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The following excerpts are taken from Albert Einstein - The Human Side,
Selected and Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton
University Press, 1979. From pp. 42 - 44
On 22 March 1954 a self-made man sent Einstein in Princeton a long


had the courage to speak out, and he wondered if it would not be best to
return the world to the animals. Saying "I presume you would like to
know who I am," he went on to tell in detail how he had come from Italy
to the United States at the age of nine, arriving in bitter cold
weather, as a result of which his sisters died while he barely survived;
how after six months of schooling he went to work at age ten; how at age
seven**** he went to Evening School; and so on, so that now he had a
regular job as an experimental machinist, had a spare-time business of
his own, and had some patents to his credit. He declared himself an
atheist. He said that real education came from reading books. He cited
an article about Einstein's religious beliefs and expressed doubts as to
the article's accuracy. He was irreverent about various aspects of
formal religion, speaking about the millions of people who prayed to God
in many languages, and remarking that God must have an enormous clerical
staff to keep track of all their sins. And he ended with a long
discussion of the social and political systems of Italy and the United
States that it would take too long to describe here. He also enclosed a
check for Einstein to give to charity. On 24 March 1954 Einstein
answered in English as follows: I get hundreds and hundreds of letters
but seldom one so interesting as yours. I believe that your opinions
about our society are quite reasonable. It was, of course, a lie what
you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being
systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have
never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me
which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for
the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. I have
no possibility to bring the money you sent me to the appropriate
receiver. I return it therefore in recognition of your good heart and
intention. Your letter shows me also that wisdom is not a product of
schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
From p. 66

There is in the Einstein Archives a letter dated 5 August 1927 from a
banker in Colorado to Einstein in Berlin. Since it begins "Several
months ago I wrote you as follows," one may assume that Einstein had not
yet answered. The banker remarked that most scientists and the like had
given up the idea of God as a bearded, benevolent father figure
surrounded by angels, although many sincere people worship and revere
such a God. The question of God had arisen in the course of a discussion
in a literary group, and some of the members decided to ask eminent men
to send their views in a form that would be suitable for publication. He
added that some twenty-four Nobel Prize winners had already responded,
and he hoped that Einstein would too. On the letter, Einstein wrote the
following in German. It may or may not have been sent:
I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the
actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures
of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that
mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by
modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the
infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we,
with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.
Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God.

From pp. 69-70

A Chicago Rabbi, preparing a lecture on "The Religious Implications of
the Theory of Relativity," wrote to Einstein in Princeton on 20 December
1939 to ask some questions on the topic. Einstein replied as follows:

I do not believe that the basic ideas of the theory of relativity can
lay claim to a relationship with the religious sphere that is different
from that of scientific knowledge in general. I see this connection in
the fact that profound interrelationships in the objective world can be
comprehended through simple logical concepts. To be sure, in the theory
of relativity this is the case in particularly full measure. The
religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical
comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different
sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a
feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material
universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like
being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes
an interest in us as individuals.
There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer
being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely
human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere.