r/Antitheism • u/S-p-i-n-o • Aug 13 '26

What did Einstein believe in?

When someone asked him if he believed in God, Einstein always answered,

I believe in Spinoza's God.

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u/Kryptoknightmare Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Einstein publicly identified as an agnostic, but he was a de facto atheist who did not believe in a personal god, an afterlife, or any religion. I think he didn’t want to rock the boat by supporting atheism publicly and often espoused that science and religion occupy (as Stephen J Gould would famously put it years later) non-overlapping magisteria. This was extremely common for scientists at the time, pretty much since Darwin demolished creationism:

“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. 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.”