Sir, – Rev Dr D Vincent Twomey's assertion (September 29th) that Einstein "believed in one way or another in a reality beyond the natural world that empirical science explores" is at once hazy and dubious. It cannot be reasonably argued that Einstein was any kind of theist, if this is what Dr Twomey is rather cryptically implying. If anything, he was a deist (one who believes in a god who does not act to influence events, and whose existence has no connection with religions, religious buildings, or religious books, etc). This is clear from many statements made by him. For example: "I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly"; and "I believe in Spinoza's god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a god who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings".
As for Dr Twomey’s reference to “the new atheist church in Ireland”, this amounts to a particularly egregious case of religiomorphism – the attribution of characteristics of religion to a decidedly non-religious position. Atheists do not believe in supernatural deities. They do not pray. They do not have holy books, holy doctrines, sacred idols, popes or imams, creeds, codes of conduct, rituals, nor do they abide by a parallel legal system.
Not only does it not walk like a duck or quack like a duck, it doesn’t even have feathers. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – I am sure a professor emeritus of theology would accept that the onus of providing evidence for the existence of something other than the empirical realm rests with those who claim that such things exist. I have no doubt that if such evidence were to emerge, the “rationalists of the modern scientific mentality” would sit up and take notice.
In the meantime, those who chose to believe in such entities must rely on faith. – Yours, etc,
FRANK CONROY,
Maam,
Co Galway.