Einstein's God, or The Hopes for a Secular Spirituality (Part 4)
Einstein's allegiance has been claimed by both sides of the science vs. religion debate, but in reality his position was too personal and exploratory to be assigned to either camp. He believed in "Spinoza's God" rather than the Judeo-Christian God. His mind was scientific, yet he felt that there was a realm of reality that could only be dimly sensed by the mind, a realm of wonder and mystery. "Spinoza's God" isn't a phrase that resonates with many people, but Einstein went on to explain it by saying that Spinoza regarded the body and the soul as one. This is really the key concept in Einstein's religious thinking, and although he was famous for not accepting quantum mechanics, it's to quantum reality that we must look in order to find where body and soul, mind and matter might be united.
Quantum physics reduces all matter and energy to a single unifying field (held to be valid by almost all theorists even though the final stages of Grand Unification, as it is called, haven't been mathematically worked out). Because we exist inside the field, each of us is a localized outcropping in the field, the same as a single magnet is an outcropping in the Earth's magnetic field. At the most fundamental level, we are the field, and the mystery of mind or soul --both being intangible aspects of reality -- leads directly to the field and nowhere else. It is as omnipresent as Allah, Brahman, or the God of Christian theology. An all-encompassing field dotted with local minds (human beings) is interacting with itself. This fact is beyond dispute when it comes to matter and energy. An electron spinning through the Andromeda galaxy has exactly the same properties as an electron spinning in your cerebral cortex.
What fascinated Einstein is the prospect that the universe has other interrelated properties. Like every great scientific mind before the quantum era, Einstein saw order, beauty, coherence, and law in the universe. And he seemed to acknowledge that an intelligence, hidden from the five senses but perceivable, however dimly, to the human mind, made design and orderliness possible. This contention has never been refuted and is, in fact, the simplest and most elegant way to explain cosmic order. Einstein was disturbed by any version of physics that denied orderliness, and to the end of his life he couldn't reconcile himself to the Uncertainty Principle or to the radical ambiguity of the quantum world, where order and disorder play an eternal shadow game.
He wound up in old age being irrelevant on both the religious and scientific front. His God was too impersonal for the religionists; his physics was too idealistic for the scientists (idealistic in the sense that Einstein never abandoned his belief in a non-random creation). What's so heartening about him today is that Einstein never adopted the arrogant small-mindedness of contemporary atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, neither of whom evinces the slightest awareness of the quantum revolution that occurred a century ago. Without a shadow of arrogance Einstein wrote, "What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos." I remain amazed that his beliefs are dismissed while those of much lesser minds earn general acceptance. Quite rightly, Einstein thought that atheists are slaves to the religious tradition they hate and hold such a grudge against traditional religion that "they cannot hear the music of the spheres."
He was also right, sad to say, when he said that religion and science came into contention over a personal God. It's still true that science cannot accept a God who meddles in human affairs, as Einstein phrased it, while religionists refuse to see beyond a personal God that can be loved as a cosmic father or mother. If anyone doubts that Einstein was exploring a new form of spirituality for the future, consider what he had to say about Buddhism:
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic
religion of the future. It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and
theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on a
religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and
spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
In the last installment of this post, I want to ask if the future has arrived: Are we ready for a secular spirituality that will include all the advantages that Einstein saw in Buddhism while forging a new path into unknown territory?
Note: For extended treatment of the quotes found here, see Walter Isaacson's "Einstein: His Life and Universe."
(to be continued)
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Einstein, Dawkins, and Hitchens are in substantial agreement with each other. Their "differences" are mainly matters of semantics, tone, feelings, and the like.
Dawkins expressly embraces "Einstein's religion" and chooses to express it in nonreligious terms. In The God Delusion, he says: "Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from Einstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.' In this sense I too am religious, with the reservation that 'cannot grasp' does not have to mean 'forever ungraspable'. But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading because, for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies 'supernatural'."
Einstein too expresses his "difference" from most atheists as one of feelings. As Chopra quotes him: "What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos."
Chopra's quarrel with Dawkins and Hitchens, thus, appears founded not on any substantive difference between Einstein and them, but rather on what Chopra sees as their lack of "humility," "arrogance," and "small mindedness." Jeez! Get over it.
Beg pardon, but I think it's Dawkins, et al, who should "get over it". Their whining about the lack of respect the poor atheists get DOES translate into an arrogance that pollutes and perverts the really worthy parts of their stories. Why should I listen to them? The "god/noGod" argument is so old school. I am way over that.
My point was that Chopra (and now you) would do well to focus on the substance, which is the important part, and less on the tone, atmospherics, or style. To the extent that Dawkins et al. don't mince words when it comes to discussing religion (a subject some prefer to be addressed only in hushed, polite terms), I find it refreshing. I gather you don't. To each his own. Our differing tastes on such matters of style have little bearing on the substance of what Dawkins et al. say.
It is great to see Richard Dawkins’ popularity soar. It looks as if “The God Delusion” may hit the one-year mark on the New York Times Bestseller list in less than two weeks.
Isn’t DC a little unfair when Deepak says Richard Dawkins does not evince the slightest awareness of the quantum revolution that occurred a century ago? Again Deepak assigns a position to someone. Again, it is erroneous and in this case does not even exist. Richard Dawkins is heavily into Quantum Theory and even lectures about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APOxsp1VFw&mode=related&search
What Dawkins does not evince or demonstrate is a connection between Quantum Theory and New Age theory.
Maybe Chopra should read more science. Everything can be reduced to quantum physics eventually, but even then 'higher' sciences such as evolution will remain valid sciences.
In the mean time, Chopra should try to discover that Philosophy is different from sciences. "Truth" in any particular philosophy has entirely different meaning than "truth" in science.
"In the last installment of this post, I want to ask if the future has arrived: Are we ready for a secular spirituality that will include all the advantages that Einstein saw in Buddhism while forging a new path into unknown territory?"
Lay it on us man--the world needs a new vision!
Obviously Mr. Chopra has never read anything by Richard Dawkins, especially "The God Delusion". Prof. Dawkins specifically says he understands and is accepting of "Einstein's god" and that it is a personal god that he is more than wary of. Moreover, Sam Harris states in "The End of Faith" that he adheres to Eastern philosophical principals and practices (or has practiced) meditation to achieve "spiritual" awareness.
I respect Mr. Chopra, but he really needs to get his facts straight when it comes to the views of the most outspoken atheists.
I hope Prof. Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and even Sam Harris respond to this post by Mr. Chopra.
As a non-believer of a different stripe, I find the attitudes of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris -- as they have personally expressed them online, often here on Huffington Post -- to be intellectually offensive. I can't speak for Dr. Chopra (although I believe he claims to have read their work), but why would I bother to read entire tomes by people who, in their online communications, demonstrate little understanding of or respect for MY point of view? They create straw men to demolish with an angry glee, when they could be reaching out to otherwise sympathetic minds who are searching for new approaches to the human dilemma.
I disagree. They are three of the most intellectually honest, not intellectually offensive, people I've had the honor to read. I'm not sure what it is about their writings on Huffpo you find so "intellectually offensive". By using that term you are making the statement that you find their rationalism toward these issues diagreeable to your senses. How can you find rationalism disagreeable in any way?
So I took the dogs out to the park today. They are quite excitable; so much so that the house-mate doesn't even want me to say "park" because the the dogs get so jumpy. (They're her dogs, I just take care of them on occasion.)
Regardless I thought about it for a good hour before doing so, thinking the weather has really cooled down, and now that the dog park opened again it would be OK to bring them there. I went out to the Jeep, pulled all the stuff from the back, put in the sheet (keeps the hair to a minimum) and left the jeep door open. It wasn't until when I walked in, and looked at them by the front window did they suspect anything. Even when I said, "You guys ain't figured it out," they were rather sedate; that despite the magic word "out." When I opened the front door and said "go out to the Jeep," did they determine something they truly love to do was going to happen. They ran like the wind and slobbered over everything - a sign of excitement.
So you still believe in this absurd "uber consciousness"? Sounds like woo woo to me.
what a long multi-part windup to the famous Einstein Buddhism quote.
I would add that there is a dark side to spirituality, because of the heightened awareness you develop -- especially about psychology, but also by dropping psychological barriers to broader understanding (seeing past labels like "self" and "enemy" to interrelationships and systemic effects).
in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Lord Buddha says to Subhuti,
"Oh Subhuti, any son or daughter of noble family who takes up a sutra like this, or who holds it, or reads it, or comprehends it fully, will suffer. They will suffer intensely."
___
"Ye ghosts and demons, enemies of the Dharma, I welcome you today! It is my pleasure to receive you! I pray you, stay; do not hasten to leave; We will discourse and play together. Although you would be gone, stay the night; We will pit the Black against the White Dharma, And see who plays the best. Before you came, you vowed to afflict me. Shame and disgrace would follow If you returned with this vow unfulfilled."
(Milarepa)
___
P.S. say hi to Robert Thurman for me.
How can a thought which speaks to empirical truth be arrogant?
Is it arrogant to say if one goes out into a Thunderstorm you will get wet?
Is it arrogant to say an argument has no emipirical weight if it has none?
Are numbers arrogant, trees, rocks, the universe?
it's not arrogant at all to state an empirical truth. what some individuals find arrogant (mr. chopra included, i presume), is the premise that empiricism has a monopoly on truth. Everyone gets wet in thunderstorms, but debate has yet to close on whether or not the rain was there for that purpose.
Imagine that! Rain with a purpose. Some rain is good, no rain is bad, enough rain is good, too little rain is bad, too much rain is bad and sad.
Rain's purpose is a mystery.
Associating a unified field theorum with human conciousness and spirituality is the basis for the Natural Law Party (originally from TM.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Law_Party
Although the argument is circular in nature, it still offers a positive and beautiful viewpoint that can translate to beneficial action for humanity.
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Posted September 7, 2007 | 07:15 PM (EST)