Einstein: Nothing 'chosen' about the Jews

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Einstein: Nothing 'chosen' about the Jews, Bible 'childish' legends

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Judaism, Bible, God, Einstein

Albert Einstein, writing in 1954, dismissed Judaism and other religions as "an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," though he said he gladly belonged to the Jewish people and felt a deep affinity for the Jews' "mentality," excerpts published on Tuesday showed.

Einstein also said he saw nothing "chosen" about the Jews, and that they were no better than other peoples "although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power."

The renowned physicist, who died a little more than a year after writing the letter, also had tough words for God and the Bible, according to the text published by the British The Guardian daily.

"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," the letter was quoted as saying. "No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

The letter, written in German in January, 1954 to philosopher Eric Gutkind, is to be auctioned in London on Thursday, the paper said. Written in Einstein's hand, the letter, which has been in private hands for more than half a century, reportedly could sell for as much as 8,000 pounds sterling.

Turning to Judaism, Einstein wrote that "For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And 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."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983001.html

"Einstein: Nothing 'chosen' about the Jews..."

I suppose Einstein was a selfhating Jew? Rolling Eyes

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Saw this here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24598856/?GT1=43001

Glad to see how rational Einstein is.

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if they arnt so chosen then how do you explain their many achievements spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances. read history. the history of the world to a great extent is the history of the jews.

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brahmin wrote:

if they arnt so chosen then how do you explain their many achievements spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances. read history. the history of the world to a great extent is the history of the jews.

Yes, because we all know that Christopher Columbus, the inventor of gunpowder, Marco Polo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, the Wright Brothers, Alexander Fleming, Professor Christiaan Barnard, Dr. Ernest Rutherford, Werner Heisenberg and many more were all Jews. Rolling Eyes

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Come on now, Wolf and others, fair's fair. They are remarkably gifted and talented, you've got to allow that.

Just probably not God's chosen people, that's all.

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brahmin wrote:

if they arnt so chosen then how do you explain their many achievements spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The same way that you explain the many achievements of black people spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The same way that you explain the many achievements of scientists spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The same way that you explain the many achievements of antelope spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The same way you explain the many achievements of salmon spanning many rivers, swimming against the strongest currents.

There's nothing to be explained. Lots of people do impressive things, some of them happen to be Jews. Lots of people die in childhood or end up homeless, and some of them happen to be Jews.

The history of the world to a great extent is the history of the salmon.

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

brahmin wrote:
if they arnt so chosen then how do you explain their many achievements spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances. read history. the history of the world to a great extent is the history of the jews.

Yes, because we all know that Christopher Columbus, the inventor of gunpowder, Marco Polo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, the Wright Brothers, Alexander Fleming, Professor Christiaan Barnard, Dr. Ernest Rutherford, Werner Heisenberg and many more were all Jews.

count the number of jewish nobel laureates, political thinkers, grand masters, business tycoons, political leaders, inventors, writers, musicians....

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agrote wrote:

brahmin wrote:
if they arnt so chosen then how do you explain their many achievements spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The same way that you explain the many achievements of black people spanning many walks of lives, over many centuries and against the most bitter circumstances.

The history of the world to a great extent is the history of the salmon.

right.... so how many black nobel laureates?
grand masters??

right about the salmon too... famous salmons include abraham, jesus, frued, marx, einstein, gell mann, milton friedman....

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McTag wrote:

Come on now, Wolf and others, fair's fair. They are remarkably gifted and talented, you've got to allow that.

Just probably not God's chosen people, that's all.

what then explains their being on top in so many walks of life??

what explains their having survived the chaldeans, egyptians, romans, greeks, persians, european pogroms, inquisitions, the holoaust??

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McTag wrote:

Come on now, Wolf and others, fair's fair. They are remarkably gifted and talented, you've got to allow that.

Just probably not God's chosen people, that's all.

The point I was trying to make is that brahmin's comment was egotistical and untrue. He is trying to give all the credit for the world's greatest achievements to the Jews. Talented as they may be, that is just ridiculous.

Jews did not invent airplanes, discover penicillin, perform the first heart transplant, they did not discover Evolution, they were not the first to the South Pole or North Pole, they were not the inventors of the first computer, they did not invent the steam engine, they did not invent gunpowder, they did not invent the magnetic compass, they did not discover America or Australia, they did not invent algebra, they did not come up with the number system we use today, they did not invent the printing press etc.

The list goes on.

To say that the History of the World is to a great extent, Jewish history, is arrogance of a high order. Sure, there's a lot of influential Jewish people in history, but do you really imagine that their input outnumbers that of other peoples? Are their findings more important than other peoples?

Not to mention that many of these important Jewish people happened to be immigrants. Perhaps their achievements had nothing to do with their Jewishness, but more to do with their status as immigrants. People who don't belong.

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

McTag wrote:

Jews did not invent airplanes, discover penicillin, perform the first heart transplant, they did not discover Evolution, they were not the first to the South Pole or North Pole, they were not the inventors of the first computer, they did not invent the steam engine, they did not invent gunpowder, they did not invent the magnetic compass, they did not discover America or Australia, they did not invent algebra, they did not come up with the number system we use today, they did not invent the printing press etc.

The list goes on.

To say that the History of the World is to a great extent, Jewish history, is arrogance of a high order. Sure, there's a lot of influential Jewish people in history, but do you really imagine that their input outnumbers that of other peoples? Are their findings more important than other peoples?
.

if you are going to pull examples from all acros the world then indeed you may be able to come up with a more impressive list than that of high achieving jews. but put them next to any ONE people and see. no one can compare with them.

yes the history of the world is largely the history of the jews. ever since the birth of christianity, every aspect of western life has been influenced by it. they have been central to most of he major movements in the world, except millitary maneuvers where their lack of numbers precluded them from being a force to be reckoned with. but if you look at religious movements, socio political movements, advancements in educational fields... then they have clearly stolen the show.

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brahmin wrote:

right.... so how many black nobel laureates?
grand masters??

right about the salmon too... famous salmons include abraham, jesus, frued, marx, einstein, gell mann, milton friedman....

Okay, but you missed out antelope and scientists. There probably haven't been any nobel laureate antelope, but scientists are a group of people who have achieved a hell of a lot.

And what about this group: nobel laureates. Now theres a group of people with impressive achievements.

The point I'm trying to make is that the group "Jews" is arbitrary. Woody Allen and Jesus have no more in common than Woody Allen and Socrates. One can easily identify other arbitrary collections of people who have achieved much.

And while it might be impresive to make up a fictional story about fleeing the Egyptians by parting the red sea, it's also pretty impressive to build huge pyramids.

While it may be impressive to "survive the Greeks", it's also very impressive to write the Ilyad and the Odyssey, discover Pythagorus' theorum, and begin a tradition of Western philosophy that thrives until this day.

While it may be impressive that some Jews managed to escape the Nazis and start a new life in America, it's also pretty impressive to actually win the war and defeat the Nazis.

Even if the Jews have achieved more than any other (arbitrary) group in the history of the world, the best explanation for this is clearly not "God chose them". If they are God's chosen people, why have they suffered so much? God's unchosen people didn't have to die in huge numbers in the holocaust. It seems that, if your Jewish propraganda is true and the Jews have had to overcome a lot more than the rest of us, then God's unchosen people are really the lucky ones.

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agrote wrote:

The point I'm trying to make is that the group "Jews" is arbitrary. Woody Allen and Jesus have no more in common than Woody Allen and Socrates. One can easily identify other arbitrary collections of people who have achieved much.

not arbitary.

woody allen and jesus were both jews by religion and ethnicity. socrates and woody allen are two completely different animals.

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brahmin wrote:

if you are going to pull examples from all acros the world then indeed you may be able to come up with a more impressive list than that of high achieving jews.

Which clearly shows that the History of the World is not the History of the Jews. If you take away the Jews, you will still get an impressive array of achievements and the world wouldn't have changed too much. Besides, Grandmasters? You're inflating the list by listing professions which have little importance to the nature of our world.

Not to mention the fact that many of the Nobel Laureates came from countries that were scientific powerhouses in their field. You could lay their achievements down to the fact that they were lucky enough to go to good Universities.

Scientific achivements can be done by anyone. For example, Charles Darwin didn't have to discover Evolution. Alfred Wallace could have done it instead and we'd have Wallace-ism instead of Darwinism.

I listed major achivements with which our society would not be the same as it is now. And all were done by non-Jews. You can list all the German physicists (whom happened to be Jewish) and that's it.

That is not to say that the Jews haven't achieved much, but your comments are no different (and I apologise for the Godwin here) from Hitler's comments regarding the Aryans as being superior and the only ones capable of maintaining culture and civilisation.

Now I'm all for showing the Nazis to be complete morons, but if you employ similar tactics, I can't support you or your statements.

Not to mention agrote has hit the nail squarely on the head. That they've achieved much is not necessarily an indication of their chosen worth.

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brahmin wrote:

agrote wrote:

The point I'm trying to make is that the group "Jews" is arbitrary. Woody Allen and Jesus have no more in common than Woody Allen and Socrates. One can easily identify other arbitrary collections of people who have achieved much.

not arbitary.

woody allen and jesus were both jews by religion and ethnicity. socrates and woody allen are two completely different animals.

Jesus was not a religious Jew.
Woody Allen and Socrates have both been called atheists.

But even if you're right, this is exactly the sort of arbitrariness I'm talking about. Why group people by a mixture of ethnicity and religious belief? Why not group them by hair colour and profession, or agility and intellect?

And even if 'Jew' is not an arbitrary categorisation, how are their achievements and stuggles evidence that they are God's chosen people? Why would God let his chosen people suffer as they did in the holocaust?

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

If you take away the Jews, you will still get an impressive array of achievements and the world wouldn't have changed too much.

jaundiced eyes always sees yellow.

anyway, let take away a few jews then. no abraham, no moses, no jesus, no freud, no marx, no einstein and we already have started missing christianity, islam, mosaic law, psychoanalysis, communism and relativity.

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The world would definitely be better off without Christianity or Islam (or Judaism, for that matter). Freudian pseudo-psychology and communism haven't done us much good either.

Jews have made many contributions to the history and culture of our planet, but some of those contributions were not good at all. It seems God chose some very bad and useless people.

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brahmin wrote:

anyway, let take away a few jews then. no abraham, no moses, no jesus, no freud, no marx, no einstein and we already have started missing christianity, islam, mosaic law, psychoanalysis, communism and relativity.

As science is a progressive discovery of knowledge, someone else would have found out about relativity in the end, just like in my example where if we take away Charles Darwin, someone else (namely Alfred Wallace) would have found out about Evolution.

Likewise, take away the Chinese and someone else would have eventually found out about gunpowder.

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The race to develop the world's first atomic bomb began at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA in the 1940's. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Project, succeeded in developing the world's first atomic bomb with the 'Trinity' blast in New Mexico at that time. Edward Teller soon afterward developed the Hydrogen bomb, followed by Sam Cohen who, in years following, invented the Nuetron Bomb. All 3 were Jewish.

They've invented something that will end humanity on this planet.

http://img.metblogs.com/dc/files/2008/04/nuclearbomb.jpg

Thank "God's chosen people" when you disintegrate into nuclear dust Laughing

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Explain to me again why it's racism when white people call themselves
superior but not when jews do it? What's that you say? It's racism either
way?!
Well I never! Confused

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Einstein: Nothing 'chosen' about the Jews

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