The Church's Little Secret: Morning-After Pills
(Available all along!)
Creation-Science
(What century is it?)
Quotes from Uncle Albert...
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
thinking."
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place
is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions
of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to
believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish
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 Banesh Hoffmann]
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment
and hope of reward after death."
[Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine,
9 November 1930]
"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."
"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider
ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority
behind it."
["Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.]
"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action."
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a
lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal
God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If
something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded
admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal
it."
[Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by
Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the
actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of
his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic
causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.
[He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of
determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the
infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with
our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality
is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God."
[Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen
Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
"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 the divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behaviour on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress."
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of
the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the
community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight
against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries
has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to
any attempt to organize peace on this planet."
[letter, 1954]
"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism"
"I maintain that cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving force of scientific research."
"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 to make tools of them."
[Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932]
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle."
"Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to
be acknowledged as better, stronger or more intelligent than a fellow being
or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological
adjustment, which may become injurious for the individual and for the
community. "
"On Education," Address to the State University of New York at Albany, in
Ideas and Opinions
"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
"What a deep faith in the rationality of the world and its structure and what a longing to understand even the smallest glimpses of the reason revealed in the world there must have been in Kepler and Newton ..."
"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held
that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The
opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should
be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on
knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to
this conception, the sole function of education was to open the way to
thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the
people's education, must serve that end exclusively."
Einstein Quoting Newton
"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
"I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."
"Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality".
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler."
"The discovery of nuclear chain reactions need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than did the discovery of matches. We only must do everything in our power to safeguard against its abuse. Only a supranational organization, equipped with a sufficiently strong executive power, can protect us." (1953)
When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones!
"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
"Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions."
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idealized."
Einstein was attending a music salon in Germany before the second world war, with the violinist S. Suzuki. Two Japanese women played a German piece of music and a woman in the audience exclaimed: "How wonderful! It sounds so German!" Einstein responded: "Madam, people are all the same."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
"I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up."
"My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary."
This web page is dedicated to all those who have discussed, debated, and
helped refine my beliefs. Especially to those great thinkers, past and
present, who refused to be cowed by the prevailing social prejudices of
their time. Many thanks too, to Ateneo de Manila University, Philippine
Science High School, the University of the Philippines, the National
Computer Institute, the
Ayn Rand Institute,
the
Skeptics Society,
Caltech, and the
Council for Secular Humanism.
© 1998 by an
Agnostic Pinoy
on the web
[
No False Gods: For individual liberty and
against tyranny! ]
[ Courage! (to think independently of one's peers) ]
[ Money! (Accumulating wealth may be simpler than you think...) ]
