There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." (That is, explained the miracles. - ed.) Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it . I am forced to add that just to keep you from thinking that -weakened by age-I have fallen prey to the clergy.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the limitations of a strictly empirical worldview that dismisses the miraculous and the unknown.
Albert Einstein's quote reflects on the weaknesses of positivist thinkers and atheists who feel triumphant in their ability to explain away miracles and divine phenomena. He suggests that while they claim to eliminate the existence of gods, they simultaneously overlook the profound mysteries of existence that cannot be fully understood or rationalized through scientific reasoning alone. Einstein implies that there are aspects of reality, which he terms 'miracles', that transcend our empirical grasp and should be acknowledged rather than dismissed.
In practice
During a debate on the role of science and religion, this quote can illustrate the limits of rational explanations.
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.
A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.
profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.
An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.
I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.
This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.