Einstein's Religious Beliefs

Welcome to EvC. There are quite a few very intelligent and knowledgeable people posting here, so its very easy to learn a thing or two.

Do you have some evidence as to exactly what Einstein meant when he said "personal God?" Or, are you assuming your own interpretation of that phrase and ascribing it to Einstein because that's what you want him to have meant?

I think we can narrow down the possibilities to two. Einstein sounds like he was either Agnostic, and refused to be shunted into the certainty implied by Atheism, or he was a Deist, who thought a god created the universe and "wrote" the laws of nature, but has no more impact on the Universe than that.

Taking all the quotes that have been presented here, along with the Spinoza you provided, (It's been a long time since I read Spinoza, I focus more of my time on Moral Theories.) I think we can say only one thing for sure: Einstein is the only one could have told us exactly what he meant, and we have no way of knowing if we even happen to stumble upon what he did, in fact, mean.But what it sounds to me, and this could be completely wrong, is that what Einstein is saying is that IF there is a god, then that god is a combination of all the Natural Laws. That if we finally find the Theory of Everything and combine all the forces we know of into one grand, elegant theory, then we have described the nature of god.To me, I would consider that equivocation, and a form of Agnosticism. I feel truly in awe when I look up into the night sky, or when I look across a beautiful, natural vista. It sounds like Einstein did as well, and he decided to call that experience divine. That sense of divinity was produced in him by the natural laws of the universe, therefore, the natural laws of the universe are god.Again, I could be talking out my ass here, and since we can't ask Einstein, we'll never know for sure.