Albert Einstein Religion Quotations

I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.

From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.

I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.

Do you remember how electrical currents and 'unseen waves' were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.

It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science.

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions, and the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosenabout them.

... a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value.

For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.

The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic.

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion.

Just because you believe in something does not mean that it is true.

The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children.

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.