A handwritten letter by Albert Einstein rejecting religion has been auctioned for almost $3m (£2.3m).
The “God letter” was written in 1954 in Einstein’s native German in response to the work of the philosopher Eric Gutkind.
In the letter, the theoretical physicist outlines his thoughts on religion and his own Jewish identity.
“This remarkably candid, private letter was written a year before Einstein’s death and remains the most fully articulated expression of his religious and philosophical views,” a statement from Christie’s auction house in New York said.
The letter was sold for almost twice the auction house’s expected value of between $1m and $1.5m.
In his letter, Einstein states: “The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.
“No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can [for me] change anything about this.”
He also gives his thoughts on his own Jewish identity, stating the religion is “like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition”.
“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and in whose mentality I feel profoundly anchored, still for me does not have any different kind of dignity from all other peoples,” he writes.
“As far as my experience goes, they are in fact no better than other human groups, even if they are protected from the worst excesses by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot perceive anything ‘chosen’ about them.”
Earlier this year, another of Einstein’s letters warning of the rise of antisemitism more than a decade before the Nazis seized power in Germany was auctioned for $32,000.
Two notes briefly outlining the physicist’s thoughts on life and happiness sold at auction for $1.5m last year.
The publication of his personal diaries this year revealed his racist attitudes towards foreigners. In the private writings, he describes the Chinese as an “industrious, filthy, obtuse people” and writes of “bandit-like filthy Levantines”.
unamusedmagickarp on December 5th, 2018 at 18:41 UTC »
Any way to read the letter? I'm very interested in doing so.
Edit: Found it.
Princeton, 3. 1. 1954
Dear Mr Gutkind,
Inspired by Brouwer's repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an "unAmerican attitude."
Still, without Brouwer's suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual "props" and "rationalization" in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes,
Yours,
A. Einstein
el-toro-loco on December 5th, 2018 at 18:37 UTC »
The author of that letter — Albert Einstein
ohnoesAlterEgo on December 5th, 2018 at 18:10 UTC »
That’s fuck you money right here.