신이란 단어는 인간의 나약함을 반증하는 단어일 뿐

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses,
the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
 - Albert Einstein

내게 신이란 단어는 인간의 나약함을 드러내는 표현과 산물일 뿐이라네.
성경이란건 명예롭긴 하지만, 극히 원시적이고 상당히 유치한 전설의 모음집일 뿐이네.
아무리 세밀한 해석을 덧붙인다고해도 이 점은 변치 않을걸세.

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me ... With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element ... unites us as having an “American Attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision...

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluation of human behavior ... I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours, 

A. Einstein

덧.
신이라는 것은 나약한 인간들이 의지할 상대가 필요해서 만들어 낸 추상적인 개념에 불과하다. 나는 그대들이 신 따위에 의지하지 않고도 스스로를 도우며 살아갈 수 있는 강한 인간으로 거듭나기를 간절히 바란다. 

덧.
"God helps those who help themselves."
하늘은 스스로 돕는 자를 돕는다. 그대가 진정 강해지고 싶다면 지금 당장 신에게 의존하는 행위를 중단하라.
이 유명한 문장의 출처가 성경(Bible)이라고 착각하는 분들이 많이 계실테지만, 절대 아니다.

덧.
신에 대한 의존의 중단이 신의 존재를 부정하는 것과는 하등 상관 없음을 밝혀둔다.