Being a deep thinker is a sure fire way to be misunderstood. When it comes to Einstein on religion, the mischaracterizations never seem to end.

A popular belief was that Einstein was religious. He certainly used the word religion enough, but if one reads the context in which he writes on religion, he is not speaking of centralized religion, and certainly not monotheistic religion. He is talking about ethics, which he loosely equated with religion. He was referring to general human spirituality, which in his time was yet represented by religion.

One of Einstein’s most oft-quoted phrases speaks of the lameness of science without religion and the blindness of religion without science. Einstein applied the scientific method as the avenue to knowledge of choice, but he did not consider it useful in determining right from wrong; that to him was where the need for “religion” came in, and one could fulfill that need through thinking about life and applying oneself to an inclusive ethical system, whether it came from a secular philosopher or the Bible. Atheists and non-theists, in that sense, could be religious.

At the same time, Einstein embraced reason over revelation. Existence was God to him, and he was awed by God’s order as it appeared before his reason, not before his blind beliefs or faith. Like the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the Bible to Einstein was cultural literature, not the dogmatic word of God.

Einstein also had no use for the concept of a personal God. Like Spinoza, he too was a pantheist. Indeed, he believed it the duty of priests to reject the monotheistic God made exclusive and separated from humanity and the world, and that they would fail their calling as teachers of morality unless they did so.

In speaking of his own religion, Einstein had little tolerance for the concept of a Chosen People. He considered this the immature divinization of a clan, just as nationalism was to him a psychological disease fitting a childish humanity.

If there was a high religious, meaning ethical, calling to Einstein, it would have surely been to establish a multinational organization whose unifying purpose was to prevent war. A staunch pacifist who considered Gandhi an exemplary spiritual leader, his greatest fear was the near destruction of the human race through nuclear weapons.

But the religion of self-expansion and selfless service to humanity, freedom from narrow religious and nationalistic labels, and the unity of the human race is not a religion that many find comfortable. Liberation from the narrow sense of self, which Einstein believed was the true measure of a human being, is not a religion most people aspire toward. It is easier to be divisive and exclusive because being so easily justifies our selfish materialistic ambitions.

The problem is that if Einstein is right, then his sense of religion is our only and best hope; and we’re finding that he’s more and more right every day, even when we thought he was wrong. Will the leaders of nations, churches, and corporations heed his warning?

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