Einstein on God

I came across a post on Facebook that I initially thought was bullshit. It claimed that Einstein said he believed in the God of Baruch Spinoza. He believed that perhaps a god exists, and you can find him in the revelry of the universe, in the sunset, in the eyes of a loved one. But a personal god was difficult to accept.

He did not call himself an atheist, which I somewhat recently stopped calling myself (one cannot prove a deity does or does not exist, therefore complete disbelief is an impossibility). But using the bible as both proof and a guide to the mind of God devalues and disrespects the entirety of human intellect.

Wikipedia backed up the claim with this post.

Some highlights below all come from the Wikipedia post:

Einstein had explored the idea that humans could not understand the nature of God. In an interview published in George Sylvester Viereck‘s book Glimpses of the Great (1930), Einstein responded to a question about whether or not he defined himself as a pantheist. He explained:

Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.^[22]

Einstein stated, “My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”^[23]

Marxism will claw your eyes out

I’ve been spending some time thinking about the right-wing talking point and demonization of “marxism,” “communism,’ and/or “socialism” and any combination of those three words to claw at the eyes of perceived enemies of America and its ideals.

Any glance at the comments conservative news sites are chockfull of dropping those three words any time a person feels threatened by “the other side.”

I was reading about Marxism today, because I was scratching my head after reading this one breitbart article. The comments were all, “These libtards want to force their marxist ideas down our throats!”

And like Princess Bride, I kept thinking, “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

On the surface and from an academic perspective, Marxism seems benign. The whole idea that its focus is to eliminate classes, to create a sense of one is not better than the other, that the poor to the working class to the upper elite should be eliminated, it makes you wonder what the fuss is all about. The criticism of it is that power corrupts. While wanting a class free society, some dick ends up getting greedy. See Animal Farm for a simple parable-like explanation.

On the surface, the animals just wanted to rid themselves of the tyrannical forces of the farmer. But, spoiler alert, the animals when governing themselves, made their own hierarchy.

I mean, a philosophy with the purpose of equalizing people’s place in life is the ultimate goal, is it not?. You know where that’s supposed to happen … in heaven. Heaven is going to make everyone equal. Everyone who professeses their acceptance that … well, you know the gospel. Everyone who accepts the gospel will eventually land a spot in heaven (after they die, of course) and no disease, no affliction, no differences of class or distinction will separate the masses living forever in paradise.

But paradise is too good for earth. So enters capitalism and all its perfections. Capitalism, where greed trumps grace. Where buying property and filling it with crap stuff is paramount to impressing the ladies when they come over for Bible study.

The foot soldiers and their grievances toward equality, I mean, Marxism, on these conservative sites makes me giggle, frankly. If I sat down with any number of my conservative friends, I bet money that we would agree that on the whole, we are all created in God’s image and we should all have equal access to all the things that makes this country great. And by some argument, we can say, “Yes, poor people have an opportunity in this country.”

But that’s the philosophy. That’s not the truth.

All forms of economy feature negative spots as well as positives. Staking a claim in one philosophy outdoes them all … that’s a challenge.

Mind you, I’m not advocating for marxism, communism or socialism. The arguments are to be made that we have socialized government now. And so long as the complainant has access to those socialized services and not everyone, the poor schmoes in the conservative camps are sound as pounds.

All these people dropping Marxism into their language, at most, are complaining that equality for all is untenable, unmanageable, it’s too much for them to handle, and therefore, we must demonize it. But they are demonizing their own faith philosophy.

I agree, marxism is untenable. But so is capitalism. So is a mix of the two.

How are we to progress if we don’t continue to pursue a better good? Excellence is clearly unachievable. So let’s make the world a little better for as many people as possible.

I heard this woman on XM Comedy Central radio the other day. She was telling a bit about how the conservatives who don’t want equality for all are the types of characters in the TV show Mad Men. White businesss executives who lived before civil rights. They wake up hungover, likely still a little drunk, their wives tend to the kids and make him breakfast. He tops his coffee with a little whiskey and heads out the door forgetting to kiss his wife. He gets to work, fucks his assistant, and takes a few phone calls before heading to lunch where he and the gang of white dudes drinks for 3 hours. He returns to the office, his assistant tells him she’s pregnant. He fires her, phones his wife to say he’ll be late, goes to dinner with clients and hookers, and finds his way home for a few hours of sleep only to start again tomorrow.

THAT’S what the old white dudes want to keep sacred. Ain’t no room at the table for women of power, brown and black people with power, homosexuals with power. “When I look out across the conference table, I want to see white men reflecting right back at me!”

Are these same people going to miserable wretches in Heaven when their Communist, Stalinist, Marxist nightmare’s come true? I mean, Jesus. How is the economy of heaven going to survive market crashes if everyone is equal and that currencies aren’t necessary, because everyone’s sucking off the teat of the centralized God-style government? How will these people survive if they are scooping gravy mashed potatoes from the same buffet onto their plates next to the guy who begged for change at that one intersection for years?

What a public relations nightmare heaven is going to be. You spent your entire 90 years warring against an ideology that you have to live with not only a lifetime, but 90 x 90 x 90 x 90 years. Maybe even longer The same people who watch NewsMax, OAN and Fox whilst holding a tablet in their lap surfing all their websites, are going to need rehab to detox from all the information they learned on earth telling them how terrible the economy of heaven is supposed to be.

It’d be great if they project their faces onto screens in hell so we can watch their faces when they realize that they invested their entire earth existence into demonizing their eternities. “Oh shit, the latino, the black and the Asian souls are all here getting the same pampered treatment as me?”

On their screens in heaven, they see all the people in hell. Where there was supposed to be flames, there’s none. Where there were supposed to be torture devices, there are none. Where there was supposed to be a mad leader with goat horns and a pitch fork, there’s a dude that looks faintly like Kurt Cobain performing a live concert and a lot of people kicking it in the audience.

That, “oh shit, I chose the wrong path moment” soars through the entirety of heaven. Peter throws the gates shut and the latch clicks with a bang. His head kicks back in a monstrous laugh.

And eternity begins.