I don't want to get into any of the knee-jerk defenses of faith vs. reason or God vs. things-just-happening; there is a place for both points of view in the world. I'm merely reacting to the oft-repeated-as-if-it-were- true claim that Einstein was a religionist or believed in God, almost always repeated by God freaks.
T'ain't true. He said some things that mentioned God, usually as a metaphor for the "laws of nature" as he perceived them. These quotes have been touted by people with a God to sell, doing the same thing Maharishi did, trying to use a public figure to sell their ideas. But the vast majority of Einstein's quotes in letters and talks dealt with his *lack* of belief in any kind of sentient God. His daughter in recent years has released a number of these letters into the public domain, with the effect that Einstein's overall position as a rational humanist with an astounding sense of wonder about the universe, but without the need to project some kind of sentience guiding and controlling it, is clear. Here are a few "balancing" quotes from him. Those who feel that they need to become angry or lash out at either him or at me for pointing them out, please read my recent post on Faith before doing so to get a feel for what you look like, and what you are demon- strating about the nature of your faith when you do so. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/einstein.htm http://www.atheistempire.com/greatminds/quotes.php?author=9 http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Religions-Atheist-Atheism-Agnostic.htm Now, that taken care of, as to the question of intuition. I for one see no problem with intuition being both a valuable and a valid mechanism, in both life and science. "Having a feeling" for how something works sometimes leads scientists to deeper and fuller understanding of the thing, and how it indeed seems to work. Sometimes it doesn't, and leads down a blind alley. The issue, in my opinion, is which one "owes allegiance to" the most -- one's intuition, or the facts. If the latter, you're a scientist, and will have no problem shrugging your shoulders, saying "Ooops...wrong about that one," and moving on. If the former, you're a religionist (or a solipsist), and choose to disregard verifiable, demonstrable facts so that you can persist in believing the things you want to believe. While the latter approach is as old as humanity, and seems to be the Operating System du Jour on this dumb- and-dumber planet, you're never going to convince me that it's either a rational approach, or a spiritual one. My notion of spiritual most closely maps to the Buddhist one of trying to suss out "What is," without a lot of "What I've been told is" or "What I'd like to be" in the way. Your mileage may vary. And that's OK, if you want to live your life that way. But don't think for a minute that you choosing to live your life that way sets any kind of standard.
