Einstein's 'God' letter fetches $400,000
He dismissed belief as product of human weakness, called Bible 'childish'
updated 1 hour, 7 minutes ago
LONDON - A letter in which Albert Einstein dismissed the idea of God as
the
product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish" has sold at
auction for more than $400,000.
Bloomsbury Auctions said Friday that the handwritten letter sold to an
overseas collector after frenetic bidding late Thursday in London. The
sale
price of $404,000, including the buyer's premium, was more than 25 times
the pre-sale estimate.
Bloomsbury did not identify the buyer, but managing director Rupert Powell
said it was someone with "a passion for theoretical physics and all that
that entails."
"This extraordinary letter seemed to strike a chord, and it gave a deep
personal insight one of the greatest minds of the 20th century," Powell
said.
The letter was written to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954, a year
before Einstein's death. In it, the Einstein said that "the word God is
for
me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the
Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are
nevertheless pretty childish."
"For me," he added, "the Jewish religion like all other religions is an
incarnation of the most childish superstitions."
Addressing the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people, Einstein wrote
that "the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I
have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other
people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other
human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack
of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
Bloomsbury spokesman Richard Caton said the auction house was "100 percent
certain" of the letter's authenticity. It was offered at auction for the
first time, by a private vendor.
Einstein experts say the letter sup****ts the argument that the physicist
held complex, agnostic views on religion. He rejected organized faith but
often spoke of a spiritual force at work in the universe.
John Brooke, emeritus professor of science and religion at Oxford
University, said the letter lends weight to the notion that "Einstein was
not a conventional theist" — although he was not an atheist, either.
"Like many great scientists of the past, he is rather quirky about
religion, and not always consistent from one period to another," Brooke
said.
Born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1879, Einstein said he went through
a
devout phase as a child before beginning to question conventional religion
at the age of 12.
In later life, he expressed a sense of wonder at the universe and its
mysteries — what he called a "cosmic religious feeling" — and famously
said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is
blind."
But he also said: "I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards
good
and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His
universe
is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws."
Brooke said Einstein believed that "there is some kind of intelligence
working its way through nature. But it is certainly not a conventional
Christian or Judaic religious view."
Einstein's most famous legacy is the special theory of relativity, which
makes the point that a large amount of energy could be released from a
tiny
amount of matter, as expressed in the equation e=mc2 (energy equals mass
times the speed of light squared). The theory changed the face of physics,
allowing scientists to make predictions about space and paving the way for
nuclear power and the atomic bomb.
Einstein's musings on science, war, peace and God helped make him world
famous, and his scientific legacy prompted Time magazine to name him its
Person of the 20th Century.
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