Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein wrote numerous letters throughout his life, and in one of them, he criticizes what humans have done with the idea of God and religion. In a short and devastating sentence, Einstein admits that:
“To me, the word ‘God’ is nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness; the Bible is a collection of venerable, but rather primitive legends. I believe that no interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this situation.”
In less than 280 characters (including spaces), Einstein expresses his dissatisfaction with Eric Gutkind’s book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt, where the author defends Judaism and Israel as the chosen people. The “God Letter,” as the media have called it, was addressed to Gutkind in 1954, 1 year before Einstein’s passing. The letter was recently auctioned at Christie’s, and although the initial estimate was $1.5 million, its final price reached $2.9 million.
Of course, being Einstein, there is much more to say about the letter
The handwritten document, one and a half pages long in German, can be read as a defense of equality among peoples, as well as a diatribe against all religions, which for Einstein embodies “primitive superstition.”
Throughout his life, Einstein always felt identified with his Jewish roots. Still, in the letter he states that for him, the Jews “do not have any kind of dignity different from that of other peoples,” and “there is nothing that makes me deduce that they are the chosen ones.”
Although Einstein mentioned God in various writings (as in the famous phrase “God does not play dice with the universe”), in doing so he was not referring to a superhuman entity, but to a metaphor for the unknown.
In speaking of his own beliefs, Einstein claimed to believe in the “God of Spinoza,” the Dutch philosopher for whom nature was perfect, even if men could not fully understand it. This perfection of creation gives rise to scientific work because the fact of not being able to explain something does not mean that it cannot be explained, but that it is necessary to continue searching for answers.
The “God Letter” was originally released in 2008 by the heirs of Gutkind, who passed in 1965. It sold at the time for $400,000.
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera
