Albert Einstein

It is a shame that people think of Albert Einstein only in terms of his genius in physics. He was a prolific and brilliant writer on many subjects.

He was a true mystic who valued intuition and imagination above logic. I quote: “When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy, imagination, has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.”

“To experience the Mystery is the cradle of true art and true science. He who can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead.”

“I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends or my family. I have never lost a sense of distance and the need for solitude.”

Einstein was totally a Bohemian free thinker and free spirit who laughed at the moral prejudices, opinions and judgments of the “masses.” He said many times in different ways that he did not look outside of himself to anyone else, or any institution, as an “authority.” He said clearly and confidently, “I am my own authority.”

As the recent subject matter of my Sunday Symposium, it was his penetrating and brilliant views on organized religion that created much interest and confirmation.

Einstein was completely convinced that the vast majority of problems in the world, and especially with individuals, was caused by belief in a “personal” God. An anthropomorphic God who was a “divine window peeker” or a “celestial bellhop” or even a “cosmic hit man.”

He wrote: “Teachers of religion must have the stature and integrity to give up the archaic and superstitious concept of a ‘personal’ God, a concept that has brought fear and done monumental harm to individuals.” The idea of a personal God is so very naive.
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The Ten Commandments psychosis

I have a new mental illness for psychiatry. I call it “The Ten Commandments Psychosis.” We all know that there are a lot of wackos in the world. It is safe to say that the religious wackos are the wackiest of all.

They want the Ten Commandments in all schools, court houses, parks, ice cream parlors, hot dog stands, stadiums, tennis clubs, golf clubs, street corners and on and on into the dark ages of superstition. They never seem to understand that this nation guarantees freedom FROM religion as well as freedom OF religion. They keep violating the Constitution by putting up Ten Commandments monuments or signs on Federal or State property. They keep getting sued and having to go to all the trouble to take the Commandments down. Which would indicate being a little shallow above the neck. The City of Milwaukee had to move the Ten Commandments monument off the lawn of the Municipal building after being ordered to do so by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. You can safely say that the religious wackos are slow learners – very slow.

The Ten Commandments are factually, and simply, a primitive cultic code of taboos written for the Hebrew cult.

No one has put the Commandments in perspective better than the famous actress Ruth Gordon. She said to an audience, “There is one commandment I have never broken. I can assure you, I have never coveted my neighbor’s wife.”

Perhaps few other parts of the bible have been so misused, misinterpreted, misunderstood as have the Ten Commandments. They were a cultic taboo code written BY Hebrew men FOR Hebrew men. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Sir James Frazer in his classic “The Golden Bough” wrote, “These commandments of Israel are taboos of a familiar type in primitive religions disguised as commands of the tribal God.” Dr. Ernest Colwell, former Dean of the Theological Seminary, the University of Chicago, writes, “These were prescriptions written ONLY for the Hebrew cult. They acquired authority due to the rites of the cult.”

All “thou shalt not kill” meant is that thou shall not kill another Hebrew. The giver of the commandment, Moses, quite obviously totally ignored it with everyone but the Hebrews. And all with the jealous tribal God’s blessing. In the book of Numbers, Chapter 31, verse 17, Moses himself gives this order, “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” Could any command be more revolting to human sensibilities: kill every male and every woman not a virgin, but the virgins keep for yourselves? And in verse 7, it reads, “As God commanded Moses, they killed them all.” Obviously, “thou shalt not kill” was not understood either by Moses, or the Israelites or “God” to be any kind of an ethical prohibition of killing. And so today, we still hand out free bibles to our military people going into battle to kill.
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Easter mythology

The image of a god buried in a tomb, being withdrawn and said to live again, is thousands of years older than the Jesus Easter mythology. Of all the resurrected savior gods that were worshiped before and at the beginning of the Christian myth, none contributed so much to the mythology developing around Jesus as the Egyptian Osiris.

Osiris was called “Lord of Lords,” “King of Kings” and “the good shepherd.” He was called the god who made “men and women to be born again.” He was called “the resurrection and the life.” He was the “god man” who suffered, died, rose again and lived eternally in heaven. They thought that by believing in Osiris they would share eternal life with him. Egyptian scripture reads as follows: “As truly as Osiris lives so truly shall his followers live also.”

The coming of Osiris was announced by Three Wise Men. His flesh was eaten in the form of communion cakes of wheat. Only through Osiris could one obtain eternal life, they believed. The much loved 23rd Psalm of the bible is a modified version of an Egyptian text appealing to Osiris, “the good shepherd,” to lead the dead “to green pastures and still waters,” “to restore the soul” to the body and to give protection “in the valley of the shadow of death.”

An outstanding television series on religion for PBS and BBC a number of years ago documented human religious experience. The Near East section was written by Dr. Grace Cairns who holds a doctorate in religious studies from the University of Chicago. She wrote: “The resurrection myth of Osiris and Isis prepared the Greco-Roman world for the resurrection myth of Jesus in early Christianity.” She goes on to write that the followers of Jesus, like the followers of Osiris, made him a part of themselves by eating him in communion cakes so as to participate in his resurrection.

Gods of that period who were eaten in the form of bread or cakes included Adonis and Dionysus among others.

Other resurrected gods of that period before Jesus were Attis and Mithra, sacrificed at the Spring equinox, and then rising and ascending to heaven.

The image of a god being withdrawn from a tomb during this season and ascending to heaven has been a universal mythological theme, as Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, and many others have brought to our attention.
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