appears that after all was said and done, Einstein ended up an atheist. At least, in a letter written to philosopher Eric Gutkind in

January 1954, a year before his death, he wrote that “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.”

wondered how much response distortion occurs in these polls, with some folks thinking to themselves “maybe if I answer the way I really

think, God will hear me (if such a thing exists) and find out what I really think.”

I know, sounds completely irrational, but this

is homo sapiens we’re talking about here. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts the distortion percentage is fairly large.

And I think

that 21% figure constitutes people who consider the rejection of “organized religion” to be atheism. Hence the “universal spirit”

claptrap.

As for me, I always liked the “radical atheist” answer given by Douglas Adams. It gets past the anti-organized religion

angle and gets at the bigger picture.

P.S.: of course vegetarians have the same definitional problem all the time. “But do you

eat chicken?”…that sort of thing.