[Vision2020] About Evidence

[Donovan Arnold]

Well, he certainly did do his best work in his earlier years and not his last year. Nonetheless, he still was never an atheist up until then. Who knows what he thought in the last few days of life. Could of been an atheist, or a Christian. 
 
Donovan J. Arnold

From: Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com>
To: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>; viz <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] About Evidence

Concerning the question of Einstein's pantheism, consider that he wrote this:

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony
of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and
actions of human beings."

And:

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part
limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and
feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical
delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a
human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they
have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a
substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

The latter extract was written in 1954, 24 years after the extract
that you provided in which he wrote that, "I do not know if I can
define myself as a Pantheist."

Apparently, he came to a decision in those intervening years, as the
latter profession -- written shortly before he died -- is clearly
pantheistic.

pan·the·ism
noun /ˈpanTHēˌizəm/

the doctrine or belief that God is the universe and its phenomena
(taken or conceived of as a whole) or the doctrine that regards the
universe as a manifestation of God

Chas
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