Einstein: Detrimental Faith

Any Christian Scientist who has died because of this:

Disease and Death. Christian Scientists claim that since organic disease does not exist, "the cause of all so-called disease is mental" [i.e., 'the belief in sin is thereby the cause of it'], "a mistaken belief" (Science and Health, p. 377). They say that since our physical bodies do not exist, disease and death are only illusions (Science and Health, pp. 348,386). [To the contrary, the Bible teaches that sin, sickness, and evil are not an illusion, but a result of man's willful choice to rebel against a Holy God, and death (both physical and the spiritual eternal separation from God) is the result of sin (Rom. 3:10, 23; 5:12-14; 1 John 1:8-10).] They believe they have restored Christ's principles of divine healing through their practices of mental healing; i.e., the healing performed by Christian Science involves helping a person to deny the reality of his illness, and thereby, any failure to heal is due to a person's inability to overcome his belief. Mary Baker Eddy claimed to have this power of healing (called Divine Science), though she never provided any tangible proof of it. [HJB] [Whereas the Christian Science approach to healing may help psychosomatic illnesses, it has been scientifically demonstrated that it is not effective with real illness. In fact, studies comparing the cumulative death rates of practicing Christian Scientists with control groups have shown significantly higher death rates among the Christian Scientists (Journal of American Medical Association, September 22/29, 1989, pp 1657-58; and Morbidity Weekly Report, August 23, 1991, pp. 579-582).]

I'd say that's pretty detrimental.
I saw something on Nova a while back about Einstein, too. It truly is a shame he spent so much time trying to fit together pieces from two incompatible puzzles.

I'm not sure what the show was about Einstein, but he wasn't religious by any means. I not sure how a reputable documentary could possibly twist the facts to make it appear he was a believer in some kind of intelligent designer.

Was it because of his famous quote, "God does not play dice with the universe"? "God" in this case is shorthand.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/einstein02.html
The link in case you are wondering where I got this from. This section can be found on page 3 of the article.

Nice of you to look that up, Arthur. Being at work, I was unable to take the time. Thanks.

Very welcome. I'm at work myself, but it's slow and we have a DSL connection.

ive found that in pysics the basic equations that are used today were dicovered 100s of years ago the only things that change are really electronics
einstien was probably the greatest mind in his time and its a shame his last words were in german and the nurse couldnt understand him

Ah, but the use of statistics indicates lack of knowledge as photons the tiniest unit of light disturbs the object of observation. But being full of hubris and wanting to show it he used the awesome statistics to say that a subatomic particle cannot be located by observation. Of course, man's limitation is shown by this as it violates a rule of observation which is that the object being observed must not be affected by the act of observation. This is being violated by the photon which energizes the subatomic particle out of its position or even its orbit. Well, at this time there seems to be no way out of this but maybe in future with better science we may be able to predict the position of a subatomic particle other than by statistics.

I wish I were more up on physics, but it seems to me the new advances in string theory have given a resurgence to Einstein's Unified Theory. At the very least, it would be misleading to categorize his later life's work as merely an example of detrimental faith, that is, hanging onto an idea simply because it affirms some quaint notion about God. The Theory of Everything (as it's sometimes called) is still a valid pursuit, IMO.

As for other examples of detrimental faith, history is littered with them, and they continue to this day. Every time some disaster befalls us, the response of so many Christians, who are overwise able-bodied and with adequate means, is to close their eyes to the realities around them, fold their hands in the perfect expression of uselessness, and pray. I wish to state the obvious--there are thousands upon thousands of needs of victims during these times, praying is not one of them.

Praying is one of them; God answers the call of his servants when they ask for his help. After all, He is the only one that can help people in time of need.

If My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me. They should therefore respond to Me and believe in Me so that hopefully they will be rightly guided. (Qur'an, 2:186)

Donations is another.

Raul, you're obviously religious. What are your thoughts on Einstein and how his faith affected his work?

bookmark

He obviously understands that the Unvierse's delicate balance and laws are governed by an ultimate ruler, and that this unique Earth did not come into existence by chance.

Yet his belief blinded him to what the evidence states was true, something I point out quite often but not recently.

Kicky, If you are interested there's a biographical book written called Einstein In Love by Dennis Overbye. It chronicles Einstein's early years, when he made his big physics discoveries while still working in the Patent Office in Switzerland. it goes into a lot of detail of the science, but also explore his chaotic personal life.

No matter the universal model one adheres to, it all comes down to two possibilities: Forever? At first thought most think this makes more sense. But as theorized by others thousands of years ago, forever makes no sense because we would never get to this point. Was there a beginning 999 trillion years ago? How about a number with 999 trillion 0's behind it? Times a trillion, times a trillion, etc. That always made sense to me, forever can't be true, because we would never get to today.
But, was there nothing? And it turned into something? Even the word nothing doesn't do justice to the concept; it seems to imply something. Not space or dark matter or a singularity, but non-existence. It just boils down to one of two things:

Existence forever? or
Existence out of nonexistence?

Both are absolutely absurd to me! Preposterous!

But to fault Einstein for believing there was a Creator behind it all? That doesn't seem right. I've found that if you read enough of anyone's works, anyone that has produced significant works, you'll find the assumption of a Creator of the Universe as we know it, or the assumption of the absence of a Creator of it. And since a Creator would exist outside of any observable dimensions, anyone claiming to be 'searching for the Creator, if there is one', would be on an extremely silly safari.

Maybe Einstein put too much effort into the wrong hypothesis? Or maybe it was the cocaine? Maybe he was just past his prime?

Einstein on cocaine?

I think you're thinking about Freud.

Nova on PBS this Tuesday evening will have an examination of Isaac Newton's strange mingling of science and religion.

Newton appears to have been much more under the sway of religious thought than Einstein ever was, apparently spending considerable time and energy into finding hidden messages in the Bible, along with serious dabbling into alchemy. I suppose one should cut him some slack since science was in its infancy and organized religion was very much the 700 pound gorilla during the 17th Century. Yet it's still puzzling how he could entertain both worlds in his mind.

Is he perhaps a better example of someone who could have accomplished more without the anchor rope of religion tied to him?

Yeah - think what great strides Ghandi and MLK could have taken without those darn religion albatrosses around their necks.