Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Einstein and Embracing The Mystery

Rev. Tim Carson at University Christian Church devotes his Wednesday e-mail to a discussion about Albert Einstein and God based on Walter Isaacson’s new biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe. "I dare say that it would be impossible for a truly informed religious person to be ignorant of Einstein’s views on faith and the universe, whether or not one subscribes to them in their entirely or in part," says Rev. Tim. Einstein was not a proponent of classical theism. He did not have a notion of a super-being, intervention into the natural order of things, or a personal God, but he also had little tolerance with the excesses of blatant atheism.

This Einstein quote jumped out at me:

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.”

This rings true to me and my view of the Universe. There is something out there that my mind can't grasp and I don't think our minds can ever grasp, but it is amazing and beautiful. That is the Mystery.

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