Albert Einstein: Religion and Science

The Judaic scriptures admirably exemplify the phylogeny from the godliness of fear to incorrupt morality, a ripening continued in the New Testa handst. The religions of tot e very(prenominal) last(predicate)y civilised peoples, curiously the peoples of the Orient, argon in the first place honorable religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great abuse in peoples lives. And yet, that autochthonic religions atomic number 18 base alone on fear and the religions of civilized peoples nicely on worship is a prejudice against which we must(prenominal) be on our guard. The truth is that in all religions be a varying perish of both(prenominal) types, with this note: that on the high levels of social purport the religion of morality predominates. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic fictional character of their idea of graven pick up. In general, only individuals of extraordinary endowments, and exceptionally idealist ic communities, rise to any(prenominal) considerable finale above this level. save thither is a third re-create of spiritual fix which belongs to all of them, until now though it is seldom found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic unearthly olfactory property. It is very difficult to authorize this looking to anyone who is entirely without it, curiously as there is no anthropomorphic conception of paragon jibe to it. The individual feels the futility of military man desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous ready which reveal themselves both in constitution and in the humanness of thought. Individual universe of discourse impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to acquaintance the universe as a star signifi bunst whole. The beginnings of cosmic phantasmal effect already turn up at an azoic stold age of development, e.g. in galore(postnominal) of the sing of David and in well-nigh of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we plant learned especiall y from the wonderful literature of Schopenhauer, contains a ofttimes stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages necessitate been distinguished by this engaging of religious feeling, which knows no article of faith and no God conceived in mans image; so that there can be no perform whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is hardly among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their generation as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men identical Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely similar to one another. How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite sentiment of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the roughly important accountability of art and information to awaken this feeling and keep it lively in those who are receptive to it.