Science: Einstein's 'God Letter' To Be Auctioned for $3 Million

A letter handwritten by physicist Albert Einstein a year before his death, expressing his views on religion, will be sold on eBay this month with an opening bid of $3 million, an auction agency said on Tuesday.

 Known as the “God Letter,” the correspondence offers insights into the private thoughts about religion, God and tribalism of one of the world’s most brilliant minds.

“This letter, in my opinion, is really of historical and cultural significance as these are the personal and private thoughts of arguably the smartest man of the 20th century,” said Eric Gazin, the president of Auction Cause, a Los Angeles-based premier auction agency, which will handle the sale on eBay.

“The letter was written near the end of his life, after a lifetime of learning and thought,” he added.

According to an Auction Cause translation, the Einstein's letter says:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this. 

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."

“There are no revelations here,” Buchwald said. “But it is frank in the sense that there are other writings where he says he understands a need for religion and is not derogatory…Here he makes his own position very clear.”

Einstein, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, was raised as a secular Jew.

According to Fox News, Einstein's letter has "been stored in a temperature-controlled vault since it was last sold for $404,000" in 2008.

God (Allah) says in the Holy Qur'an:

"How can you disbelieve in Allah? When you were without life, He gave you life, and then He will cause you to die, then restore you to life, and then to Him shall you be made to return." [Holy Qur'an, 2:29]

The Ahmadiyya Post, Science. 05 Oct 2012