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Comment by pak | Hacker News Reader

"Why was the universe created?"

Do you think science will ever answer this question? The universe as a whole is on some level inexplicable, unless we somehow manage to transcend our existence in it...

Saying that a scientist's belief in God causes confirmation bias in his research results is more ad hominem and less productive criticism. Einstein believed in God, and in fact wrote extensively about the relationship he felt between God and his theories of the universe. Likewise many scientists lead productive careers without an iota of their religion (or family, or culture, or whatever have you) impacting the rigor of their work.

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einstein-god relationship has been proven false repeatedly. it has stuck around because people keep mass-forwarding stuff like that..

"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." from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691023689?ie=UTF8&tag=...

and a letter in which he wrote about his disbelief was auctioned a couple of years back: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscienc...

i said "_could_ result in confirmation bias". that is, make confirmation bias more probable, not absolute..

""Why was the universe created?" Do you think science will ever answer this question?"

hopefully, some day, if we work towards it..

should we instead give up and resign ourselves to the fact that a wizard did it?

I didn't say he believed in a personal god. He believed in a more abstract sort of god, one that reflected the mysteries that humans will never penetrate; he also said this concept defined his sense of being religious.

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - 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."

"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."

source please? that was in response to a rabbi.. was he trying to be diplomatic?

so he was.. agnostic?

"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment." from: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7921.html

are agnostics believers? you are still assuming einstein is infallible. einstein believing in god would not really prove the existence of god

he also did not believe in black-holes etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein#Einstein.27s_controver...

Maybe. Maybe not. But I certainly think we've advanced well beyond the 6 day creation myth of the bible.

Can you still call yourself a Christian if you selectively edit the parts of the Christian faith you chose to hold? If so, how much?

Most people don't actually hold their beliefs up to scrutiny. And none of us can claim to be totally consistent. My impression is that most Christian "scientists" (not Christian Scientists, TM), are really Judeo-Christian ethicists, and culturally connected to a Christian community. But they have left a literal belief in the Christian canon far behind.

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