Demi Moore's character says that "Einstein was a religious scientist", this is definitely not correct. Infact, he regarded religion as "childish superstition"
I just really had to point that out.
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Im gonna go with the characters, because I doubt Woody Allen would make a mistake like this
shareEinstein was religious, he just didn't believe in any organized religion; writing, "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends, which are nevertheless pretty childish."
But also writing,"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."
As well as, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
And more famously,"God does not play dice with the universe."
So, calling him religious is certainly accurate. Had she referred to him as a devout Jew, that would have been stretching it.
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Albert Einstein is sometimes claimed by religious theists seeking the authority of a famous scientist for their theistic views, but Einstein denied the existence of the traditional concept of a personal god. Was Albert Einstein therefore an atheist? From some perspectives his position would be seen as atheism or no different from atheism. He admitted to being a freethinker, which in a German context is much the same as atheism, but it's not clear that Einstein disbelieved in all god concepts.
1. Albert Einstein: From a Jesuit Viewpoint, I am an Atheist
I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2
Einstein never denied his connection to the Jewish people and to Judaism. But Judaism isn't as clear-cut as Jesuit Catholicism. There is no infallible voice. What defines someone as part of the Jewish people? It's not by consistency with a set of rules. There is much in Einstein's statements that reflect Jewish values and principles. (And there are plenty of references to God for someone who said he didn't believe such a thing existed.) Same can be said for Woody Allen.
"The good end happily, the bad unhappily, that is why it is called Fiction."
He was saying that about science. Albert Enstein wasnt religious at all.
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