Einstein was noted for using the terms God and religion in his discussions, for example in his famously expressed doubts about the randomness of quantum physics: “God does not play dice.”

But he seems to have, more privately, taken a highly skeptical stance towards religion, as show in a Guardian report on a recently-published letter.

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. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

He also was scornful about the Jews claimed position as God’s chose people:

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.

The Tricycle Blog points out that two quotes on BUddhism widely attributed to Einstein on the internet (and we all know how reliable that is) appears to be spurious (this is just one of them):

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.

I’d like to think the old fella would have had a kindly eye for Buddhism (if only he and the Dalai Lama could have met) but you never know, he might have been highly skeptical of that as well. On the other hand, some of his (genuine) quotations are very Buddhist in nature.