Einstein: His real religious/theistic beliefs

[Travis Retriever]

I was really annoyed by my physics professor today.
He went on (he's done this before) about how "
"You might want to be an Atheist because you think Einstein is an Atheist, and you'd be in good company.  But no.  Einstein believed in a god.  As he studied Physics, more and more, he noticed that the equations and laws of the universe are similar.  So Einstein felt that there must have been a god to have made it so." (paraphrasing)  I felt my stomach drop from that first thing.
It was as if he was implying that idea touted by fundamentalists that atheism is just a thing teens use to rebel against their parents.
He also seems to be conflating Pantheism (?) with Full blown theism.
I found this:  http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Einstein
Does anyone know how to refute the claims of Einstein saying he believed in a god?
Especially if they have the quotes like, "I do not believe God would play dice with the universe" handy?

[MrBogosity]

"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.: --quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981)

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic." --Letter to Guy H. Raner Jr. (28 September 1949)

"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. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this...For me the Jewish religion like all others 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 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." --Letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3 1954

[Travis Retriever]

"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.: --quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981)

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic." --Letter to Guy H. Raner Jr. (28 September 1949)

"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. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this...For me the Jewish religion like all others 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 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." --Letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3 1954

Thanks Shane.
If Einstein is an Agnostic, he is also an Atheist, by definition (as explained on the Atheist Experience).
Don't get me wrong, I like my physics professor: he's awesome.
I just wish he'd keep his religious affiliations out of the classroom as it pertains to stuff like this.
Also, it sounds more like Einstein in that quote I asked of "god doesn't play dice with the universe" judging by the other quotes you provided, it sounds like he was being figurative or something.

What I found interesting was this quote on iron chariots from him: "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

    — Towards the Further Shore: An Autobiography

It sounds like he didn't subscribe to a positive belief that there isn't a god, but rather just lacked a belief and considered it.
I suppose he didn't think of the Null Hypothesis or something; or didn't want people to use him as a reason to believe, or not believe in a god.

[Travis Retriever]

When my prof talked about the Big Bang in class today, he talked about how the theory isn't mutually exclusive between theism; that it could have been a god that created that big bang in the first place (can't remember the exact words he said, so yah).

I know the Atheist response to this is best given from Carl Sagan in that; we must ask the next question:  who, or what created God?
And if we conclude that God didn't need a cause; why not save a step and say that the universe didn't need a cause?
If the argument that God always existed, then why not save another step and say that the universe (some form of it outside the big bang, or what have you) has always existed without the need of a creator being?

The theist response is that god is special, in that he exists outside of the laws of reality and of logic, so saying that its special pleading is wrong.

What is the atheist response to this argument?
Is the one in your video on the God Delusion the response?
Just out of curiosity (in case you had anything you wanted to add to it but couldn't because of time constraints.)

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, pretty much. It's special pleading. Since we don't know anything about the universe at t=0, then we don't know if it has to have a cause. And if the universe at that point is just an ordinary point in space-time like any other, then the universe is completely self-contained, and it had no beginning at all!

[Travis Retriever]

Got it, thanks.

Reminds me of that "quantum loop gravity" theory (the one where the universe shrank, then bounced back expanding again).

[MrBogosity]

That's Loop Quantum Gravity, and it's different.

[Travis Retriever]

That's what I meant. >_>

[Travis Retriever]

When I complained about how high college textbooks cost, and said, "For classes like math and Engineering (at least the classes where the material doesn't change very often) why not make a new one every several decade, or so and charge $20, rather than print a new edition about once every other year and charge $200+ for it."
His response was, "Well, the people writing the textbooks have to make money."

To which I facepalmed on the inside, and felt my bullshit detector scream "BROKEN WINDOW FALLACY!!!  DEFENSE OF CARTEL/MONOPOLY PROFITS BY THE STATE!!!"

I might make a seperate thread on State ind..I mean education versus the free market alternative in order to discuss the differences between them.  The main focus would be on college education, which, I get the feeling is anything but a free market...

[Travis Retriever]

He also defended the Bell Labs/AT&T monopoly on the grounds that they used that money to fund research into what would become the transistor; that if that monopoly wasn't broken up, it would have been good because they used a ton of their profits to fund science research.
*facepalms*
He needs to look into the actual studies being done on this.
In the videos I linked to in the "Government needed to fund science?" thread, the more companies spend on basic research science, the more their profits.  If he tries to make a bogus, "Economics of scale argument" (Which I've yet to find a good debunking of, but I digress), then going into the "but today, we need these huge systems to fund science today; a few people won't do";
he still wouldn't be taking into account a few things:
First, science done via the private sector is far more efficient than in the public sector (sorry, prof, but a government granted monopoly enforced with a gun is not private).  In the example given in the video, the private airplane stuff was at least 66 times more cost effective than the public equivalent at the Smithsonian Institute, so there wouldn't be as big a need for the huge systems in question.
Even if that kind of stuff is needed, that means there is a market incentive, and thus, it would emergent in a free market.
Also, because of aforementioned point about private funding of science at least CORRELATING to economic growth and especially to well being, I don't think he would need to lose sleep over this stuff.
He seems to be using WWII as anecdotal evidence, but come on!  How much of that stuff would have been able to come about had people been economically free?  Surely he can't think that people actually wouldn't have been willing to invest in that stuff, or that there was no demand for cheaper, more efficient computers.  I mean, come on!

[Virgil0211]

He also defended the Bell Labs/AT&T monopoly on the grounds that they used that money to fund research into what would become the transistor; that if that monopoly wasn't broken up, it would have been good because they used a ton of their profits to fund science research.
*facepalms*
He needs to look into the actual studies being done on this.
In the videos I linked to in the "Government needed to fund science?" thread, the more companies spend on basic research science, the more their profits.  If he tries to make a bogus, "Economics of scale argument" (Which I've yet to find a good debunking of, but I digress), then going into the "but today, we need these huge systems to fund science today; a few people won't do";
he still wouldn't be taking into account a few things:
First, science done via the private sector is far more efficient than in the public sector (sorry, prof, but a government granted monopoly enforced with a gun is not private).  In the example given in the video, the private airplane stuff was at least 66 times more cost effective than the public equivalent at the Smithsonian Institute, so there wouldn't be as big a need for the huge systems in question.
Even if that kind of stuff is needed, that means there is a market incentive, and thus, it would emergent in a free market.
Also, because of aforementioned point about private funding of science at least CORRELATING to economic growth and especially to well being, I don't think he would need to lose sleep over this stuff.
He seems to be using WWII as anecdotal evidence, but come on!  How much of that stuff would have been able to come about had people been economically free?  Surely he can't think that people actually wouldn't have been willing to invest in that stuff, or that there was no demand for cheaper, more efficient computers.  I mean, come on!

It's frustrating to live in a sea of ignorance, isn't it?

[Travis Retriever]

It's frustrating to live in a sea of ignorance, isn't it?

Yes, very.

By the way, Virgil, I've been meaning to ask you:
What is the theoretical/logical refutation for the "Economics of Scale" argument?
It was considered to be a legitimate argument in my economics text and in the class.

[Travis Retriever]

Also, something my prof went on about today was regarding nuclear power plants.
He kept pointing out (I don't know if he meant it descriptively or prescriptively, but I digress) in design points about them and other stuff how it's protected from terrorists using design of sorts.
I keep wondering, "Well, if we didn't have all the insane regulation of electric power plants, especially nuclear, maybe the costs of nuclear power people complain about wouldn't exist:  it would far cheaper."
"Regarding the terrorist threat:  use a non interventionist foreign policy as described by Harry Browne:  we'll be ok."
"As for our companies selling North Korea nuclear material, and them being inspected by the global commisions after 6 months only to find there are no bombs; and saying that they moved the stuff; well, for one we might want to stop providing aid to them.  I don't know if GE is really doing this or if they are being subsidized to do so.  I would think that because NK doesn't have much to give us in return it would be the latter."
Another student remarked that we saw them making nuclear weapons via satellite or something like that.
I don't know if it's true or not.  But the talk was that they claim to not have coal, natural gas, etc, so they would like nuclear fuel.


Do you think my thoughts on this are good?
And does that student's claims have merit?  If so, would do you think should be done?

[MrBogosity]

Actually, the biggest costs of nuclear power involve the waste. And that's only because the government won't let them re-enrich it.

[Travis Retriever]

Figures the biggest costs would be from government...Why am I not surprised?

What about the thoughts of North Korea building nuclear warheads talked about near the end of my last post?
Is this for real, or is that student (and my teacher) full of it?