Albert Einstein letter where great physicist said God could not have created the universe and science ‘replaces and supersedes’ religion goes on sale for £100,000

He famously described religion as “childish superstitions” born of “human frailty.”

But four years before his 1954 “God letter,” legendary physicist Albert Einstein told a group of students in separate correspondence that science “replaces and replaces” religion.

In the letter, written in German to religious studies teacher Ms. Munk, the father of modern physics also effectively disproved the biblical creation story and suggested that God could not have created the universe.

After consulting her students, Mrs. Martha Munk had asked him if he thought it was possible “for a modern scientist to reconcile the idea of ​​the creation of the world by God, a higher power, with his scientific knowledge.”

The letter, written from Brooklyn, New York, has been listed for sale at US autograph dealer The Raab Collection for £97,000 ($125,000).

It was acquired from descendants of Mrs. Munk and has never been publicly sold.

In response to her question, Einstein told Mrs. Munk in the letter dated April 11, 1950: “As long as the stories in the Bible were taken literally, it was clear what kind of faith was expected of the readers.

‘However, if you have to interpret the Bible symbolically (metaphorically), it is no longer clear whether God should be seen as a person. [and therefore not a monotheistic deity]which is somehow analogous to humans.

‘Then it is difficult to judge what remains of faith in its original sense.

‘I think, however, that the more or less skilled in scientific thinking is alien to the religious creation (in the original sense) of the cosmos, because he applies the standard of causal conditionality to everything.

At the time of writing, Einstein, who was Jewish, had been a US citizen for ten years, having fled Germany shortly after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party came to power in 1933.

“This does not refute the religious attitude, but in a sense supersedes and replaces it.

Nathan Rab, director of The Raab Collection and author of The Hunt for History, said: ‘This is a powerful demonstration of a great debate raging today, expressed by a man who illustrated that debate, and one of the great figures and scientists of all time.

“It’s an exciting find and a truly historic letter from Albert Einstein.”

At the time of writing, Einstein, who was Jewish, had been a US citizen for ten years, having fled Germany shortly after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party came to power in 1933.

The scientist initially lived in Belgium and then spent six weeks in Britain before moving to the US.

EINSTEIN’S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY

Albert Einstein

In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum is independent of the motion of all observers – known as special relativity.

This groundbreaking work introduced a new framework to all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.

He then spent 10 years trying to incorporate acceleration into the theory, eventually publishing his general theory of relativity in 1915.

This established that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity.

At its simplest, it can be thought of as a giant rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the middle.

Pictured are the original historical documents related to Einstein’s prediction of the existence of gravitational waves, displayed at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem

As the ball distorts the sheet, a planet bends the fabric of space-time, creating the force we feel as gravity.

Any object that comes close to the body will fall towards it due to the effect.

Einstein predicted that if two massive bodies converged, it would create such a massive ripple in spacetime that it should be detectable on Earth.

It was last demonstrated in the hit movie Interstellar.

In a segment where the crew visited a planet that was within the gravitational pull of a massive black hole, the event caused time to slow down tremendously.

Crew members on the planet were barely older, while those on the ship were decades older on their return.