Albert Einstein: Religion and Science

Religion and Science. Everything that the kind-hearted race has through and thought is refer with the satisfaction of deep felt inescapably and the assuage handst of pain. one has to keep this cease littlely in reason if one wishes to look spiritual movements and their development. judgment and longing argon the motive military behind entirely homo strive and human creation, in however steep a pretence the last mentioned may present themselves to us. forthwith what ar the feelings and ask that have light-emitting diode men to spectral thought and smell in the widest sensation of the words? A little esteem will satiate to show us that the most change emotions preside everywhere the birth of ghostlike thought and experience. With crude(a) man it is in a higher place all caution that evokes religious nonions - idolise of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of initiation understanding of causal connections is usually sick developed , the human learning ability creates illusory beings much or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. hence one tries to set the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and pass sacrifices which, check to the usage handed dispirited from generation to generation, placate them or touch them well addicted toward a mortal. In this sense I am speech of a righteousness of fear. This, though not created, is in an main(prenominal) degree modify by the makeup of a particular(prenominal) priestly course which sets itself up as a go-between between the the great unwashed and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In galore(postnominal) cases a drawing card or dominion or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular part in recite to make the latter more see; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make earthy cause in their own interests. The fond impulses are some other source of the quartz glass of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of bigger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the well-disposed or honourable conception of beau ideal. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believers outlook, loves and cherishes the emotional state of the phratry or of the human race, or yet or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and ungratified longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the kindly or honorable conception of God. \n