Albert Einstein on God and BuddhismReproduced From:
www.spaceandmotion.comTheology-Albert Einstein
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcendpersonal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both thenatural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sensearising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as ameaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any
religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be
Buddhism. (
Albert Einstein
)It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, alie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in apersonal God and I have never denied this but have expressed itclearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it isthe unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as ourscience can reveal it. (
Albert Einstein
, 1954) From Albert Einstein:The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman,Princeton University PressScientific research is based on the idea that everything that takesplace is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for theaction of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly beinclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by awish addressed to a Supernatural Being. (
Albert Einstein
, 1936)Responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source:Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and BaneshHoffmannA man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fearof punishment and hope of reward after death. (
Albert Einstein
,"Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, orhas a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can Inor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physicaldeath; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish suchthoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life andwith the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the
existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend aportion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.(
Albert Einstein
, The World as I See It)