Keep It Simple, Stupid
Unlike other non-believers you could mention, Ed Miliband for example.
The word God is the product of human weakness
In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt," and made known his views on religion. Apparently Einstein had only read the book due to repeated recommendation by their mutual friend Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. The letter was bought at auction in May 2008, for £170,000; unsurprisingly, one of the unsuccessful bidders was Richard Dawkins.
Translated transcript follows. (Source: David Victor; Image: Albert Einstein, via.)
Translated Transcript
Princeton, 3. 1. 1954
Dear Mr Gutkind,
Inspired by Brouwer's repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an "unAmerican attitude."
Still, without Brouwer's suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual "props" and "rationalization" in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes,
Yours,
A. Einstein
Not Just Any Atheist (13 April 2014)
| Please tick one box only - for obvious reasons |
The Labour leader is already on record as saying that he does not believe in God - but says he does still have ‘faith’, apparently, and as far as I know this was said without the benefit of prescription or any other drugs.
Now I would have no problem with Ed Miliband proclaiming his Jewish heritage as part of who he is and where he came from, bit all this faith business is a bot bonkers if you ask me, as if Ed's trying to have it both ways at the same time.
On a trip to Israell, Ed explained to reporters that his new found faith is ‘part of who I am’ and is compatible with being an atheist, before going on to claim that like many religious believers, he hopes to ‘change the world’.
The only fly in the ointment that I can see with this stance though is that other religious believers don't hold themselves out to be atheists, so I'm completely baffled by the following comment:
"I have a particular faith. I describe myself as a Jewish atheist. I’m Jewish by birth origin and it’s a part of who I am.
"I don’t believe in God, but I think faith is a really, really important thing to a lot of people. It provides nourishment for lots of people.
"In terms of faith for me, it’s a faith about how you change the world. And that is actually true for a lot of religious people as well."
Maybe Ed's just trying to ingratiate himself with as many people as he can in a desperate attempt to garner more votes - if so, he's certainly cornered the market when it comes to Jewish atheists.
You Gotta Have Faith (3 October 2012)
I listened to Ed Miliband's 'leader's speech' at the Labour party conference yesterday - the full bhuna I have to confess - not just the sound bites that made their way on to TV or into the newspaper headlines.
The whole affair left me completely unmoved - I also have to say - because the speech was full of platitudes and empty slogans - while saying nothing much at all about the tough times and choices facing the country.
What did interest me though was Ed's bizarre description of his commitment to politics as a 'faith' - because Ed, like myself, has always held himself out to be a non-religious person.
Now I couldn't really care two hoots whether Ed is an atheist, agnostic - or whether he believes in God for that matter - to my mind that's a personal matter and has nothing to do with his role as a politician.
But I detected a bit of fancy footwork here - a bit of careful repositioning or political 'spin' you might call it - so that Ed looks rather less frightening to the God brigade.
Which is presumably why Ed got married recently - after years of living perfectly happily with his partner - Justine Thornton - albeit in a previously unwedded state.
The fact that politicians do things to appear more 'normal' is not new - Tony Blair once famously told Gordon Brown he would never become Prime Minister unless he (Gordo) gave up his bachelor days and ways - and got himself married.
Shortly afterwards Gordon found himself a wife - of course.
Take another example - the one involving Ed Miliband going to his local comprehensive school instead of some fee paying school - for privileged toffs.
Which makes Ed 'one of us' in the Labour Tribe - instead of one of them.
Yet dig a little deeper in the Labour Party and what do you find?
Well you find that its deputy leader - Harriet Harman - went to an exclusive fee paying school as so did one of the new rising stars of the party - Labour's business spokesperson Chuka Umanna.
An even more obvious example is that of Labour's most successful leader ever - Tony Blair - who led the party to three successive general election victories.
Tony Blair was privately educated in Edinburgh of course - as was Labour's former Scottish leader, Iain Gray.
Yet no one in the Labour Party made a fuss at the time.
'Pot and kettle' is the phrase that springs to mind.
All this political spin and manipulation - is enough to try the patience of a saint.
The whole affair left me completely unmoved - I also have to say - because the speech was full of platitudes and empty slogans - while saying nothing much at all about the tough times and choices facing the country.
What did interest me though was Ed's bizarre description of his commitment to politics as a 'faith' - because Ed, like myself, has always held himself out to be a non-religious person.
Now I couldn't really care two hoots whether Ed is an atheist, agnostic - or whether he believes in God for that matter - to my mind that's a personal matter and has nothing to do with his role as a politician.
But I detected a bit of fancy footwork here - a bit of careful repositioning or political 'spin' you might call it - so that Ed looks rather less frightening to the God brigade.
Which is presumably why Ed got married recently - after years of living perfectly happily with his partner - Justine Thornton - albeit in a previously unwedded state.
The fact that politicians do things to appear more 'normal' is not new - Tony Blair once famously told Gordon Brown he would never become Prime Minister unless he (Gordo) gave up his bachelor days and ways - and got himself married.
Shortly afterwards Gordon found himself a wife - of course.
Take another example - the one involving Ed Miliband going to his local comprehensive school instead of some fee paying school - for privileged toffs.
Which makes Ed 'one of us' in the Labour Tribe - instead of one of them.
Yet dig a little deeper in the Labour Party and what do you find?
Well you find that its deputy leader - Harriet Harman - went to an exclusive fee paying school as so did one of the new rising stars of the party - Labour's business spokesperson Chuka Umanna.
An even more obvious example is that of Labour's most successful leader ever - Tony Blair - who led the party to three successive general election victories.
Tony Blair was privately educated in Edinburgh of course - as was Labour's former Scottish leader, Iain Gray.
Yet no one in the Labour Party made a fuss at the time.
'Pot and kettle' is the phrase that springs to mind.
All this political spin and manipulation - is enough to try the patience of a saint.
