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Einstien on God .. Or the little photo that could….

// February 28th, 2009 // Uncategorized

This picture was taken on a whim, simply because I couldn’t find anything to take a picture of for my Daily Photo Project. I opened up The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever – Christopher Hitchens and snapped this quote by Albert Einstein.

Little did I know that less then 24 hours later 125,000 people viewed it. As of 10:27pm Today, It made Digg.com’s main page, was #3 on Diggs Image page, Been Dugg more than 2900 times #6 on Flickr’s Explore, Faved 200 times, and end up with some 600 or so comments. It’s amazing that a picture I took oh a whim could go that far.

I haven’t had time to read all the comments but the ones i have looked at are all over the place, form the 100 percent agreeable, to super newage-ey, to the Ultra “he is in hell” Religious types. Most of it is intelligent dialogue but there are some unintelligent comments also.

I consider myself an Agnostic, which means I believe in something, i just don’t know what it is. I reminded of a bumper sticker is saw once that said, “Militant Agnostic, I don’t know and you don’t either“.

I do not believe in an All Knowing, all controlling, answer my prayers, old man with a beard, style of higher being. I don’t believe that someone controls my destiny, you destiny, life, fate, or has a “plan”. How does killing innocent people with a hurricane called Katrina, drowning people with a Tsunami South East Asia, or a serial killer raping, tortureing, dismembering an innocent child fit in to a “plan” for you. I think his quote touches on this point. If I’m good and follow the rules set, i won’t get killed, drowned, starve or die of cancer (reward), and if I don’t follow the rules..look out mane, you life is going to suck (punishment). Give us Free Will but if we don’t use it like we are supposed to, suffer my consequences. Any being that kills or treats any other being badly to show someone else something, in my book, is uncaring and kind of a bastard. That is something I don’t want to be a part of.

I believe there is something out there, something that controls the laws of the universe. When I drop a pen, gravity makes it fall.  Something has to control or put those laws there, but what it is, I do not know. I may never know. ALl i knwo it is not an old man with a beard the meddles with people shit.

I could go on and on and on about religion, beliefs, and such. Maybe I will do my first video podcast on this topic.

Picked Comments from Flickr and Digg, I will let them speak for themselves:

genevalle@flickr: For one who I thought was a very intelligent, Mr. Einstein, I now see you actually are not as intelligent as I thought. And I am very sure that now you’ve had a chance to meet God that your views are much different. May He have mercy on your soul!

ultra mega creative@flickr: I think we have a moral code as a result of empathy for one another, and because it allows us to live together and share resources. We can’t agree on one thing as a species, but genetically, we are all on the same team.

Arney7116@flickr: “…is that of an Agnostic…” not “I am an agnostic.” – You can’t equate the two. Einstein wrote much more concerning the question of God. I am neutral in the debate, but hate when people twist comments for to push their agenda. I think Einstein believed in God, just not the God accepted in his day.

jawishPardee@flickr: sad to see that someone so brilliant can still have such a faulty understanding on some of the basic characteristics of God. “reward and punishment…?” i forgot that God is the cosmic first grade teacher.

jasonsuydam@flickr: “Scientific Evidence” does exist. It’s called the Bible. Oral history is accepted as scientific evidence in any other realm. There are scientific methods to verify the accuracy of ancient records. When the scientific method of archeology was applied to the Bible to prove it wrong, it only proved how accurate it was. Any scientific, independant mind has to admire the overwhelming evidence the bible supplies. Some just chose to ignore it like global warming.

flickr_signin@flickr: @JawshPardee: “i forgot that God is the cosmic first grade teacher. ” Glad you are remembering now. Do not forget that Einstein was Jewish, and the character of the Jewish god is somwhat different than the Christian, who get to pick and choose how they view their god.

S.Dud@flickr: If we could all learn to doubt the existence of god a little more, maybe we would collectively start to assume responsibility for the condition of mankind.

bcatwork2@flickr:I can question Einstein’s logic from this quote because the logic isn’t presented, only a conclusion. I agree that his words carry great weight in mathematics and theoretical physics (and even there he wasn’t without error), but I don’t believe he has much weight in the fields of philosophy or theology.

He may have been an atheist, or an agnostic, or a rastafarian, for that matter, and all that does is report his state of mind. It doesn’t enable the rest of us to examine his premises to determine if they are valid or sound and, therefore, shouldn’t have much weight to convince ANY of us of anything.

Gubatron@flickr: Why waste our times believing in something that can’t be proved?
Just live and enjoy your life and make all others around you happy.

zipzuke@flickr: Oh no! I think he’s expressing a……oh, what do you call it……ummmm….oh yeah! An opinion! Albert Einstein actually has an opinion? An opinion that may differ from another’s? That’s crazy talk, B.

dave palugyay@flickr: If Einstein was wrong, he’s regretting it now…a lot I’d bet.

javiero@digg: He needed a comb so bad

macweirdo42@digg: Truly – if there were a God, he would reveal himself to us directly, not rely on corrupt clergy who could easily warp and distort whatever message he has for us. Surely God of all people would understand the dangers of giving us messages through the most convoluted version of the telephone game ever conceived

zomgwaffles@digg: “The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism” ~ Einstein

atgmac@digg: Well he *did* meet the guy:http://i43.tinypic.com/260db8y.png

Gravy9@digg: That sums it up perfectly. God is a creation of man to fill a void that we all have within. Religion is a cult none of which are better than the next.

poke@digg: I think what he meant to say was, “I’m Einstein and I’ll Science your face off.”

digglergrl@digg: As a graduate student in the scientific field, who also happens to be an atheist, I can say that, to me and many of my colleagues, Albert Einstein is certainly exalted as a god. Everything is relative. There are those that worshiped the sun and other odd objects long before organized religion became what it is today.

southtownmatt@digg: Looks like einstein didn’t fully understand who God is and what the purpose of God is. Gods love is unconditional. He is not based out of law and reward and punishment. He is based out of love and how our hearts are.

there are lots more .. .go see  @flickr and @digg