Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. This particular saying of Albert Einstein has been used repeatedly in science and religion debates. But was Einstein religious at all? A large number of believers definitely say so referring to this quote and thus claiming the greatest scientist of the 20th century as one of their own.





However, Einstein had also famously written, " The idea of a personal God is a childlike one," in a letter to a friend dated 28 September 1949.





He went on to say, "You may call me an agnostic but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."





The most enlightened agnostic





Agnosticism is really the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has "no scientific grounds" for professing to know or believe. Albert Einstein was in fact one of the most famous agnostics in America and yet his name being used today as merely a tool to silence an opposition in an unintelligent debate.





What had Einstein meant really?





Actually, he was making a reference to a large part of human history in which science and religion were intertwined or interdependent. He put it like this, "Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind," indicating that the interdependency still existed in the society.





This does not suggest in any way that Einstein was a deeply religious person and nor does it provide any surface to anyone to interpret it in such a way. If truth be told, Einstein had strongly asserted, " The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses. "





So if Einstein wasn't even religious in the most ordinary sense why then his name being misused in science and religion debates so often?





Because it is assumed by a large number of religious people that in science "Einstein" is the authority. But they are deeply wrong in their judgement because in actuality there is no authority in science. This is precisely how science progresses, whereas religion has not progressed for hundreds and thousands of years.





Nature is nurturing





Einstein's views were simply this: That nature is not nurtur ed . That nature itself is nurturing. This is the ultimate essence of Spinozism a philosophical system advocated by Einstein on very many occasions. I t is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.





Einstein propounded, "T he path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life and the fear of death and blind faith, but through striving after scientific and rational knowledge. "





Just a year before his death, Einstein had replied to a fan in a letter, " It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. "



