God Talks with Einstein about His Self - Revelation in Nature
A dialogue written by Raymond Fontaine Ph.D. - June 2003
Last evening on TV, a commentator reported that the religious differences between the Shiites and the Sunni Moslems and the Kurds constitute a formidable obstacle to democracy in Iraq. Likewise the religious conflict between the Jews and the Palestinians creates an impasse to permanent peace in Israel. When the pessimistic news ended, for relief I visited the Web sites of Deism and re-read Albert Einstein's ideas on religion. At that moment, I did not relate the TV news to the Internet's pages. Later, however, my subconscious mind connected the two in a dream about God talking with the German-born U.S. physicist Albert Einstein who died in 1955.
The dream began with God greeting Einstein and adding, "It's refreshing to talk with an intelligent human who wants to know the absolute truth about me and the world."
"Yes, Lord," said Einstein. "As a scientist I'm not interested in legends and myths concocted by human imagination. I want the facts and reality as it is. Can you help me?"
"I think so," God replied, "but first tell me all that you know about me and where you got the information."
"OK," Einstein answered. "By myself, I observed the structures, designs and laws of nature. Then, just as a painting presupposes a painter and a book requires a writer, so too, I thought, the intricate structures and laws in nature presuppose a maker, an originator. From nature, my reason concludes that you exist, that you are intelligent. That's all."
"With such little knowledge of me," God enquired, "how do you relate with me in an emotional, enduring way?"
"My religious feeling towards you takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. I stand in awe of the structure of the world and of you, its Creator. Do you need more from me?"
"Son," God replied, "I don't need anything from my creatures. From them I don't expect and want more worship than what you, Einstein, express towards me. I'm satisfied with your admiration of my handiwork and gratitude for the benefits of nature."
"But billions of humans have been led to believe that you have revealed a lot more about yourself. They also believe that in the past you have intervened in nature and human affairs and still do. They were also told that you have specified the kind of worship and ritual you desire from humans."
"They also believe," said God "that I inspired a select few to compile the Bible, the Koran and the Gospels without errors."
Well," asked Einstein, "did you?"
"No," said God definitively.
" My Lord," Einstein said, "Why did you allow the proliferation of these religious untruths that have caused confusion and conflict for thousands of years?"
"Because, as you surmise," God answered, "I don't intervene in the normal course of nature nor in human affairs. When the swollen waters of the Huang He River flooded China's countryside killing 3,700,000 people, I did not intervene. When Hitler ordered the Holocaust that executed 6,000,000 Jews, I did not intervene. I don't contravene the laws that I created."
"May I make a suggestion?" Einstein asked. When God nodded, Einstein said, "Couldn't you induce universal amnesia of all beliefs in spurious supernatural revelations that seriously warped human cultures, pitting one against the other?"
"If that would happen," God added, "then one bright morning every human would awaken thinking like you, Einstein, that the only revelation of myself is in the structures and laws of nature."
"That's right," Einstein answered. "Wouldn't that be wonderful? No more confusion, no more conflicts, no more killings based on fictitious religious beliefs. Don't you want that?"
"Yes," God agreed, "except that humans must reach and accept this conclusion on their own. If you and so many other deists could embrace this simple revelation of myself in nature, why can't every reasonable person do likewise?"
"They will someday," said Einstein, "but that can take centuries and perhaps millenniums."
"That's OK," said God. "I waited 4.5 billion years for the earth to develop and reach its present state. I waited 2 million years for humans to reach their present evolution. I can wait until all mankind agrees that the only thing that I have revealed about myself is what the structures and laws of nature presuppose - an intelligent Creator."
When I awoke, I realized in a flash that if the Moslems in Iraq and Palestine as well as the Jews in Israel believed in God as revealed in nature, they would reject all the spurious religious teachings that have poisoned their cultures for centuries. They could live in peace with one another, sharing the treasures of nature that the Creator has provided for all his creatures.