model for the world.  Einstein was offered the 
premiership of Israel in 1948 and again in 1952.  He declined, stating at one 
point, "I know a little bit about nature but hardly anything about human 
beings."

Einstein's Beliefs in God

   Einstein spoke of God, time and time again, in his scientific endeavors: "God 
is subtle, but he is not malicious, and "God does not play dice" were two of his 
most famous sayings.  Although Einstein would concur that he was a Jew, he did 
not view himself as Jewish in the religious sense.  Instead, his views were more 
universal and deistic in nature-viewing God as some kind of higher cosmic force.

  When asked once, exactly what were his beliefs on God, Einstein replied that 
he believed in "Spinoza's God" - that is, a God revealed "in the harmony of all 
that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of 
men."  Einstein believed that there is no one out there watching out for us, and 
consequently we humans are morally responsible for ourselves.

  Religion, to Einstein, meant a striving for more knowledge of the mystery of 
the universe around us, instead of imposing fear on people to force them to 
obey:

   "I do not believe that a man should be restrained in his daily actions by 
    being afraid of punishment after death or that he should do things only 
    because in this way he will be rewarded after he dies...The proper guidance 
    during the life of a man should be the weight that he puts upon ethics and 
    the amount of consideration that he has for others.  Education has a great 
    role to play in this respect.  Religion should have nothing to do with a 
    fear of living or a fear of death, but should instead be a striving after 
    rational knowledge." 

  Einstein stressed the importance of morality and ethics.  He believed that 
science could never establish our values system on its own: "Without ethical 
culture", he once said, "there can be no salvation for humanity."

   Einstein did not believe in immortality, stating it was enough for him:

   "to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetrating itself through all 
   eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we 
   can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal 
   part of the intelligence manifested in nature."

   Asked once, which religion he most admired, Einstein replied:  "If I were not 
a Jew, I would be a Quaker."

Einstein's Brief Conversion to Christianity

  It is a little known fact, that Albert Einstein became a Christian for a short 
period during his childhood.  Below is an autobiographical description (written 
when he was sixty seven) of his conversion to Christianity when he was in grade 
school.  (He had been sent by his parents to Catholic school):

  "Thus I came-despite the fact that I was the son of entirely irreligious    
   [secular Jewish] parents - to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an 
   abrupt ending at the age of twelve.  Through the reading of popular 
   scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of 
   the Bible could not be true.  The consequence was a positively fanatic 
   freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being 
   deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.

   Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a 
   skeptical attitude toward the convictions which were alive in any specific 
   social environment-an attitude which has never left me, even though later on, 
   because of a better insight into the causal connections, if lost some of its 
   original potency.

   It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was lost, 
   was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the "merely personal", 
   from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings.  
   Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human 
   beings and which stands before us like a great eternal riddle, at least 
   partially accessible to our inspection and thinking.  The contemplation of 
   this world beckoned like a liberation...

   The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to 
   religious paradise, but it has proved itself as trustworthy, and I have never 
   regretted having chosen it."

  The physicist Heinz Pagels summed up Einstein's religious conversion 
experience as follows:
   
    What this passage reveals is a conversion from personal religion to the 
'cosmic religion' of science, and experience which changed him for the rest of 
his life.  Einstein saw that the universe is governed by laws that can be known 
by us but that are independent of our thoughts and feelings.

  "The existence of this cosmic code-the laws of material reality as confirmed 
  by experience-is the bedrock faith that moves the natural scientist.  The  
  scientists sees in that code the eternal structure of reality, not as imposed 
  by man or tradition but as written into the very substance of the universe.  
  This recognition of the nature of the universe can come as a profound and 
  moving experience to the young man."

                             *        *        *

   Einstein's philosophy could best be described as ethical humanism.  Perhaps 
this was best summed up, when he was asked by an interview what one can believe 
in this world Einstein responded:

        "I believe in the brotherhood of mankind and the individualism of the 
single person.  But if you want me to prove to you that what I believe is true, 
this I cannot do."