S. Schweber wrote about Dirac and religion [1]:
“I do not know when Dirac became an atheist, but Heisenberg (1971) recalls that in 1927 during a discussion on religion among the younger members who were attending the Solvay Congress, the twenty-five year old Dirac asserted that "If we are honest--and scientists have to be--we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination .... I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us', but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also easier to exploit .... Hence the close alliance between those two great public forces, the State and the Church." The ensuing heated discussion was capped by Pauli's observation that actually "our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is 'There is no God, and Dirac is His prophet."
It interesting to note that in our days it is religious fanaticism one of the biggest obstacles that USA faces in their endeavor to conquer the world.
[1] Les Houches , session XL ,1983
Relativity, Groupes et topologie II
Bryce S. DEWitt et Raymond Stora
Some chapters for a history of quantum field theory:1938-1952
S. S. Schweber , Brandeis University ,Waltham, MA 02254, USA
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2 comments:
I´m so happy to see you writing again! Your blog has fantastic articles. We need more blogs like your on the Web.
It´s so interesting to know Dirac was an atheist.
I´m an atheist too, and I think there are some other more interesting questions to discuss on world than to prove the existence (or not) of God. God to me is a "father necessity" of humans. We don´t like to think that we are alone here. We need something to anchor us.
I prefer to see religion by a social-political view. I think religion, like any kind of social group form, is powerful enough to make its members to do some things that they would not do by themselves, at normal situations.
Religion has the power to mantain its members alive, or to kill them all. To me, it´s not a good thing. I prefer to be free to questionate any kind of thing. And God is one of that.
Cheers.
Sure, it was about time for restarting. 2006 left nothing here, what a shame. After certain age years don't make much sense any more.
FS
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