Albert Einstein's Letter to a Grieving Father

I think it's completely sound. Basically what he's saying is that we are all part of the whole, even though we feel separate. Religion is there to help us realize that and therefore achieve peace within oneself. It's a way of saying you are not apart from your son, that we are all part of a greater whole. I nice sentiment, if stated a little obtusely.

*a nice sentiment

F'ing transcendentalist!

(j/k, I love f'ing transcendentalists)

A nice sentiment indeed, although Einstein wasn't religious. He was a deist, often using the word god to describe the workings of the universe. He didn't believe in a personal god.

One does not necessarily need religion to achieve what Einstein was describing. Agnostic astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains a thought which he says for him, produces no greater spiritual experience:

"Recognise that the very molecules that make up your body - the atoms that construct the molecules, are tracable to the crucibles that were once in the centres of high mass stars, that exploded their chemically enriched guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chenistry of life. So that we're all connected, to the each other - biologically, to the Earth - chemically, and to the universe - atomically. That's kind of cool. That makes me smile, and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we are a part of the universe. We are in the universe, and the universe is in us."

Your continuing support of Letters of Note brings me a small amount of joy. It is one of the most deserving sites on the Internet.

Besides, since they stopped allowing comments, Neatorama might be the only place one can discuss the letters.

Not quite sure what Einstein meant exactly.
What I do believe is that saying there is some sort of life after death is delusional.
As far as I'm concerned there is nothing after death.
If that is too harsh for you just accept that we don't know. Why is this so hard to deal with for some people? And it gives yourself the possibility to mourn instead of believing we go to heaven, in which case we should celebrate death instead.

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?" - Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)

Comes across as a little cold.

@ted -- hopefully Einstein knew the man well and figured that his words would help. Otherwise, yes, this was a risky letter to send.

When someone is grieving, it's more important to be helpful than right.

I worked as a hospital chaplain one summer. One day, I was called upon to baptize a dead baby. Did it help the baby? No. But it helped the mother a lot.