Einstein's letter about religion sells for $400,000

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In the letter Einstein claimed that he is atheist but in his published works he has slightly different views from the letter.

Einstein wrote the following in the letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954 and shared his religious views. The letter is a partial one and is translated from German to English by Joan Stambaugh.

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text.

For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and `rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein.

This handwritten German letter shown in the picture above was sold to an overseas collector for $404,000 more than 25 times the pre-sale estimate of the seller at the Bloomsbury Auctions on Friday in London. There was a heavy bidding in the auctions which led to this high figure.

Bloomsbury did not disclose the name of the buyer but managing director Rupert Powell told AP the buyer has a scientific background in theoretical physics.

Einstein experts said the letter shows that he had a complex, agnostic views on religion. Everyone knew he rejected organized faith and religion but often spoke in his published works that a spiritual force is at work in the universe.

Whether Einstein is an atheist or an agnostic, there is going to be lot of debate in the coming days. But one thing is for certain, Einstein wouldn't have expected his private letter to be sold and discussed in a public forum.