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Submit Your Reflection about "Einstein's God."
To Be a Quaker (April 2, 2007)
Great show on Einstein's God. I wanted to share a quote with you from Einstein that resonates. He said if he were not a scientist, he'd be a musician. Similarly he said that had he not been a Jew he'd be a Quaker. Here's the quote and citation from Einstein: The Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark: "If I were not a Jew I would be a Quaker. …I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
John Elfrank-Dana
Nyack, NY (Listens to SOF Podcast)
Asking Interesting Questions (March 15, 2007)
On Sunday, I listened to a brief part of your interview of a scientist (assume he was a physicist) who was claiming that science and faith are not necessarily opposed. He said that quantum physics had removed the old problem about whether God could intervene in earthly affairs by breaking his own natural laws. Because quantum effects are not deterministic, this leaves room for God to act at the quantum level.
So I was sitting there in the car, waiting for you to ask the next, obvious question: "So if God can intervene at the quantum level, what do I care? What effects might I notice? What earthly difference might it make to me if God can change the spin of an electron or the energy level of a photon?" But you never asked that question. You just dreamily accepted this little claim that physics has now readmitted the Almighty to history and moved on to a question that you had obviously thought up before the program started.
I read on your Web site that you want to move away from "objective, critical" ideas, but you might consider allowing them a little more of a place than they have now, especially if they seem to fit so naturally into the flow of the interview. Following up on an idea, even by asking a critical question, is not always such a bad thing and might actually reveal more of your guest's intellectual framework than just letting the idea sink soundlessly into the pool of dreamy acceptance.
John Dawson
Louisville, CO (Listens to SOF OnDemand)
Leaving Me Breathless (March 14, 2007)
I enjoy your show and thought after the terrific program that featured the brilliant philospher Matthew Stewart's book: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibnitz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. The subject is so appropriate for you.
You did refer to Spinoza (A "heretic" and a Jew, by the way) and Einstein's views are close to his. Spinoza did not think of God "transitively," as a first cause, as the clockmaker to the clock, or as a personal God. For Spinoza, God is "immanent," not "transitive." Says Matthews, the nature of a circle, for example, is the immanent cause of its roundness. Therefore, an immanent God does not create nature, God is nature. God does not stand outside of the world but exists in the world and subsists with whatever it creates…" Isn't this faascinating? Liebnitz is a whole other and more traditional story, better explained by Matthews than by me.
Mattthews sees these men, who lived at the same time, as defining the meaning of God for the modern world. The book is fascinating and the concepts totally compelling. Despite the subject, it really is a page turner! He explains these difficult ideas so clearly, he leaves you breathless.
Roberta Thomas
Ambler, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)
I Feel Its Purpose (March 11, 2007)
While listening to "Einstein's God," I sat, with tears in my eyes, looking at several pictures of my only child Ben who died in 2004. He, in turn, was looking back at me with a knowing smile. Though not a religious man, I am very spiritual and know through many personal experiences that I am touched daily by Ben on some, if not many, levels. Your program and its thought-provoking messages and moving passages from these wise men helped me through one more day of a very difficult existence. This universe, to me, makes a great deal of sense. I feel its purpose — always.
Peter L. Willardson
Sandy, UT (KUER, 90.1 FM)
Perspectives on Reality (March 11, 2007)
Your program on Einstein was excellent, including Dyson and Davies' insightful comments. Einstein's expression that we have only an "inkling" of understanding of our grand and mysterious universe puts it in perspective: what we have yet to understand is vast, and may be spiritual as well as physical (even this dichotomy may reflect our limited view). Why should our shared joy at the beautiful works of Leonardo or Beethoven be any less real than pieces of matter? Even pieces of matter seem to be all space the closer you look at them.
Vincent Campbell
Boise, ID (KBSX, 91.5 FM)
You Won (March 11, 2007)
I am a person of routine. Before I knew about Speaking of Faith, I used to enjoy going out to get The New York Times and Atlanta Constitution just before 7 o'clock on Sunday mornings. The problem is that I always have NPR on my radio for the short drive, so that on the way back I am usually mesmerized by your show. This means that when I get home I can either read the paper, continue the broadcast on my living room radio, or try to do both. I can report that his morning's discussion of Albert Einstein's musings on time and eternity won the contest.
George deMan
Rome, GA (WGPB, 97.7 FM)
The Really Infinite Universe Layered on the Countably Infinite Universe (March 11, 2007)
Einstein's most famous quote (about god and dice) is at the heart of a cosmology that suggests that it is only through the quantum mechanical uncertainties that free will can enter the universe. Poorly presented in the press as "chaos theory," it predicts that only the "Real"-based randomness of quantum mechanics can bring the necessary unpredictability (as required by free will) to the universe. I, myself, like to think of my consciousness as a small fractal bump on a greater consciousness, and therefore as a sort of fractal representation of that greater function.
Actually I've written a "Rosetta Stone" poem at http://simcash.com/Writing/SoulOfChaos/ that describes this personal relationship I have with the universe Einstein alluded to. As is the nature of poetry, it requires the reader to bring experience to the reading. A less poetic, more direct presentation is at http://simcash.com/Writing/QuantumSoul/.
Bruce W. Morlan
Northfield, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)
Disappointed (March 11, 2007)
I was very disappointed to hear Paul Davies attribute to the universe attributes it does not possess, such as being a perfect place for our existence. I suggest that you interview Neil deGrasse Tyson and also that you watch his "stupid design" which tells us what the universe is really like.
Carol Smith
Mequon, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)
A Course in Miracles (March 11, 2007)
The program about Einstein that I just heard tonight reminded me in many ways of A Course in Miracles that I have studied for about 20 years. Would you consider doing a program on it sometime? Thanks for such a wonderful show. We need more things like it in the world today.
Pauline Carter
Oswego, OR (KOPB, 91.5 FM)
Einstein's Voice (March 10, 2007)
Who is this miserable actor impersonating Einstein? Beyond his wretched accent — are there no German Jews vying for the part? — he cannot even operate Einstein's words in such a way as to make sense of them. Your casting has ruined a program I'd been highly anticipating.
Simon Ethan
New York, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)
Excellent Piece of Journalism (December 19, 2005)
I once thought I was close to understanding relativity, but without the math I may have been fooling myself, and I have no idea if my further reflections are based on anything more scientific than my own imagination. It struck me while you were talking, that Einstein's discovery that time is "relative" to motion and space would fit perfectly well with a view of the universe that included an "eternal" outside time and space and in some sense "timeless." Though that may be no more than what you were saying. I begin to part with Einstein when he insists, as you say he did, that "god" is not personal.
Einstein lived in a way, I am told, where he might not have wanted to face the "personal" aspect of God, but I don't find it difficult to imagine that a God who created space and time and the laws of matter might have had something to do with creating (as well as being) person-hood and all that might mean. As far as whether god interferes with human life or punishes "sin," I suspect a careful reading of the Bible would suggest that God agrees with Einstein. Much of the Old Testament can be read not as God threatening punishment for sin, but as God warning people of the consequences of behavior, the natural cause and effect consequences of behavior. But I suppose that since God invented the laws of nature in which cause and effect operate, it might mean much the same thing to say that "god" punishes or rewards behavior (sin being the kind of behavior that gets punished: error).
Davies seems to be on to this in part but he is too much a part of his time and culture, which assumes materialism and amorality, to quite embrace it. I would further imagine that it is less likely that the three score and ten time-space path of my particular bottle rocket exists forever in that super-space that surrounds Einsteinian space, than it is that whatever God created us for takes place in our own local time and space. And then we re-enter eternity, either to rejoin God or to be reincarnated in another time-space to continue our learning what it means to love God [more or less exactly where we left off, with whatever gains or losses we made in this life showing up as talents or vices in the next. It has never seemed reasonable to me that eternal life would be decided on the basis of one high-stakes exam at the end of a short course. Nor is it very elegant to imagine God loading the dice in some quantum legal loophole. Einstein said that morality was for people, not for God. Exactly. Jesus said the same thing: The Sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath. And finally, I think God is perfectly capable of jokes, including the occasional bad pun (though I know Isaac Asimov wrote an essay casting contempt on people who notice coincidences), so I couldn't help noting that Einstein believed in a deterministic universe in which God does not cast dice. Then you turn to our present expert on that subject: a Free Man, dice-'un.
Dale Coberly
Corvallis, OR (KOAC, 550 AM)
Excellent Piece of Journalism (December 19, 2005)
Like his theories, so are any reflections around the persona of Einstein too deep to grasp for the ordinary mind. Yet the series on Einstein was an exquisite piece of journalistic and research work, might I say equal to the grandeur of his discoveries. Simple yet substantial, the content of the programs on him, left me wondering how can I further contribute to the world around me, even if to try to match his restless struggle for morality, justice, peace, and equality. Congratulations on your extraordinary work!
Krystallena Figetakis
New York, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)
Process Theology (December 12, 2005)
As I was listening to the first installment of the show on Einstein's spirituality, I found myself thinking for the umpteenth time that you really should do an interview with some prominent process theologians. Process theology is a theological school which has appropriated the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne; there are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist process theologians. Process theology has enormously illuminating and insightful contributions to make in the dialogue between religious belief and scientific naturalism. It suggests intellectually respectable solutions to age-old religious problems, such as theodicy. It supports a spirituality which is wholly engaged in the world, an appreciation of the world's autonomy and significance relative to God. And yet it also provides a grounding for eschatological hope.
It would be difficult for me to sketch a typical process approach to theism, but I urge you to do some research for yourself, and interview some of the great figures of this theological movement: David Ray Griffin (see Unsnarling the World Knot and Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts), John Cobb, and Marjorie Suchocki come immediately to mind. Notably, the feminist theologian Carol Christ has embraced process thought as well — see her appreciation of Charles Hartshorne's philosophy, She Who Changes. She would make an excellent interviewee on the subject, since she has made an effort to apply process thought to a new domain, namely contemporary Goddess spirituality. I really think it would make for a fascinating and illuminating program! You could contact the Center for Process Studies as a gateway for more information or to contact any of the theologians I've mentioned.
Rudolph von Abele
Philadelphia, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)
Another Interesting Book (December 12, 2005)
This program was interesting! I would add that MIT author Alan Lightman wrote a book that I think is fascinating, titled Einstein's Dreams, which is a series of short stories that explore Einstein's musings about the effects of time on daily life viewed from the relativistic perspective. It's a small but very powerful book.
Richard Bronson
Raleigh, NC (Listens via SOF OnDemand)
Science: More Amazing Than Scripture (December 11, 2005)
Congratulations on a wonderful program that touches this nerve in science. You found just the right and revered scientists to help explore and explain it. I'm impressed that you were able to identify and then gain interviews with them. In support of a sentiment already expressed, it is all too unfortunate that our society is involved in what most scientists consider a debate not worth dignifying by engagement — intelligent design (it so clearly represents a misunderstanding of what science is; the protagonists are arguing about completely different topics). If only religion could embrace the amazement of how the world works. To paraphrase the poet-astronomer Chet Raymo, the universe as revealed by science is far more amazing and awesome than the dubious miracles described by scripture.
Thor Olson
Rochester, NY (WXXI, 1370 AM)
God as Chance (December 11, 2005)
Perhaps we could understand God as chance or His most powerful creation with all its emergent properties.
Frederick Grose
Rochester, NY (WXXI, 1370 AM)
Pointlessness of Life (December 11, 2005)
The point of life is life. Making sense of it comes through understanding the Pauline concept that the Hebrew experience prior to Jesus was preparation for establishment of the Kingdom of God. Jesus leads a very parochial and barbaric world to a life of caring for all, friend or enemy. Mankind is pretty much incapacitated without God's grace to help transcend the asymmetrical and coincidental existential realities of our world, and people either respond negatively like the atheist, or express some passive cultural optimism that probably will be deconstructed at some time in their life. It is unfortunate the atheist mentioned in your program is so materially comfortable that he doesn't need to step out of his paradigm. If he did, he might discover a poignancy that could lead him to a life beyond his fears.
Ted Lundquist
Oceanside, CA (KPCC, 89.3 FM)
Well Done (December 11, 2005)
Today's program on Einstein's science in relation to his religious/philosophical beliefs about the universe was superb. The two physicists, especially Dyson, were marvelous informants on Einstein, and your questions were extremely good. Congratulations on a job well done!
Ruth McKay
Silver Spring, MD (WETA, 90.9 FM)
There's Not a Debate Within Science (December 11, 2005)
I was prompted to write today by a somewhat tangential reference made in your program on Einstein and God. In an otherwise fascinating show, you introduced one thought as follows: "[Paul Davies] says that the current conversation between science and religion is different in physics than in biology. So when he speaks of the fine-tuning of the universe, or when Einstein spoke of a mind or superior spirit behind nature, this does not mirror the biologists' debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design."
I was disturbed by the implication in your phrasing that the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design is a debate that is happening within the community of biologists. In fact, this "debate" is one that pits the
scientific community, including biologists, on one side against an anti-scientific ideology on the other. One key illustration of this is the fact that scientific debate occurs in a context of peer review and critique. An interesting article that recently appeared in Skeptic magazine ("Creationism's Holy Grail: The Intelligent Design of a Peer-Reviewed Paper," by Robert Weitzel. Vol. 11 No. 4, 2005) illustrates the efforts of the intelligent design community to cultivate the appearance of a debate "within science" on intelligent design by actually getting a scholarly paper supporting intelligent design into a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It makes for interesting reading. For a more humorous take on the framing of this "debate," check out Project Steve: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3541_project_steve_2_16_2003.asp. Though your question was phrased in a way that meant to make an important distinction about Einstein's views on God, the subtle implication that intelligent design is a topic of debate within the scientific community is a mischaracterization of the debate and does a disservice to the science of biology.
Gabe Ormsby
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)
Does Our Reality Necessarily Reflect or Deny God? (December 11, 2005)
There is always the debate over whether there is a God ordering our reality or is it only governed by the laws of science. My question is, why does this reality that we perceive with our minds have to be considered the sum total of reality when we try to discern if there is a God playing an active role in the universe? Maybe there is a fixed pattern which our universe follows, but if God exists beyond our space and time then this source could ultimately influence
reality without changing this pattern.
I think Taoism says something like this when it talks about the Tao, which is beyond the human mind, giving rise to the forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and ultimately the phenomenon we perceive. It seems Einstein (whose ideas and theories I'm woefully ignorant of) says something similar when he talks about the limitations of the human mind. Thanks for the program about one of our greatest minds.
Bryan Sudbury
Salt Lake City, UT (KUER, 90.1 FM)
A Self-Aware Universe (December 11, 2005)
Thanks for the program about Albert. I very much enjoyed the idea that what Einstein called God is not a personal God like that referred to by evangelicals. He was not talking about a God that listened to your prayers for a new fridge or
a new house or car. Rather he was speaking about a God that creates a feeling of wonder and mystery through our own consciousness. Perhaps it is God creating the evolving universe through our consciousness. So we are co-creators.
Some scientists that are involved with the exploration of quantum physics talk about a self-aware universe and how consciousness creates the material world. It would be wonderful if you would offer more programs like this one. That is the idea that spiritual ideas and scientific thinking are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps the quantum world is showing us a paradigm shift that would allow us to see how we are all part of the same source. Here is a quote you left this out of your program. Einstein said, "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both natural and spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism." How about a discussion with Robert Thurman and Michio Kaku? You could talk about buddhism, dark matter, higher octave vibrations that are a part of the mind of god.
Patrick Graney
O'fallon, MO (KWMU, 90.7 FM)
Just Because a Physicist Says It… (December 11, 2005)
Your first program on "Einstein's God" failed to connect the dots between the inadequacy of his science — his resistance to non-equational science (Werner Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, Norbert Wiener's the random motion of particles, quantum mechanics/physics) — and the inadequacy of his religion (the impersonality of deity). Einstein himself failed to connect the dots between his experiences of mathematical elegance and spiritual awe and his experience of personality, which combines the commensurable with the mysterious. His metaphysics had no place for the personal except as a biological emergent; and consequently no place for cosmic purpose. By contrast, on your program Paul Davies said "The universe is about something; there is a point to it." But Einstein's rigidity weighs against the "intelligent design" side of the present public school battle over how to teach science.
Willis Elliott
Centerville, MA (WBUR, 90.9 FM)
Just because a physicist says it… (December 11, 2005)
Einstein's 1905 articles were revolutionary and new. His "spirituality" as described by Davies did not sound either revolutionary or new. They struck me as pretty standard Stoicism, especially as expressed in Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus. A better knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy would reveal the debts and sources of many current writers who are thought to be creative. Just because a famous scientist says something doesn't make it new or true. Insight in one field does
not translate into wisdom in all, as Socrates discovered. These are important topics, and there are people available to take the discussion to a more sophisticated level. I continue to hope that they will be brought to shows like this.
Arthur Shippee
Hamden, CT (WNPR, 89.1 FM)
Relative Reality (December 10, 2005)
While Einstein may not have practiced his Judaism, he might have been aware that in Jewish law the day is divided into 24 parts, of which 12 must be daylight hours and 12 night-time. That is, the length of the summer daylight hours is
longer than the length of the winter daylight hours. Only at the times of the equinoxes are the hours all 60 minutes long. (Or, perhaps the hours are all 60 minutes long, but the minutes or the seconds expand). Therefore, time is not a fixed concept, determined by the numbers on a clock. Time is a constantly changing, relative reality.
Marcia Lane
Long Branch, NJ (WNYC, 93.9 FM)
The Wonder of Einstein's Words (December 10, 2005)
As a person with one foot in the world and one which seems to long for a monastery, I have often relied on the books written for lay people by our great physicists and astrophysicists for spiritual inspiration. But it has always been Einstein that has struck the deepest chord. I suspect that many like me — those longing for peace but unable to fully believe in a personal God — could reignite their capacity for wonder through his words. Thank you.
Gary Wenger
Brooklyn, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)
Mischaracterizing Einstein's Famous Statement (December 10, 2005)
It's a common technique to mischaracterize the ideas of someone you wish to discredit. I think that's what's being done with Einstein. His comment that "God does not play dice" has another interpretation. He might, as I think he did, have meant that the universe does not change without a process of changing — claiming that was the most radical contribution of quantum mechanics, still untested and unproven, yet held tenaciously. Einstein thought it was wrong.
Phil Henshaw
New York, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)
An Underlying Structure (December 9, 2005)
"God doesn't play dice with the universe" means Einstein thought there was an underlying structure beneath probability-based quantum mechanics. I think the probability aspects of quantum mechanics is what spiritual people confuse and use as a scientific backing for spirituality.
Paul Piculell
Osseo, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)
Quote or Misquote (December 7, 2005)
In the closing of your current show, you promoted the upcoming show, "Einstein's God," by quoting him as saying, "God doesn't play dice [with the universe]." (I'm not certain whether you included the parts in brackets.) This quote is sometimes credited to being from a letter written in 1926 by Einstein to physicist Max Born. However, it is not included in lists of Einstein's best known quotations. I suspect that the quote you used is an oversimplified version of a verifiable quote, Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber bösehaft ist er nicht. This means "God is clever, but he is not perverse." Some people prefer to use "cunning" rather than "clever" and "malicious" rather than "perverse", but I prefer to stick to the most literal interpretation as I gave it.
I think the dice version caught on because it makes a better sound bite. The German language original was inscribed above the fireplace in the faculty lounge of Old Fine Hall, onetime home of the Princeton University mathematics department. When the new Fine Hall was completed in 1969, the old building was renamed Jones Hall. It is now the home of of East Asian and Near Eastern Studies, but Einstein's words are still there.
Philip Taterczynski
Milwaukee, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)
