Evidence For And Against Evolution

[Astrophile]

There are no goal posts like that. Either life came about without an intelligent cause higher than itself, or...it did not.

Now you really are getting seriously muddled.

If the first life did come about through an intelligent cause higher than itself, this intelligent cause was not itself alive because if it had been what it produced would not have been the first life.

If the first life came about through an intelligent cause higher than itself, how did this intelligent cause come about? (Through a more intelligent and even higher cause, perhaps?)

You are confusing the question whether a god created the first life (natural abiogenesis vs.divine creation) with the question whether all subsequent life evolved (with or without divine guidance) from the first life form or whether a god created all living species separately in essentially their present forms (theistic or non-theistic evolution vs. creationism). The first question can't be answered scientifically; the second question can, and it has been answered in favour of evolution.

 

[Astrophile]

With all due respect, this simply does not make any sense. If there is that much trial and error and it takes millions of years for something to evolve then, we would have never made this far. Take the human for example, after all the trial and error lets say something magically evolved in to a human. Did this thing or these things magically know to become male and female? And let's imagine the answer is yes, then if there was so much trial and error to get the 9 months correct then the first 2 humans died. How were they replaced? Trial and error simply makes no sense.

What do you think the 'something' that 'evolved into a human' was. According to the scientific evidence, this 'something' was a population of apes, probably australopithecines, which were already divided into males and females. The australopithecines themselves were descended from earlier apes, which were again divided into males and females. This male-female division goes back at least into the Palaeozoic era, long before the evolution of mammals, and the population of apes that evolved into humans consisted of at least thousands or tens of thousands of individuals. It was not a matter of the first two humans magically appearing from nowhere.

 

[Valjean]

By what mechanism did this invisible creator create life?

 

[Astrophile]

I do not completely agree with statement however, its too off topic to get in to. With that said, at least the very basics of gravity can be explained and understood by anyone unlike, the theory of evolution

Very good. So if anyone can explain and understand the basics of gravity, can you calculate how far from the Sun Halley's comet was five years after its last perihelion?

 

[YoursTrue]

They lived as hunter-gatherers. Any trade would be between neighboring bands; simple, one-time exchanges. No records needed. Of what possible use would records have been?

Again, just how many hunter-gathering humanoids were there? How do you know about these things? Especially since there were no records, as you say. This again makes me think, believe, and realize you're making things up.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, just how many hunter-gathering humanoids were there? How do you know about these things? Especially since there were no records, as you say. This again makes me think, believe, and realize you're making things up.

This is an argument from ignorance on your part. A logical fallacy. Worse yet you are assuming that others lack an education also. This is miles outside my area of expertise but I can tell you one way that they can make such an estimate. They can measure the genetic diversity of man and work backwards. We know roughly how long a generation is. We know how many new mutations show up each year, and it can be calculated how many of them become part of the genome. A good example of this is the African cheetah. It is one of my favorite arguments against the Noah's Ark myth. About ten thousand years ago they went through a near extinction event. They got down to less than ten breeding individuals. At least that is what the math tells us. As a result today any two leopards are more closely related to each other than you are to your brother or sister, if you have any and assuming that they are not identical twins to you. Cheetahs are highly inbred and when it comes to skin transplants, the bodies largest organ, there is no need to find a donor as we do when one needs a new kidney.

When you do not know how scientists do something it is always unwise to think that they are just guessing. Scientists have to be able to support their claims. Creationists can't seem to ever support their claims. Is it any wonder that I go with the side that does not rely only on "because the Bible says so"?

 

[YoursTrue]

Conjecture? Guesswork? Who cares? What does it matter what initiates a line of research? Wasn't Einstein's theory of relativity initiated by a dream?

It doesn't matter where the inspiration comes from. What matters is the process used to follow up on it, the scientific method.

I don't know Einstein's theory of relativity (I know the equation), don't claim to understand it, but now (sigh) you've forced me to look a little at Einstein's works. And while I was seeking to understand some of his thoughts re: light, I came across this in a BBC article, about his thoughts about God. "Einstein's work was underpinned by the idea that the laws of physics were an expression of the divine." BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon
Meanwhile, I look forward to meeting Dr. Einstein someday and talking with him. Because I believe in a resurrection.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know Einstein's theory of relativity (I know the equation), don't claim to understand it, but now (sigh) you've forced me to look a little at Einstein's works. And while I was seeking to understand some of his thoughts re: light, I came across this in a BBC article, about his thoughts about God. "Einstein's work was underpinned by the idea that the laws of physics were an expression of the divine." BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon
Meanwhile, I look forward to meeting Dr. Einstein someday and talking with him. Because I believe in a resurrection.

Einstein thought that your beliefs are ridiculous.

 

[YoursTrue]

This is an argument from ignorance on your part. A logical fallacy. Worse yet you are assuming that others lack an education also. This is miles outside my area of expertise but I can tell you one way that they can make such an estimate. They can measure the genetic diversity of man and work backwards. We know roughly how long a generation is. We know how many new mutations show up each year, and it can be calculated how many of them become part of the genome. A good example of this is the African cheetah. It is one of my favorite arguments against the Noah's Ark myth. About ten thousand years ago they went through a near extinction event. They got down to less than ten breeding individuals. At least that is what the math tells us. As a result today any two leopards are more closely related to each other than you are to your brother or sister, if you have any and assuming that they are not identical twins to you. Cheetahs are highly inbred and when it comes to skin transplants, the bodies largest organ, there is no need to find a donor as we do when one needs a new kidney.

When you do not know how scientists do something it is always unwise to think that they are just guessing. Scientists have to be able to support their claims. Creationists can't seem to ever support their claims. Is it any wonder that I go with the side that does not rely only on "because the Bible says so"?

If it's an argument from ignorance (although I suppose you and I are ignorant of any writings humans may have effected prior to 5,000 years ago, despite their professed existence for hundreds of thousands of years), it's because there is no proof that during those hundreds of thousands of years humans of some type were said to be alive, the claim is nevertheless made without substantiation that they didn't NEED to write. For hundreds of thousands of years. Unbelievable and incredible. In the actual sense of the words.
I don't know about the math regarding the cheetah, perhaps you can at least provide me with a link doing not only the math, but the claim by scientists that they got down to 10 and then grew from that point. But it almost proves my point about genetic interbreeding. If cheetahs did not interbreed with other species. Perhaps they can, though. Why do you say they were they about to go extinct about 10,000 years ago? I don't say that interbreeding to the point of changing the outline of passage of chromosomes does not happen. It apparently does, like interbreeding horses or dogs that eventually produces another type because of the common interbreeding that would eliminate things like Mendel's Law which would produce a variety.

 

[YoursTrue]

Einstein thought that your beliefs are ridiculous.

Einstein, it is said, wanted to know God's mind. I am not God's mind. He may not have thought my thoughts are ridiculous. I might have enjoyed having a cup of tea or coffee with him, though, more than once. I look forward to meeting him. I believe he looked forward to living beyond his measured existence on earth as well, that is my conjecture, I don't know if he would have thought it ridiculous.
"I am not interested in this phenomenon or that phenomenon," Einstein had said earlier in his life. "I want to know God's thoughts – the rest are mere details." But as he lay there dying in Princeton Hospital he must have understood that these were secrets that God was clearly keen to hang on to." From the BBC article.

 

[Valjean]

Again, just how many hunter-gathering humanoids were there? How do you know about these things? Especially since there were no records, as you say. This again makes me think, believe, and realize you're making things up.

This was universal for 99% of our species' time on Earth. This is the way it is among remaining hunter gatherer cultures.
You're quite the skeptic, YT. What do you think things were like in the past? How do you think people lived ten or twenty thousand years ago?

I don't know Einstein's theory of relativity (I know the equation), don't claim to understand it, but now (sigh) you've forced me to look a little at Einstein's works. And while I was seeking to understand some of his thoughts re: light, I came across this in a BBC article, about his thoughts about God. "Einstein's work was underpinned by the idea that the laws of physics were an expression of the divine." BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon
Meanwhile, I look forward to meeting Dr. Einstein someday and talking with him. Because I believe in a resurrection.

You, YT, don't seem to believe anything you haven't seen with your own eyes. You're abysmally ignorant of science, technology, history and reason. You don't know how think critically or weigh evidence. You're a walking poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Yet you seem to have taken to Einstein, just because he mentions god. If you only knew. Einstein believed things that are so counter intuitive, so seemingly impossible that most educated people today would balk at them.
Yet, curiously, you accept uncritically a mythology with no empirical evidence whatsoever supporting it, a mythology that makes claims no-one would believe if they were reported to have happened today, even if a dozen eyewitnesses came forth.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If it's an argument from ignorance (although I suppose you and I are ignorant of any writings humans may have effected prior to 5,000 years ago, despite their professed existence for hundreds of thousands of years), it's because there is no proof that during those hundreds of thousands of years humans of some type were said to be alive, the claim is nevertheless made without substantiation that they didn't NEED to write. For hundreds of thousands of years. Unbelievable and incredible. In the actual sense of the words.
I don't know about the math regarding the cheetah, perhaps you can at least provide me with a link doing not only the math, but the claim by scientists that they got down to 10 and then grew from that point. But it almost proves my point about genetic interbreeding. If cheetahs did not interbreed with other species. Perhaps they can, though. Why do you say they were they about to go extinct about 10,000 years ago? I don't say that interbreeding to the point of changing the outline of passage of chromosomes does not happen. It apparently does, like interbreeding horses or dogs that eventually produces another type because of the common interbreeding that would eliminate things like Mendel's Law which would produce a variety.

You need to learn what an argument from ignorance is. And it is always a mistake to assume that others are as uneducated as you are.

By the way it looks like you broke the Ninth Commandment again. When you claim that others do things "without substantiation" you make a claim that you need to support. What is your evidence that they did so? If you can't you really owe those people an apology.

So back up your claim or admit to your error. If you do so I will give you some links not only on the cheetah but on past populations of man.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Einstein, it is said, wanted to know God's mind. I am not God's mind. He may not have thought my thoughts are ridiculous. I might have enjoyed having a cup of tea or coffee with him, though, more than once. I look forward to meeting him. I believe he looked forward to living beyond his measured existence on earth as well, that is my conjecture, I don't know if he would have thought it ridiculous.
"I am not interested in this phenomenon or that phenomenon," Einstein had said earlier in his life. "I want to know God's thoughts – the rest are mere details." But as he lay there dying in Princeton Hospital he must have understood that these were secrets that God was clearly keen to hang on to." From the BBC article.

You are mistranslating an older work of his. He thought that an activist god to be a joke. In his last letter that he wrote on the subject he had this to say:

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. “

Einstein’s letter rejecting God to be auctioned




There are other works as well. If he believed in a God he believed in one that started the universe and then sat back and let things go their own way.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I don't know Einstein's theory of relativity (I know the equation), don't claim to understand it, but now (sigh) you've forced me to look a little at Einstein's works. And while I was seeking to understand some of his thoughts re: light, I came across this in a BBC article, about his thoughts about God. "Einstein's work was underpinned by the idea that the laws of physics were an expression of the divine." BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon
Meanwhile, I look forward to meeting Dr. Einstein someday and talking with him. Because I believe in a resurrection.

Ugh, really?

You really had to do that?

You had to go off on a completely irrelevant tangent about Einstein's belief in God in order to avoid engaging with the actual point being made by another poster about intuition and methodology?

Also, Einstein never claimed to be a theist, but an agnostic, and repeatedly expressed that he didn't believe in a personal God:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
SOURCE: Albert Einstein Archives - Description Codes: I admire your great courage in speaking up...​

". . . I came—though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents—to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment—an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections.
"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal. Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it."
SOURCE: Albert Einstein: Notes for an Autobiography : Albert Einstein : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive​

And, also, it seems unlikely that he would be as keen to meet you in the afterlife:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
SOURCE: Einstein on Politics​

 

[YoursTrue]

This was universal for 99% of our species' time on Earth. This is the way it is among remaining hunter gatherer cultures.
You're quite the skeptic, YT. What do you think things were like in the past? How do you think people lived ten or twenty thousand years ago?
You, YT, don't seem to believe anything you haven't seen with your own eyes. You're abysmally ignorant of science, technology, history and reason. You don't know how think critically or weigh evidence. You're a walking poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Yet you seem to have taken to Einstein, just because he mentions god. If you only knew. Einstein believed things that are so counter intuitive, so seemingly impossible that most educated people today would balk at them.
Yet, curiously, you accept uncritically a mythology with no empirical evidence whatsoever supporting it, a mythology that makes claims no-one would believe if they were reported to have happened today, even if a dozen eyewitnesses came forth.

There are many things in the Bible, including the history of the Jews, who believe they stem from Abraham, that leads me to believe in the Bible. Also, the idea that until the past 5,000 years or so written communication was not in existence because for the previous hundred thousands of years until then there was no 'need' of it doesn't strike me as reasonable. For you, maybe it does. But not for me. That's like saying bonobos had (have) no need for written communication. They don't trade to the best of my knowledge, that is true enough, but to seek their own welfare and history?? Why not? Because they don't want to?
It is absurd to think or believe that mankind suddenly started writing because they built cities and needed records after all those hundreds of thousands of years of human existence, as it is said.
Are there things I don't understand, know, or comprehend? Things I can't answer? Yes, of course. And, as Thomas said to some of Jesus' disciples about his resurrection when it was reported to him, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John chapter 20.)
In the meantime while I, like Einstein, await the wonderful future God has in store for mankind, yes, I put my trust and faith in the Bible as the related word of God. I don't think Einstein did, but he felt or realized somehow from the vastness of the universe and his own understanding of things, there must be something intelligent beyond himself out there.
Furthermore, there are no "eyewitnesses" of macroevolution. There are no real eyewitnesses of microevolution either. And more furthermore, I was swimming today and wondered why is it that humans can't breathe by better evolutionary means under water if evolution is true by natural selection without a superior intelligent force? Surely evolution might have solved that little problem. I'm sure you have the answer. Such as: it just didn't work out that way.

 

[YoursTrue]

Ugh, really?

You really had to do that?

You had to go off on a completely irrelevant tangent about Einstein's belief in God in order to avoid engaging with the actual point being made by another poster about intuition and methodology?

Also, Einstein never claimed to be a theist, but an agnostic, and repeatedly expressed that he didn't believe in a personal God:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
SOURCE: Albert Einstein Archives - Description Codes: I admire your great courage in speaking up...​

". . . I came—though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents—to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment—an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections.
"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal. Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it."
SOURCE: Albert Einstein: Notes for an Autobiography : Albert Einstein : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive​

And, also, it seems unlikely that he would be as keen to meet you in the afterlife:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
SOURCE: Einstein on Politics​

I believe Einstein will see. Whether he will or not is up to God, not me. And Einstein, with all his brilliance, did not quite have the exact proper viewpoint of rewards and punishments from God, plus the Bible does not teach that individuals go in a cognizant state "somewhere else," i.e., as the soul surviving the death of the body. A resurrection is not that the person necessarily goes "somewhere else" after death. But to an extent, Einstein realized there is something intelligent apparently more than himself. Furthermore, thinking of Einstein, his thinking went beyond what we normally see. There is nothing to preclude the idea in his thinking that God, a gracious, kind, and loving and JUST God exists.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There are many things in the Bible, including the history of the Jews, who believe they stem from Abraham, that leads me to believe in the Bible. Also, the idea that until the past 5,000 years or so written communication was not in existence because for the previous hundred thousands of years until then there was no 'need' of it doesn't strike me as reasonable. For you, maybe it does. But not for me. That's like saying bonobos had (have) no need for written communication. They don't trade to the best of my knowledge, that is true enough, but to seek their own welfare and history?? Why not? Because they don't want to?
It is absurd to think or believe that mankind suddenly started writing because they built cities and needed records after all those hundreds of thousands of years of human existence, as it is said.
Are there things I don't understand, know, or comprehend? Things I can't answer? Yes, of course. And, as Thomas said to some of Jesus' disciples about his resurrection when it was reported to him, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John chapter 20.)
In the meantime while I, like Einstein, await the wonderful future God has in store for mankind, yes, I put my trust and faith in the Bible as the related word of God. I don't think Einstein did, but he felt or realized somehow from the vastness of the universe and his own understanding of things, there must be something intelligent beyond himself out there.
Furthermore, there are no "eyewitnesses" of macroevolution. There are no real eyewitnesses of microevolution either. And more furthermore, I was swimming today and wondered why is it that humans can't breathe by better evolutionary means under water if evolution is true by natural selection without a superior intelligent force? Surely evolution might have solved that little problem. I'm sure you have the answer. Such as: it just didn't work out that way.

That is pretty weak sauce. Believing in a story because it makes you feel good, even though the theology is terribly flawed, and an argument from ignorance You have no evidence and yet you oppose an idea supported by mountains of evidence. Evidence that is so overwhelming that it takes away your ability to even admit to the least of it.

And the bottom line is not just that you believe in a story that paints God as being incompetent and immoral, but you also end up calling that God a liar. Not the wisest position to take even if there is a God.

 

[YoursTrue]

That is pretty weak sauce. Believing in a story because it makes you feel good, even though the theology is terribly flawed, and an argument from ignorance You have no evidence and yet you oppose an idea supported by mountains of evidence. Evidence that is so overwhelming that it takes away your ability to even admit to the least of it.

And the bottom line is not just that you believe in a story that paints God as being incompetent and immoral, but you also end up calling that God a liar. Not the wisest position to take even if there is a God.

There is a true God. But you keep calling me a liar, yet you haven't proven natural selection without a superior intelligent motivating force as the originator of life. When a man and woman have a child, that child, I read, has 50% dna of the father and 50% of the mother. That is not evolution. That is the way genetic lineage works. Meanwhile, there is nothing other than say-so that something that is now purportedly extinct in what is called the greater ape family interbred with whatever -- the whoevers -- to eventually evolve to become homo sapiens. Yes, and furthermore, yes, the breathing apparatus of gills was lost as combination fish types crawled on to land and stayed there? That's what I was taught in school. The picture was cute like a platypus crawling out of water, but now that I look more at that, it doesn't make sense. Maybe the land crawlers that emerged from the sea didn't want to go back there any more? I mean, are whales and dolphins evolving, or is there no natural selection need for them to live on land primarily? I wonder if some think birds wish they could breathe for an extended while under water. Maybe the thought will take root in their brains and they will genetically transform? Some say maybe they pray or wonder about God and wonder why they die. Frankly, I don't think so but some may ask how do I know? but then we have Mr. Ed to tell us, right?

 

[YoursTrue]

That is pretty weak sauce. Believing in a story because it makes you feel good, even though the theology is terribly flawed, and an argument from ignorance You have no evidence and yet you oppose an idea supported by mountains of evidence. Evidence that is so overwhelming that it takes away your ability to even admit to the least of it.

And the bottom line is not just that you believe in a story that paints God as being incompetent and immoral, but you also end up calling that God a liar. Not the wisest position to take even if there is a God.

So you think the Jews that believe in the scriptures about their history are misled as a religious group? I actually see more evidence about that than I do the theory of evolution insofar as life evolving without a divine originator. Do I think that means someone born with life threatening illness is from God? Some do. I don't see the Bible supporting that theory.

 

[YoursTrue]

Ugh, really?

You really had to do that?

You had to go off on a completely irrelevant tangent about Einstein's belief in God in order to avoid engaging with the actual point being made by another poster about intuition and methodology?

Also, Einstein never claimed to be a theist, but an agnostic, and repeatedly expressed that he didn't believe in a personal God:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
SOURCE: Albert Einstein Archives - Description Codes: I admire your great courage in speaking up...​

". . . I came—though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents—to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment—an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections.
"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal. Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it."
SOURCE: Albert Einstein: Notes for an Autobiography : Albert Einstein : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive​

And, also, it seems unlikely that he would be as keen to meet you in the afterlife:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
SOURCE: Einstein on Politics​

No wonder his hair was such a mess sometimes.