This part of the reading — chapters 17-20 — was very interesting, and they held a lot of information about Einstein that I did not know before. I believed that Albert Einstein was an atheist, but this was not the case. Albert Einstein, as a child, went through an ecstatic religious face and then he rebelled against it. Later in life, Einstein states multiple times that he believes in a God, Spinoza’s God to be exact. This is both similar and different to Benjamin Franklin’s religious views. Franklin was religious in the being of his life, because he was raised as such. As he got older, Franklin began to question the existence of God and eventually this lead him to become a Deist. While Einstein believed in a God that determined everything, including human actions, Franklin believed that God did not intervene in human endeavors. It is very interesting how the religious views of these two men differ, especially when thinking about how they questioned God’s existence for some part of their lives. It was also interesting how Einstein often would avoid the topic of if he believed in a God. This differed from Franklin who would often just tell people what he believed when he was asked. Although I understand why Einstein was hesitant in telling people about his religious views, I still find it both weird and interesting that he would not tell people of his beliefs.
Morality was another topic that came up in the reading that made me think of Benjamin Franklin. Albert Einstein believed that the most important human endeavor was striving for morality in our actions. This is very similar to Franklin who believed that we should all strive to be moral. While Franklin came up with a list of virtues that should be obtained in order to be moral, Einstein believed that you only needed to “use for yourself little…but give to others much.” I think that it is interesting that both of these scientists believed that obtaining morality was something that we should strive to do.
Morality was another topic that came up in the reading that made me think of Benjamin Franklin. Albert Einstein believed that the most important human endeavor was striving for morality in our actions. This is very similar to Franklin who believed that we should all strive to be moral. While Franklin came up with a list of virtues that should be obtained in order to be moral, Einstein believed that you only needed to “use for yourself little…but give to others much.” I think that it is interesting that both of these scientists believed that obtaining morality was something that we should strive to do.