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From:
Ted Ansbacher <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informal Science Education Network <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:26:34 EDT
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ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Along with Newton, Einstein also saw no conflict between his science and 
religion. The following quotes, much abridged, are from A. Einstein, Ideas and 
Opinions, Dell, NY, 1956.
<<You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds 
without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religiosity 
of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose care one hopes to 
benefit and whose punishment one fears . . . . But the scientist is possessed 
by the sense of universal causation. . . .  His religious feeling takes the 
form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an 
intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic 
thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.>> (p. 
49)
<<Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the 
rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a 
higher order. This firm belief . . . in a superior mind that reveals itself in the 
world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this 
may be described as 'pantheistic'.>> (p. 255)
<<The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of 
religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God.>> (pp. 55)

I find it particularly interesting that Einstein uses "mind" and 
"intelligence" in describing his belief. 

Ted Ansbacher
Science Services
29 Byron Ave, White Plains, NY 10606
Office: 914-328-5407     Cell: 914-484-8584
[log in to unmask]     www.scienceservs.com

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