I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
Interpretation
Einstein suggests that a deity who rewards and punishes behaves similarly to humans, reflecting our own weaknesses.
In this quote, Albert Einstein expresses skepticism about a traditional understanding of God as one who rewards and punishes humans based on their actions. He implies that such a concept of God mirrors human imperfections and weaknesses, questioning whether a true divine being would operate in such a limited and flawed manner. This perspective encourages a deeper reflection on the nature of divinity and the human condition.
In practice
During a lecture on the nature of faith and ethics.
I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. As I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science.
If I would follow your advice and Jesus could perceive it, he, as a Jewish teacher, surely would not approve of such behavior.
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
In the middle of adversity there is great opportunity.
I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.
Some go to sleep in an organization and never wake up, and those who do wake up put them selves to sleep again by joining another. This acquisitive movement is called expansion of thought, progress.
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil... Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.
People are always trying to be on top. And not always with a macabre agenda, but I think that people are desperately trying to remain in control, rather than being honest.
I don't think tragic situations are necessarily devoid of beauty.
Nothing so cements and holds together all the parts of a society as faith or credit, which can never be kept up unless men are under some force or necessity of honestly paying what they owe to one another.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.