ALBERT EINSTEIN'S VIEWS ABOUT GOD AND RELIGION Einstein vacillated and was constantly growing in understanding about God and religion: Letter April 26, 1947 to Murray W. Gross: “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.” Albert Einstein, January 1, 1951 in letter to Maurice Solovine: “I have found no better expression than ‘religious’ for confidence in the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.” His objection in 1947 was not to God but rather to God as a personal "anthropomorphic."  By "anthropomorphic" he meant he didn't view God as a human-like being such as with an old gray-headed man with flowing hair and beard seated upon a throne looking down at earth, constantly intervening in human deeds.   Just four years later he was writing about religion positively as "the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason."

SO, WAS ALBERT EINSTEIN AN ATHEIST OR A PANTHEIST? Einstein believed in the universe having a Source and was fascinated to learn more about the Source although he does not appear to have thought of God as being personal or anthropomorphic.  That makes him close to having been a Pantheist which is a person who believes the Universe is both the Creation and its own Creator, and atheists have often called him a Pantheist.  However, being a Pantheist is not the same as what Einstein was, and even if it were, at that a Pantheist is not an atheist but rather a believer in all the universe being God and or God being the universe. Albert Einstein letter April 26, 1947 to Murray W. Gross: “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.” Albert Einstein, January 1, 1951 in letter to his friend Maurice Solovine: “I have found no better expression than ‘religious’ for confidence in the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism. ... I cannot accept your opinion concerning science and ethics or the determination of aims. What we call science has the sole purpose of determining what is. The determining of what ought to be is unrelated to it and cannot be accomplished methodically. Science can only arrange ethical propositions logically and furnish the means for the realization of ethical aims, but the determination of aims is beyond its scope. At least that is the way I see it.”

WHAT ALBERT EINSTEIN SAID AND THOUGHT OF CHRIST Albert Einstein said of Jesus Christ of Nazareth: 1. “As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”  2. “Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.”  3. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” ["What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17.] We know that this is an accurate quoting of Einstein for in A Life (1996) by Denis Brian, when asked about a clipping from a magazine article reporting his comments on Christianity as taken down by Viereck, Einstein carefully read the clipping and replied, "That is what I believe." In George Sylvester Viereck's interview of 1929 he also asked Albert Einstein, "You accept the historical existence of Jesus?" Einstein replied: "Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus." Viereck then said, "Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets."  Einstein answered, "No man can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he."

WHAT ALBERT EINSTEIN THOUGHT OF BOTH ATHEIST AND NON-ATHEIST BIGOTS 1800s atheism proponent Ludwig Feurbach Einstein chided and berated all bigotry whether from atheists or non-atheists, stating: “The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.”  Further, after the Union of Orthodox Rabbis expelled a fellow rabbi for disbelief in God as a personal entity he noted “To take those fools in clerical garb seriously is to show them too much honor.” From this and related quotes we know that he was not opposed to the good exercise of religion but to the bad exercise of it.  All bigotry is an impediment to the advancement of the human mind and positive social development.