God an Expression of Human Weakness
It seems that the controversy about what Albert Einstein believed about God has heated up again because of a letter he wrote in 1954. That letter recently sold for $404,000. Richard Dawkins reportedly was one of the bidders but the price was too high for him. In the letter, addressed to Eric Gutkind, Einstein wrote:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
So what!
Does it really matter what he believed? Do we believe this or that--more so or less so--because Einstein believed this or that? He was a great authority in science, but not in religion. But apparently it does matter . . . to some people.
Sometimes we feel our faith is threatened by science, and when that is so we may seek comfort in words from scientists if those word seem to support our faith. Consider these two Einstein quotes:
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
God doesn’t play dice with the universe.
But now, along comes this quote from his letter to Gutkind. It unravels our comfort quotes. Or does it?
Those two pithy quotes above still have meaning if we think about them and add to them our own substantive thinking. That is the secret: substantive thinking. Without it, the notion that God doesn't play dice with the universe is a mere platitude, a bromide. With thinking we become our own authority.
Having said that, I'm somewhat convinced that God does play dice with us.
My name is Dan Porter. I have always believed in God. And I have always been a Christian, which means I have always believed, at some level of understanding, Christian assertions about Christ. But during all of my adult life—I am now 65—I have struggled with many seeds of doubt brought on by modern science, objective history, the question of why a loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and difficulties with seemingly conflicting moral precepts. 
In September 1975, in San Leandro, California I told a friend of mine about what I thought about "god' - that is long before I ever saw the Einstein's quotation above: I said: "The humans' need for a god is based on their ignorance and powerlessness. The need for a god diminishes in inverse proportion to the degree of the increase in human knowlegde and power. The more the human knowledge increases and the more their power increases the more irrelevant god becomes and the less the god is needed. Look at the Palestinians on their way to burry their dead who have been killed by Israeli bombs, crying: 'god is great! god is great!' and then another bomb comes and kills those who are carrying the dead! And they become the dead! And the remaining ones keep on crying, 'god is great! god is great!' What a cruel joke!!"
That was 33 yeras ago! I still believe in what I said then, regardless of what Einstein said or did not say!
God never talked to me to tell me why it created me! I just found myself existing! And the being that supposedly created me has an obligation to talk to me and tell me why it created me. I do not want to hear from anybody else -- but from the being that created me. And that being is nowhere to be found! I do not want to hear from Moses, or Jesus, or Mohammed, or Buddha or any of these men who are supposed to have been inspired by god! Suppose these men were insane and delusionary! How do I know that these men were not out of their minds?
Why does not god speak to me in my own language? Not in Hebrew or Arabic? Because I am not a Hebrew and I am not an Arab! So, god must speak to me in my language so that I can undersatnd it. And how about the millions of people who have never heard of god? How about those who cannot read? I am amazed at the ignorance of people who are fond of saying: "it is written in ..."
Are we so ignorant and so narrow minded and so blind that we do not recognize that the art of writing just started yesterday in human history! What happened before writing was invented by humans? How did god relate to the humans then?
If god is to be known by reading some ancient scriptures, then god should have created all humans with the art of writing and reading at the moment of their creation! There are millions of people in the world today who will be born, grow up, grow old and die and who will never know what is to read or to write! What happens to them?
Take care.
Mumba Tarmo Masare.
Posted by: Mumba T. Masare | July 22, 2008 at 11:53 PM