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"I believe in mystery and, frankly, I sometimes face this mystery with great fear. In other words, I think that there are many things in the universe that we cannot perceive or penetrate, and that also we experience some of the most beautiful things in life only in a very primitive form. Only in relation to these mysteries do I consider myself to be a religious man. But I sense these things deeply. What I cannot understand is how there could possibly be a God who would reward or punish his subjects." - interview with Peter Bucky, quoted in The Private Albert Einstein, p. 85
"Actually, my first religious training of any kind was in the Catholic catechism. A fluke, of course, only because the primary school that I first went to was a Catholic one. I was, as a matter of fact, the only Jewish child in the school. This actually worked to my advantage, since it made it easier for me to isolate myself from the rest of the class and find the comfort in solitude that I so cherished." - ibid., p. 86
"There was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. Thus I came - despite the fact that I was the son of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents - to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic freethinking, coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude which has never again left me." - autobiographical notes written for Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, 1946
"It has not done so up to now." - Einstein's reply, after an interviewer asked him if religion will promote peace. - What Great Men Think of Religion, by Ira Cardiff
"Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends." - The Best of Humanism, by Roger Greeley
(Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia's largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail. This is a chapter from his 1996 book, 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt.)
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