Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Einstein and God

Einstein and God

There seems an endless fascination among the religious to quote Einstein and cite his references to God. They quote Einstein to leverage his scientific brilliance and by extension, justify the existence of a God and justify why people of lesser intelligence should believe. They insinuate that If Einstein believed there to be a God, surely he is smart enough to know better, therefore God exists and so everyone should believe. This assumes that Einstein, when using the word God, meant exactly the same definition of God that a believer has in their mind. Even believers can't agree on the true definition of God, so what are the chances of it matching what Einstein meant. Probably low to none.

If we take a look back over the history of science and scientists who believed in God, we could find many such examples. Brilliant minds, observing and discovering brilliance in science, nature, mathematics and physics to name just a few. For each observation and/or discovery, they formed an extensive hypothesis, which turned into a theory and is eventually accepted as fact through application of scientific method. This theory is peer reviewed, critically analysed, verifiable and backed up by evidence. The discoveries, hypothesis and theories put forward by Einstein are continually challenged and are proven correct on a daily basis via their real world application and experiment.

Now turn your gaze towards Einstein in regards to the idea of God. It is essentially irrelevant who or what posits the existence of God. A layman, a builder, a computer programmer or a brilliant scientist can all state their belief in God but, as certain as the passing of time, the idea and existence of God has failed peer review, has not survived critical analysis, cannot be verified and is not backup up by evidence. Ignore this at your peril. God is not even a theory in the eyes of the scientific method. At most it is a highly unsubstantiated and unverifiable hypothesis and as such, Einstein, as with all others before him, have come no closer to proving God, even if that is what he meant.

The scientific method is consistent. It continues to provide evidence beyond doubt that a majority of the Bible stories didn't happen and easily dismisses poorly presented, inconsistent and unverifiable claims that God exists. Through all of the hard work, it continues the confirm the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, the theory of special relativity, theory of general relativity, mathematics, general physics and quantum physics, to name a few. The gaps for God to sit in are constantly being removed by the scientific method to such an extent that theists now move God outside of the physical world, to other realms not observable or available for analysis.

This puts a theist in a very difficult position. Place confidence in Einstein to prove and justify the existence of a God but on the other hand, deny the scientific method that continually invalidates and dismisses the foundation documents, stories within the Bible and, of course, God.

Using Einstein to justify a God, or your belief in God, is absurd.

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