First, I don't remember this letter, but I think I've heard it quoted before. "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic." I don't remember Einstein referring to himself as an agnostic before, but I imagine this letter is legit.
An
agnostic is one who believes that GOD/God can't be proven to exist or to not exist. My experience when dealing with so-called agnostics is that they're actually atheists that haven't thought much about the issue of GOD and they'd rather not discuss/debate it with a believer.
Einstein didn't fit into that scenario. Obviously, he's discussing his beliefs in this letter.
Albert Einstein was born into a non-practicing Jewish family. He associated with being Jewish, but with having a belief in 'Spinoza's God'; God and Nature being connected. As a child, Einstein spent a couple years in a Christian school, read the Bible, and knew the stories of Jesus. Einstein was a life-long pacifist, yet he came to the realization that Hitler & the Nazis would have to be defeated through militarism.* In 1919 at age 40, Einstein became a Zionist and worked for Zionist causes the rest of his life.
Throughout his life, Einstein made references to God; some being very famous quotes, e.g. "I want to know God's thoughts (in a mathematical way), the rest is details." Let's see what Quora (where I often write) has to say...
https://www.quora.com/What-did-Eins...nt-to-know-Gods-thoughts-the-rest-are-details
What did Einstein mean by his famous quote "I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are details"?
This quote it self-explanatory. Albert Einstein and Spinoza didn't believe in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings. But they believed in a God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.
"I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular; and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God." - Baruch Spinoza
When Einstein was asked by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein’s (Institutional Synagogue in New York): Do you believe in God? He answered (cabled back):
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
Albert Einstein's view on atheism. “I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
"Knowledge of God is the mind’s greatest good: its greatest virtue is to know God."
- Baruch Spinoza
Let their quotes explain their point of view on God. Is so sad there are educated people that believe Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza were atheists.
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Einstein made some BIG mistakes in his life, e.g. steady-state universe, dismissing advancements in quantum mechanics with "God does not throw dice with the universe", his not believing in any afterlife, how he treated Mileva toward the end of their marriage, how he treated his children, etc. But, of course, Einstein was a scientist and the BIGGEST** experiment is death. Einstein is the key to the question of reincarnation. Either he comes back with scientific proof of reincarnation or he doesn't return proving there is no reincarnation.
In my eternal soul's last incarnation, I was Albert Einstein. (My gf was Elsa Einstein.) See
Albert Einstein reincarnated - The 18 Requirements at
http://7seals.yuku.com/topic/53?page=1#.WSWYXmgrLIM . I also posted this a few pages back on this thread.
*
Synchronism: 9:17 "It's like having an atom bomb in your life." -
Mike & Mike, ESPN 2. **9:54 "Among the dead." - CNN