You can't just take one quote out of context and use it to paint Einstein as altogether disinterested in religion -- he wasn't.
To him, there was a difference between believing in Your Own Personal Jesus™, or some variation of Abraham's fickle, meddling god (as in Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam), vs contemplating religion as a social/moral force and a line of philosophical inquiry about the origins of structure and organization in the universe. The whole point of him mentioning "Spinoza's God" is to underscore that difference.
Einstein wrote about religion on more than one occasion, and his views weren't as straightforward as "religion is dumb, I don't think about it." Far from it; he recognized the universe as something inherently profound and beautiful and drew from it a philosophical sense of spirituality. No one is accusing him of being a Bible thumping Jesus lover, but he was definitely interested (on the side) on questions of spirituality, purpose, etc.
My own personal take is that Einstein recognized the limits of our understanding and drew peace and inspiration from the boundless complexity yet to be understood. He found it powerfully spiritual, but he did not attribute it to a "personal" god the same way a follower of the Abrahamic religions would. Nonetheless he was interested in these questions, even if he didn't have the answers and didn't believe the Christians did.
You wrote a lot of words to argue an unrelated point. Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion.
> Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion.
OK, I agree with that assessment. But I wasn't arguing that Einstein was deeply theistic. I was saying he and other scientists were deeply interested in religion -- not to the degree of a theologian, obviously, but interested nonetheless. I believe that to still be true.
To him, there was a difference between believing in Your Own Personal Jesus™, or some variation of Abraham's fickle, meddling god (as in Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam), vs contemplating religion as a social/moral force and a line of philosophical inquiry about the origins of structure and organization in the universe. The whole point of him mentioning "Spinoza's God" is to underscore that difference.
Einstein wrote about religion on more than one occasion, and his views weren't as straightforward as "religion is dumb, I don't think about it." Far from it; he recognized the universe as something inherently profound and beautiful and drew from it a philosophical sense of spirituality. No one is accusing him of being a Bible thumping Jesus lover, but he was definitely interested (on the side) on questions of spirituality, purpose, etc.
More info in the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_vi...
Or this blog: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Parallel%20Uni...
I'm not saying this to defend Christianity; I think it's an absurd religion. Just pointing out that Einstein, like many scientists, thought about these questions frequently. Why wouldn't they? Religion can be approached scientifically too, and many practicing scientists are religious -- to a lesser extent than the general population, usually, but far from zero %. Three random data points, lots more if you search for them: https://phys.org/news/2015-12-worldwide-survey-religion-scie... https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...
My own personal take is that Einstein recognized the limits of our understanding and drew peace and inspiration from the boundless complexity yet to be understood. He found it powerfully spiritual, but he did not attribute it to a "personal" god the same way a follower of the Abrahamic religions would. Nonetheless he was interested in these questions, even if he didn't have the answers and didn't believe the Christians did.