To auction the 'Letter of God' written by Einstein for 1.3 million euros
A handwritten letter in which the Nobel Prize in Physics Albert Einstein disagrees with the concept of religion and his own Jewish faith will be auctioned in New York by Christie's, which expects to reach 1.5 million dollars (1.3 million euros).
The auction house has explained that the one known as 'Letter of God', written by Einstein in 1954, will be publicly exhibited in San Francisco and New York before being auctioned on December 4.
The letter, a folio and a half, written in German to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, is considered a key manuscript in the debate on science and religion and it is the clearest statement of Einstein's views on the universal search for the meaning of life.
The scientist and philosopher wrote the letter a year before his death in 1955 and will be sold by a private collector. "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable but still quite primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change any of this "wrote Einstein.
The scientist did not exclude Judaism, saying that he admired and loved his people but did not believe that they were the chosen ones. "For me the Jewish religion, like the other religions, is an embodiment of the most childish superstition", wrote. "I can not see anything of 'elected' in them," he added.
Peter Klarnet, a specialist in books and manuscripts at Christie's, has clarified that the letter "cares about issues that have been central to the investigation of human beings since the beginning of human consciousness and is one of the definitive statements in the debate between religion and science ".
