John Smith wrote:
Nice attempt to waffle (plus interesting snippage of the
context). Do you agree that Einstein wasn't referring to an
actual deity, or not? And do you agree that his use of the
term "ether" (which was the context you snipped) referred to
something other than the sort of physical "ether" refuted by
Michaelson and Morley, or not?

I think Einstein, absolutely, considered a unbelievably intelligent
creator a strong possibility! His very words define this ... but,
everyone should read them, his words, for themselves, as the notion of
"thinking for someone else" is hazardous, at best ...

I agree everyone should read his words. Here they are.

In 1927

"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the
actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of
his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic
causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.
My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior
spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and
transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the
highest importance-but for us, not for God. "


In 1945
"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been
an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a
personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not
share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is
mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious
indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility
corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature
and of our being."

In 1954
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a
lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal
God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something
is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration
for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. "

Shortly before he died
"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."

Keith