Einsteins Views On A Cosmic Religion

Albert Einstein’s religious views were deeply influenced by the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and centered on the concept of a “cosmic religion”.

​Spinoza’s God

​Einstein famously stated, “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.”

• ​Impersonal God: Spinoza’s God is impersonal—it is essentially equivalent to the universe and the laws of nature. This God does not possess a will, emotions, or a personality, nor does it intervene in human affairs.
• ​Rejection of a Personal God: Einstein explicitly rejected the notion of a personal God that rewards and punishes, calling such a view “naïve.”

​Cosmic Religion

​Einstein’s “cosmic religion” is an attitude of humble admiration for the marvelous order and rationality revealed in the universe, a feeling that forms the basis of scientific inquiry.

• ​Awe and Wonder: For Einstein, the deepest religious feeling was the “cosmic religious feeling,” which involves a sense of awe and wonder at the sublimity and complexity of the cosmos, as revealed by science.
• ​Science and Religion: He saw science as the way to experience this “cosmic religion,” stating that science and this type of religion were compatible and even necessary for each other.
• ​Morality: He believed that a person with this cosmic religious feeling finds the vanity of human desires and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance. However, he asserted that ethical behavior should be based on sympathy, education, and social ties, not on religious command.

​In essence, Einstein was a “deeply religious non-believer” who found his spiritual experience in the understanding and reverence of the universal laws that govern reality, a view closely aligned with Spinoza’s pantheistic identification of God with Nature.

Even this genius believed in something which shows a faith and I feel what he is talking about is a cosmic unified source of all energy that some would call God, some would call nature itself some would call the laws of the universe itself etc… but as you can see… even he believed in something and as I always say… “its better to have faith in something than nothing.”