What was Albert Einstein's answer to a boy who wrote to ask Do Scientists pray?

Answer 1

For many scientists, including some of the greatest names in science like Galileo, Newton and Faraday, a belief system including prayer is seen as an important part of life. They not only understand the scientific method as explained below, but ask themselves just how the laws of nature appeared as they are in the first place. A belief in a Creator, therefore, suggests to them that he who created the laws in the first place can also modify them as a result of prayer.

Einstein actually said the following:

"I have tried to respond to your question as simply as I could. Here is my answer

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people.

For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e., by a wish addressed to a supernatural being.

However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith.

All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research.

But, on the other hand, everyone one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naïve."

In other words, Einstein certainly believed in a supreme being, and one to whom some sort of prayer was certainly not a futile exercise. All this from a genius who once wrote:

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

and

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

-- Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann
for more of Albert Einstein's quotes, please see link on left "Quotes: Albert Einstein".