Why Science Can’t Replace Religion

[onager]

74. And right after that line, Einstein said...

Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions.

This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world.

Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.

The source appears to be a paper Einstein prepared for the initial meeting of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion In Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life in New York City, September 1940.

Welcome to DU, but I'd respectfully advise you to be very careful of bogus and out-of-context Einstein quotes in this group. Most of them have been posted and debunked many times over.

For example, as most people in the world now agree, evolution is the way God created the world.

"Most people in the world?" I spent 6 years living in Muslim countries, and I can guarantee you a bunch of those people wouldn't agree with that. Neither would many of my Fundamentalist Xian relatives. Nor would many scientists.