Einstein Called Faith 'Childish Superstition'

A relatively unknown letter by Albert Einstein, offered at auction Thursday in London, offers new details on the scientist's tangled relationship with religion, the Guardian reports. While believers often consider Einstein a scientist who maintained his religious faith, the 1954 letter calls the Bible "primitive legends," and "the word god … nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness."

Einstein writes that, although he is a member of the "Jewish people," Judaism for him is, like other religions, "an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." The letter, sent to a philosopher and written in German, does not appear in the authoritative book Einstein and Religion, and at least one expert on the topic admitted he was unaware of it.