Wonderful conversation Seth. I became a science educator largely due to Carl’s and Ann’s work. Lovely to see Sasha creating her own narrative from their wellspring of knowledge and perspective. Optimism has been in short supply for a few years now. Glad to see a little sunlight on a foggy day.
I hope we are still talking about Carl Sagan's contributions many years from now. I don't remember who said it, but I agree: "A man is only truly dead when he is forgotten. When he is remembered, he lives forever."
Carl was part of a movement that got Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" suppressed & set physics & cosmology back decades. He went against his *own principles* in doing so. Sorry, but nobody's perfect.
Dragons of Eden and Brocs Brain were the 1st books of Sagan I read. The Variations of Scientific Experience and Carl's own skepticism towards his own personal beliefs helped me leave religion and eventually superstitions. Forever thankful.
You hit this one out of the park, Seth! What a remarkable young woman...I'm sure her parents are just as much in awe at what she's become as she is of their influence. Got her book and read it in 3 days.
Contact is my favorite novel. There’s so many little windows into the protagonist’s thoughts - from her fascination with pi as a middle schooler, to imagining what a heaven would actually be like. It’s such a beautiful portrait told in these internal vignettes. The idea that Heaven is a place you are loved and accepted unconditionally really stuck with me. I realized I have the power to create a Heaven for my own children here and now, by being that warm and loving place they want to go. I’ve taken that realization very seriously ever since. It stays with me as I’m interacting wi the my kids on a daily basis. I can give them Heaven everyday in so many small ways. That’s very empowering.
This was a show that I meant to pass on when it popped up in my feed, but after two minutes, I was hooked. Thanks to Seth and to Sasha Sagan for such a beautiful conversation.
44:03 - it’s funny, as soon as Sasha came on screen live, I immediately thought she reminded me of her mother... Also, 29:41 is so on point. Great Interview all around. Thanks for having Sasha on; thank you Sasha for all you shared, and for writing a book that sounds like an important continuation of your parents’ work. I look forward to reading it!
She is so correct about the human need for ritual. I was a bit cynical about attending my high school graduation, I did it anyway (my friend didn't). It was more meaningful than I could have imagined.
I didn't even know anyone on my graduation ceremony because we all in our class graduated at different times, but even in that case, it felt very meaningful. Like I was preparing to leave the university spiritually and physically behind while it had been the main focus of my life for so many years.
The problem is that neither she nor you are really getting at the root _of_ that need. So you can't break free from conflating ritual _with_ whatever it's a surrogate for. What happens when this break with reality takes place is that belief in what it's a surrogate *for* replaces reality completely. Take voting for candidates for instance: candidates who can & openly _do_ take $ from corporations. We all _KNOW that_ no one can take that $ then vote against the people paying it, & we all know that the payments are for policies We The People would never support - otherwise, why pay to get that policy passed? But despite all this, you all think that "We *VOTED FOR* The Candidate." & because you performed an utterly worthless *ritual,* you think you have agency. You treat elected politicians as Your Personal waiters, surrogate parents whose morality you cannot question |AND_ their decisions to allow oil companies & Monsanto to poison the planet as Highly Moral *because* you associate that useless ritual with Causing Things. & you're _adults._ How scary is _that?_
I really enjoyed this episode, as I did with the ones I saw/heard until now. I didn't know Sasha Sagan, so thank you for this splendid introduction. I like your style while interviewing, and you bring very interesting people to the show. I really feel like you should have massively more listeners/vewers than you have. But keep up the wonderful work. People are listening and learning. At least I am👍
When it comes to weddings and rituals it almost sounds to me like Sasha is espousing "magical thinking" in spite of her up-bringing. I will attribute that misstep to youthful exuberance. I admire the incites of her parents and I can only wish, for her sake, that she can maintain their benevolent yet scientifically objective insights.
Very important topic. I'm so glad that celebrating secularity is such an easy task and so open to every culture and aspect of general life. Much love to everyone from the very very very secular Germany, guys. 🔊🤸🏿♀️🤹🏼💖🤼 🤸♂️🎼
I love that she brings the wonder factor of religious nonsense to life in a secular and sensical way, that is far more powerful and meaningful. Definitely it's how I came to value everything more, once I left religion.
My biggest rituals were birthdays and New Year celebrations as a teeenager. Everything besides that was really unappealing and cringe. Nowadays I really don't miss rituals at all. Actually the best days are random good days that turn into spontanious beautiful moments with a tiny number of people I love. But yeah, every time I get surrounded by people during some ritual it can feel funny, cringe or very scary depending on the ritual. It's weird.
I just found out today that my divorce is finalized. I kinda wish there were some ritual for that. I just texted my wasband (dude who was my husband), to let him know we were all good. Then I had a glass of sweet tea while listening to Freebird. It was an amicable divorce. So my feelings are all relief at being done with the legal part. We are co-parents and friends.
I actually read something about "divorce services" a while ago. So, it seems stuff like that exist now. Can't remember where I read it, maybe in the NY Times.
It makes sense that as social creatures we have evolved belief systems and rituals that bind us together. Like Seth, I grew up in a more fundamentalist Christian household and I found many of the rituals to be far more “fulfilling” than scientific facts. That’s the barrier most religious people face. Many are unwilling to give up an emotionally transcendent experience for facts that don’t necessarily provide emotional fulfillment. If religion wasn’t so harmful, I’d say live and let live but that’s not the case. How do we help people overcome that barrier?
This is my kind of nihilism: 40:42 Intrinsic value or purpose nihilism, moral nihilism until moral absolutes are found, existential nihilism. All these are at least for me, the most honest position you can have regarding the philosophical aspects they touch. I don't understand why people have a problem with it or find it ridiculous. This is the de facto behavior of all living beings on Earth, you're born and start experiencing the world, you're not asking if the things you see are real or not, or if you were created or many other not so deep questions that are pose as very deep where in reality are simply fallacious and coming from tradition. The thought of being created is not natural, it's a human thing that originates in religious/superstitious thought: not all prehistory, nomads and tribal groups of people were believers of creative gods or forces.
A good way to counter this flawed argument with the racist and get them caught up having to admit their whole premise is based on skin colour, might be to ask, "If my parents were Swedish and Finnish, and moved to England before I was born, then I was born in England, would I or my English born children be English?" Then she might have to ask what colour were his hypothetical parents or maybe be stupid enough either way to say that makes the child English.
why chase some vaguely common but in reality rare feeling from religious experience? might as well be chasing any other feeling that is physically pronounced. drug addicts chase a high. dont need no stinky rituals either. if you get into growing food, you experience time passing thru seasons more excitedly.
Carl was the very first Master Jedi i know of. For me Sam Harris is the second. End of the high school. Paper in my hands. 5 minute later like nothing happened. End of the military service. Walking out the gate. A beer with our commander who also celebrated his retirement. A half hour later is this really happened? Nothing changed. I feel I'm the same person regardless they told me this is the sigh I become a gown man... really?
"Excuse me, but I am not convinced!" Not only a good slogan for someone who does not believe in a God (esp. not a sentient one that meddles in our life, and makes us super-special and immediately after him and way over the rest of creation as he supervises our EVERY thought including in sleep as infinitely powerful and omnipresent Big Brother), but also what our German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, said when it was to join the US in starting a war with Iraq based on obviously fabricated "evidence".
Just because she is daughter of Carl Sagan doesn't mean everything what she is saying is absolutely right because that's not the case even with Carl Sagan himself. Saying so will be to commit the famous logical fallacy of Ad Hominem.
Having that depth of conversation at the age of "3 or 4"? Really? I feel like we are diving into to the world of mythical and magical thinking. I LOVED your mom and dad but I am starting to get the feeling that you are riding the "gravy train", Sasha.
"Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations." -Albert Einstein "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." -Albert Einstein "God is a mystery. But a comprehensible mystery. I have nothing but awe when I observe the laws of nature. There are not laws without a lawgiver." -Albert Einstein These 3 paragraphs tells us the following about Einstein: 1. Einstein was not an atheist. 2. Einstein admired the church. 3. Einstein believed the laws of nature were created. I agree with Einstein. If you can’t get Einstein, then I believe you are responding with stubbornness. And I can’t help you with that.
May I respond with these, perhaps you'll get a clearer sense as to what Einstein thought of a "god": "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." - Albert Einstein I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." Albert Einstein I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp! Albert Einstein Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being." Albert Einstein Prayer is of no benefit if there isn't a God who listens to it and responds to it. Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity, it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history." Albert Einstein
PS - it is my understanding that Hitler was aided and abetted by "the church" the same church whose doctrines and dogmas have kept millions of people ignorant and submissive to its many fallacies, thus causing much more harm than good.
@@adropofgoldensun27 I’m not sure why you listed those Einstein quotes. I have read them all, and am fully aware of Einstein’s position on God. The reason I provided the earlier quote was to show that Einstein was not an atheist, and that he believed the universe was ‘arranged’ by a ‘mysterious force.’ This goes to my earlier point, which is that a rejection of religion cannot be conflated with the rejection of a creator. They are different questions, with different answers. And this is what Einstein concluded.
@@adropofgoldensun27 No, that’s false. Hitler tried to ride on the back of the Christian faith, distorting the Bible for his psycho purposes. The Christian faith has been blamed for a plethora of poor human choices, as Jesus predicted it would. But the real thing looks quite different from the counterfeit.
@@mikehawes2 the Nazis literally wore belts that had "God with us" engraved on them. The nazi movement was initially a christian movement/ideology. Adolf Hitler, and all his top henchmen were christians! Hitler himself was a Catholic, all his life, and gave many speeches claiming god was on the nazi’s side. This can be verified from many reputable sources. One great source is the little book; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer who was a German-American News Correspondent in Germany during the start of Hitlers’ reign. The Church only reacted when Hitler tried to replace them with his own church.
Excellent. 👌 Sasha is very articulate.
Wonderful conversation Seth. I became a science educator largely due to Carl’s and Ann’s work. Lovely to see Sasha creating her own narrative from their wellspring of knowledge and perspective. Optimism has been in short supply for a few years now. Glad to see a little sunlight on a foggy day.
25 years on and people still talk about Carl...250 years on, and I expect we will do the same.
I hope we are still talking about Carl Sagan's contributions many years from now.
I don't remember who said it, but I agree: "A man is only truly dead when he is forgotten. When he is remembered, he lives forever."
Carl was part of a movement that got Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" suppressed & set physics & cosmology back decades. He went against his *own principles* in doing so. Sorry, but nobody's perfect.
What a brilliant, thoughtful, articulate woman who really "gets it". Great interview!
In a brief interview she has spontaneously shared many quotable ideas!
Dragons of Eden and Brocs Brain were the 1st books of Sagan I read. The Variations of Scientific Experience and Carl's own skepticism towards his own personal beliefs helped me leave religion and eventually superstitions. Forever thankful.
"Hail Sagans!!!"
Heil du ihn doch 😜
You hit this one out of the park, Seth! What a remarkable young woman...I'm sure her parents are just as much in awe at what she's become as she is of their influence. Got her book and read it in 3 days.
Contact is my favorite novel. There’s so many little windows into the protagonist’s thoughts - from her fascination with pi as a middle schooler, to imagining what a heaven would actually be like. It’s such a beautiful portrait told in these internal vignettes.
The idea that Heaven is a place you are loved and accepted unconditionally really stuck with me. I realized I have the power to create a Heaven for my own children here and now, by being that warm and loving place they want to go. I’ve taken that realization very seriously ever since. It stays with me as I’m interacting wi the my kids on a daily basis. I can give them Heaven everyday in so many small ways. That’s very empowering.
This was a show that I meant to pass on when it popped up in my feed, but after two minutes, I was hooked. Thanks to Seth and to Sasha Sagan for such a beautiful conversation.
44:03 - it’s funny, as soon as Sasha came on screen live, I immediately thought she reminded me of her mother...
Also, 29:41 is so on point. Great Interview all around. Thanks for having Sasha on; thank you Sasha for all you shared, and for writing a book that sounds like an important continuation of your parents’ work. I look forward to reading it!
If you've seen the Carl Sagan segment of "Cosmos Possible Worlds" she plays her own grandmother as a young woman.
@@Pyrolonn I don’t think I have. Interesting!
Love this interview Seth. Thank you for bringing it to us. Thank you for bringing Sasha Sagan to us all.
She is so correct about the human need for ritual. I was a bit cynical about attending my high school graduation, I did it anyway (my friend didn't). It was more meaningful than I could have imagined.
I didn't even know anyone on my graduation ceremony because we all in our class graduated at different times, but even in that case, it felt very meaningful. Like I was preparing to leave the university spiritually and physically behind while it had been the main focus of my life for so many years.
The problem is that neither she nor you are really getting at the root _of_ that need. So you can't break free from conflating ritual _with_ whatever it's a surrogate for.
What happens when this break with reality takes place is that belief in what it's a surrogate *for* replaces reality completely. Take voting for candidates for instance: candidates who can & openly _do_ take $ from corporations.
We all _KNOW that_ no one can take that $ then vote against the people paying it, & we all know that the payments are for policies We The People would never support - otherwise, why pay to get that policy passed?
But despite all this, you all think that "We *VOTED FOR* The Candidate." & because you performed an utterly worthless *ritual,* you think you have agency. You treat elected politicians as Your Personal waiters, surrogate parents whose morality you cannot question |AND_ their decisions to allow oil companies & Monsanto to poison the planet as Highly Moral *because* you associate that useless ritual with Causing Things.
& you're _adults._
How scary is _that?_
Wonderful interview. I ordered a signed copy for my daughter who loves all things Sagan!
I really enjoyed this episode, as I did with the ones I saw/heard until now. I didn't know Sasha Sagan, so thank you for this splendid introduction. I like your style while interviewing, and you bring very interesting people to the show. I really feel like you should have massively more listeners/vewers than you have. But keep up the wonderful work. People are listening and learning. At least I am👍
It is an honor to meet Carl's kid...Dr. Sagan and Jacob Bronowski introduced me to science many years ago.
What a brilliant mind. A joy to hear her thoughts. Thank you Seth, a great conversation!
I like her and would love to read her book. Thanks for having her on, Seth.
Why does this excellent presentation have such a low viewership ? It is amazing, so beautiful !!
We need much much more of this kind of content
What a wonderful interview. I am going to consider Sasha my friend too. :)
When it comes to weddings and rituals it almost sounds to me like Sasha is espousing "magical thinking" in spite of her up-bringing. I will attribute that misstep to youthful exuberance. I admire the incites of her parents and I can only wish, for her sake, that she can maintain their benevolent yet scientifically objective insights.
Her voice is similar to Lindsay’s on the series _You’re the worst._ Great interview guys! Learned so much. Thank you.
Oh Seth, it is good to know that you are living the life - thank you for that episode!
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree". This program is looming!🗽
I liked before even watching, because I just have a feeling this is going to be a legendary interview!
😆
Morning!
Very important topic. I'm so glad that celebrating secularity is such an easy task and so open to every culture and aspect of general life. Much love to everyone from the very very very secular Germany, guys. 🔊🤸🏿♀️🤹🏼💖🤼 🤸♂️🎼
Thank you
Her book title reminded me of the "for such a worm as I" verse from the Hymn "At the Cross".
I was just blocks from the hospital where Sasha's father was being treated and eventually passed. Seattle, December 1996.
I love that she brings the wonder factor of religious nonsense to life in a secular and sensical way, that is far more powerful and meaningful. Definitely it's how I came to value everything more, once I left religion.
She is so sweet ❤
Life is it's own meaning. No need to search, just live it to the best of your ability.
Pops would be proud of his daughter, Sasha ❤
It's all about processing change... damn, that's wise as fuck.
The meaning of life is accurate motion
Thank you Sasha Sagan and Seth Andrews so much for this interview.
My biggest rituals were birthdays and New Year celebrations as a teeenager. Everything besides that was really unappealing and cringe.
Nowadays I really don't miss rituals at all. Actually the best days are random good days that turn into spontanious beautiful moments with a tiny number of people I love.
But yeah, every time I get surrounded by people during some ritual it can feel funny, cringe or very scary depending on the ritual. It's weird.
It's Great to be alive at 65!!!
Anyone remember the Thief in the Night series on this channel? It's absence is a concern to me.
I wonder if it got copy striked?
@@20xx-mm-dd Possibly, but the Christian Movies channel still has the entire series available on YT, so who knows?
39 minutes,... fuckin tears!
I just found out today that my divorce is finalized. I kinda wish there were some ritual for that. I just texted my wasband (dude who was my husband), to let him know we were all good. Then I had a glass of sweet tea while listening to Freebird.
It was an amicable divorce. So my feelings are all relief at being done with the legal part. We are co-parents and friends.
I actually read something about "divorce services" a while ago. So, it seems stuff like that exist now. Can't remember where I read it, maybe in the NY Times.
There is a difference between information and the support it's written on.
Coming from someone drawing Muhammad, you may have just proven your own conclusion. 🤣
And here I was thinking I'm using "like" and "you know" too much...
It makes sense that as social creatures we have evolved belief systems and rituals that bind us together. Like Seth, I grew up in a more fundamentalist Christian household and I found many of the rituals to be far more “fulfilling” than scientific facts. That’s the barrier most religious people face. Many are unwilling to give up an emotionally transcendent experience for facts that don’t necessarily provide emotional fulfillment. If religion wasn’t so harmful, I’d say live and let live but that’s not the case. How do we help people overcome that barrier?
I'm finding it hard to come up with words in leu of thoughts and prayers.
List things you're grateful for, list things you hope for.
Logically, the meaning of life is somewhat related to the averaging of life and less related to the median of life.
This is my kind of nihilism: 40:42
Intrinsic value or purpose nihilism, moral nihilism until moral absolutes are found, existential nihilism. All these are at least for me, the most honest position you can have regarding the philosophical aspects they touch.
I don't understand why people have a problem with it or find it ridiculous. This is the de facto behavior of all living beings on Earth, you're born and start experiencing the world, you're not asking if the things you see are real or not, or if you were created or many other not so deep questions that are pose as very deep where in reality are simply fallacious and coming from tradition. The thought of being created is not natural, it's a human thing that originates in religious/superstitious thought: not all prehistory, nomads and tribal groups of people were believers of creative gods or forces.
She has a unique speaking voice sort of like Fran Drescher only different. Obviously a very intelligent woman.
This is what Jason silva is always talking about in his youtube videos
A good way to counter this flawed argument with the racist and get them caught up having to admit their whole premise is based on skin colour, might be to ask, "If my parents were Swedish and Finnish, and moved to England before I was born, then I was born in England, would I or my English born children be English?" Then she might have to ask what colour were his hypothetical parents or maybe be stupid enough either way to say that makes the child English.
why chase some vaguely common but in reality rare feeling from religious experience? might as well be chasing any other feeling that is physically pronounced. drug addicts chase a high.
dont need no stinky rituals either. if you get into growing food, you experience time passing thru seasons more excitedly.
How do I learn how to speak as intelligently as she☝️??!!
Carl was the very first Master Jedi i know of. For me Sam Harris is the second.
End of the high school. Paper in my hands. 5 minute later like nothing happened.
End of the military service. Walking out the gate. A beer with our commander who also celebrated his retirement. A half hour later is this really happened? Nothing changed. I feel I'm the same person regardless they told me this is the sigh I become a gown man... really?
This is one of my favorite Sagan videos: th-cam.com/video/zSgiXGELjbc/w-d-xo.html
"Excuse me, but I am not convinced!"
Not only a good slogan for someone who does not believe in a God
(esp. not a sentient one that meddles in our life, and makes us super-special and immediately after him and way over the rest of creation as he supervises our EVERY thought including in sleep as infinitely powerful and omnipresent Big Brother),
but also what our German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, said when it was to join the US in starting a war with Iraq based on obviously fabricated "evidence".
Just because she is daughter of Carl Sagan doesn't mean everything what she is saying is absolutely right because that's not the case even with Carl Sagan himself. Saying so will be to commit the famous logical fallacy of Ad Hominem.
Having that depth of conversation at the age of "3 or 4"? Really? I feel like we are diving into to the world of mythical and magical thinking. I LOVED your mom and dad but I am starting to get the feeling that you are riding the "gravy train", Sasha.
I was the 69th like
69, nice
Poor thing - her run on comments are all over the place...
People comparing doctors using masks in a climate controlled hospital. Have never worked 10 hours in a hot humid factory.
Filthy frank
She is really Trump,s daughter! 😂😂
"Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations." -Albert Einstein
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." -Albert Einstein
"God is a mystery. But a comprehensible mystery. I have nothing but awe when I observe the laws of nature. There are not laws without a lawgiver." -Albert Einstein
These 3 paragraphs tells us the following about Einstein:
1. Einstein was not an atheist.
2. Einstein admired the church.
3. Einstein believed the laws of nature were created.
I agree with Einstein. If you can’t get Einstein, then I believe you are responding with stubbornness. And I can’t help you with that.
May I respond with these, perhaps you'll get a clearer sense as to what Einstein thought of a "god":
"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."
- Albert Einstein
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Albert Einstein
I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!
Albert Einstein
Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."
Albert Einstein
Prayer is of no benefit if there isn't a God who listens to it and responds to it.
Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity, it is accessible to the most undeveloped
mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history."
Albert Einstein
PS - it is my understanding that Hitler was aided and abetted by "the church" the same church whose doctrines and dogmas have kept millions of people ignorant and submissive to its many fallacies, thus causing much more harm than good.
@@adropofgoldensun27 I’m not sure why you listed those Einstein quotes. I have read them all, and am fully aware of Einstein’s position on God. The reason I provided the earlier quote was to show that Einstein was not an atheist, and that he believed the universe was ‘arranged’ by a ‘mysterious force.’ This goes to my earlier point, which is that a rejection of religion cannot be conflated with the rejection of a creator. They are different questions, with different answers. And this is what Einstein concluded.
@@adropofgoldensun27 No, that’s false. Hitler tried to ride on the back of the Christian faith, distorting the Bible for his psycho purposes. The Christian faith has been blamed for a plethora of poor human choices, as Jesus predicted it would. But the real thing looks quite different from the counterfeit.
@@mikehawes2 the Nazis literally wore belts that had "God with us" engraved on them.
The nazi movement was initially a christian movement/ideology. Adolf Hitler, and all his top henchmen were christians! Hitler himself was a Catholic, all his life, and gave many speeches claiming god was on the nazi’s side.
This can be verified from many reputable sources. One great source is the little book; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer who was a German-American News Correspondent in Germany during the start of Hitlers’ reign.
The Church only reacted when Hitler tried to replace them with his own church.