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A review by kevin_shepherd
Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words by Albert Einstein
4.0
If your mind functions anything like mine you’ve already assumed that this book, titled Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words, is something of an autobiography. Yeah, well, no.
This is a collection of over fifty essays, letters, and speeches covering a wide range of topics. Everything from Newtonian mechanics to quantum theory to socialism to the atom bomb to Johannes Kepler to Mahatma Gandhi to zionism to the Holocaust is included. A summation of every topic is tempting but, in the interest of time (both yours and mine), I’ve decided to limit myself to the one essay that I found most interesting:
Chapter 8: Einstein on Religion
In Einstein’s view science and religion are both potentially complimentary and compatible, but only if there is no insistence from church authority on biblical inerrancy.
“. . . a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science.”
Einstein was willing to concede that the existence of god was possible, but only in what he referred to as “Spinoza’s God”—a hands-off (deist) entity rather than a micromanaging (theist) entity.
“During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man’s own image who, by the operations of their will, were supposed to determine or, at any rate, influence the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception [emphasis mine].”
There is also very little ambiguity when it comes to Einstein’s stance on the usefulness of religion in contemporary world society…
“. . . the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omni-beneficent personal god is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance. Also, by virtue of its simplicity, it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind [emphasis again mine].”
Restated, a primary value of religion is that it provides comfort and solace to those of limited depth and understanding. This from one of humanity’s greatest thinkers. Who am I to argue?
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*There is a wee bit of repetitiveness in this collection—a fault of the collection editor, not the author. 4 stars.
This is a collection of over fifty essays, letters, and speeches covering a wide range of topics. Everything from Newtonian mechanics to quantum theory to socialism to the atom bomb to Johannes Kepler to Mahatma Gandhi to zionism to the Holocaust is included. A summation of every topic is tempting but, in the interest of time (both yours and mine), I’ve decided to limit myself to the one essay that I found most interesting:
Chapter 8: Einstein on Religion
In Einstein’s view science and religion are both potentially complimentary and compatible, but only if there is no insistence from church authority on biblical inerrancy.
“. . . a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science.”
Einstein was willing to concede that the existence of god was possible, but only in what he referred to as “Spinoza’s God”—a hands-off (deist) entity rather than a micromanaging (theist) entity.
“During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man’s own image who, by the operations of their will, were supposed to determine or, at any rate, influence the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception [emphasis mine].”
There is also very little ambiguity when it comes to Einstein’s stance on the usefulness of religion in contemporary world society…
“. . . the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omni-beneficent personal god is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance. Also, by virtue of its simplicity, it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind [emphasis again mine].”
Restated, a primary value of religion is that it provides comfort and solace to those of limited depth and understanding. This from one of humanity’s greatest thinkers. Who am I to argue?
______________________________________
*There is a wee bit of repetitiveness in this collection—a fault of the collection editor, not the author. 4 stars.