Albert Einstein is best known for his theories of relativity and for his famous E=mc2 equation that describes the equivalence of mass and energy, but his thoughts on religion have long attracted conjecture. His position on God has been widely misrepresented by people on both sides of the atheism/religion divide but he always resisted easy stereotyping on the subject.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. — Albert Einstein, letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3 1954

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own. A little known letter written by him, however, may help to settle the argument — or at least provoke further controversy about his views. Auctioned in London for $404,000 after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as "childish superstitions". The handwritten piece, in German, is not listed in the source material of the most authoritative academic text on the subject, Max Jammer's book Einstein and Religion. Einstein's parents were not religious but he attended a Catholic primary school and at the same time received private tuition in Judaism. This prompted what he later called, his "religious paradise of youth", during which he observed religious rules such as not eating pork. This did not last long though and by 12 he was questioning the truth of many biblical stories. "The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression," he later wrote.

For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are 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. — Albert Einstein, letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3 1954

In his later years he referred to a "cosmic religious feeling" that permeated and sustained his scientific work. In 1954, a year before his death, he spoke of wishing to "experience the universe as a single cosmic whole". He was also fond of using religious flourishes, in 1926 declaring that "He [God] does not throw dice" when referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory. Despite his categorical rejection of conventional religion, Einstein became angry when his views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism. He was offended by their lack of humility and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

Albert Einstein quoted on a London Underground poster

Like other great scientists he does not fit the boxes in which popular polemicists like to pigeonhole him. It is clear for example that he had respect for the religious values enshrined within Judaic and Christian traditions, but what he understood by religion was something far more subtle than what is usually meant by the word in popular discussion. — John Brooke, Oxford University

Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology: Max Jammer Given the voluminous literature on Albert Einstein, it is surprising that so little scholarly attention has been paid to the scientist's religious views. Israeli physics professor Jammer, who knew Einstein personally, shows us an Einstein whose nominal childhood faith turned to atheism while preparing for a bar mitzvah that never took place. From then on, Einstein's religious views were a bundle of apparent contradictions: he corresponded with the world's great spiritual leaders yet disapproved of religious instruction for his sons, arguing that it was "contrary to all scientific thinking." He claimed that "science without religion is lame" but never set foot in a synagogue and requested not to be buried in the Jewish tradition. While eluding definitive conclusions about Einstein's deistic "cosmic religion," Jammer demonstrates that religion fascinated the man throughout his career, prompting him to publish articles in the New York Times and elsewhere. USA UK

God in the Equation: How Einstein Transformed Religion For thousands of years, science and religion have occupied separate rooms in the house of culture. As writer Corey Powell points out, though, such a separation is hardly warranted in the modern world, where a new faith that he calls sci/religion captures both the mystical and the empirical. The prophet of sci/religion, Powell claims, is Einstein, whose search for a unifying factor in his relativity theory brought together the elements of physics and metaphysics. Einstein's Lamda principle became known as the cosmological constant, a force that dominated the universe and mitigated the inward pull of gravity. In this lively story, Powell traces the rise of the scientific community's tendency to explain the workings of the universe in mystical ways, as they search for the forces dark energy, dark matter that unify and bring order to the universe. Powell argues that sci/religion offers a religion of rational hope as an alternative to what he calls old-time religion. USA UK

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