Talk slated at Princeton University Store
By: David Campbell
What if Albert Einstein’s religious worldview were practiced as widely as Christianity, Judaism and Islam?
For starters, according to Princeton-area novelist John Brinster, there would be a heck of a lot less bloodshed and mayhem.
"If a religion such as Einstein’s were to be adopted by all the peoples of the earth, it would provide a uniform interpretation and eliminate all of the conflicts that we face today, which are religion-related," said Mr. Brinster, a retired businessman who lives in Montgomery Township.
"I feel that the natural religion of Einstein may very well be the ultimate religion of the entire world," he said.
Mr. Brinster has published a satirical novel, under his pen name John F. Brain, titled "The Man Who Created God."
He will be at the Princeton University Store, in the store’s third-floor events area, 7 p.m. Monday to present and sign copies of the novel.
The event is part of the U-Store’s year-long series of author events celebrating Einstein’s 1905 papers and the World Year of Physics.
"The Man Who Created God" explores this very question of what might happen if someone in this case, Professor Jeremiah B Cackelry III, who pits his logical mind against the flawed emotional thinking of his fundamentalist detractors tried to institutionalize Einstein’s unique religious views.
"Churchmen constantly were after Einstein for his ideas about theology," the author said. "He answered every one very specifically."
The famed physicist made a practice of writing out his replies in German on the query letters’ envelopes, which he then gave to his secretary to type up, Mr. Brinster continued.
Einstein was a pacifist, he rejected the notion of an anthropomorphic deity, and did not believe in the power of prayer, a soul, or immortality.
He believed, however, that there is a common element to all religious experience that he referred to as a "cosmic religious feeling."
When a rabbi once sent him the following five-word cable "Do You Believe in God?" Einstein replied that he believed "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."
Mr. Brinster graduated from Princeton University in 1943, and said he met Einstein while at Princeton and also lived nearby.
The author was a member of the World War II team of Princeton physicists who were assigned secret war-related projects in nuclear research, ordnance and missile instrumentation.
He worked with Werner von Braun in the use of captured German V-2 missiles for early American rocket research and development. After the war, he founded a company, the Applied Science Corp. of Princeton.
Under his pen name, Mr. Brinster has written previous books, including "The Natural Bible for Modern and Future Man: The Ultimate Theology of the Still Evolving Mind," and "The Way Things Are: The Changing Perspective of Human Existence."

