偶读爱因斯坦的一份信，解除了自己多年的疑惑

对爱因斯坦的事迹略知一二，一直以为他在后期无大作为直接受制于他的宗教信仰，看了这封信才知道怎么回事，敬仰之余，顺便翻译了一下。英语水平有限，望见谅。
... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

最近几天，我读了很多你写的书，非常感谢你能发给我。尤其触动我的是，你对于生活与人类的真实态度，在这一点上我们有很多共同点。

... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

上帝这一辞藻对我来说没什么意义，它仅仅是人类羸弱的阐述和缺陷的产品。圣经这一值得尊敬的作品，也只是人类早期相当幼稚的传奇故事。无论多么诡辩的解释都不会改变我对此的看法。根据他们所谓的自然世界有很多细致入微的解释，但几乎没有任何原稿。正向其他宗教一样，犹太教也是最为幼稚迷信的一个体现。作为犹太人我很高兴，并被他的精神财富所深深吸引，但与其他民族相比，没有谁优谁劣的区别。就以往的经验来看，他们也没有比其他人类成员更出色，虽然在预防癌症方面做出过贡献。因此，我没有看到能改变对于他们看法的事情。

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

通常，我感到很痛苦的是主张特权阶级且以这两个糟粕为自豪并试图去保护它，外表看是人，从内里看却是一个犹太教徒。当你宣称作为人时，遵循因果并被接受，当作为犹太教徒时，又遵循一神教的特权。但是有限的因果完全没有因果关系，伟大的斯宾诺莎对此已有认识依靠他的分析，而且他很可能是第一人。万物有灵论这一宗教本质依靠强大的统治力没有被废除。我们只能从这一糟粕中获得一些自我欺骗，并不能促进我们在道德上的继续努力。

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things. With friendly thanks and best wishes.

既然,我已经坦率得表达了我们关于知性信仰的不同意见，但我仍觉得我们彼此在本质问题上是很接近的，人类行为的价值观。唯一使我们产生分歧的是知性的依靠和佛洛依德解释的理性。因此我认为如果我们去谈论具体的事情，我们能够很好的彼此理解。友好的感谢和祝福你。

Yours, A. Einstein

链接http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/13/peopleinscience.religion