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by Albert Einstein
(The
following article appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 9,
1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, Crown
Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40. It also appears in Einstein's book The
World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.)
Religion and
Science, by Albert Einstein
Everything that the
human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of
deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this
constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and
their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all
human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter
may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that
have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the
words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most
varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and
experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious
notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this
stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly
developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous
to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus
one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and
offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from
generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed
toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This,
though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation
of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the
people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In
many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on
other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in
order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the
priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.
The social impulses are another
source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the
leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire
for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral
conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes,
rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the
believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the
human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and
unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the
social or moral conception of God. The Jewish scriptures admirably
illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a
development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized
peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral
religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a
great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based
entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality
is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that
all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this
differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of
morality predominates. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic
character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of
exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to
any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of
religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is
rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It
is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely
without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God
corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires
and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves
both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses
him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a
single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling
already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the
Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned
especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much
stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all
ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which
knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be
no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely
among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this
highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their
contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this
light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely
akin to one another. How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated
from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a
God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art
and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are
receptive to it. We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science
to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter
historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as
irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is
thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation
cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the
course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of
causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and
equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and
punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's
actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in
God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is
responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been
charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A 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 fear of punishment and
hopes of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the churches
have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other
hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and
noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense
efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in
theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of
the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the
immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the
rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but
a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton
must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in
disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose
acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its
practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the
mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the
way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the
centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a
vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the
strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures.
It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A
contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of
ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious
people.
-THE END-
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