Hold on, a minute, Mr. Weiss. You write: "That scientists like Einstein resorted to a numinous vocabulary is not the "gotcha" some wishful thinkers would like it to be."

Yes, however, by the same token, you also cannot use Einstein's words to champion a belief in his Non-belief. You go on to insist:

"Faith has had impressive minds on its side in the past, but it will have to work without the assumption that the greatest of the 20th century was one of them."

I think it depends upon just how "faith" is interpreted. In a strict, literal, religious sense, your point makes sense. Step outside of that box, however, and you are on less firm ground. Just because you call Einstein's more "numinous" pronouncements "milquetoast" means little, beyond your subjective take on expressions from Einstein of this nature:

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual; and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."

Also:

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive."

Of course, dogmatic believers, whether of atheism Or religion, cannot lay claim to Albert Einstein. He was much more subtle and complex in his approach to spirituality than either groups are able to be. Einstein believed, really, in allowing for the mystical, through the awe of our Universe. That was his form of spirituality, apparently, grounded in humane aspirations:

"Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We cannot stand aside and let God do it."

If God, then would God need to prove the existence of God to me?

The problem with Einstein, if you can call it a problem, is that his relatively friendly statements about spirituality can be abused by dogmatic believers, and that his relatively friendly statements about non-belief can be abused by militant atheists. Consider one of Mara's quotations:

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive."

Anyone have trouble imagining this quote being put to ill ends? As an attack upon a non-believing scientist, for example, for not being serious enough or sincere enough to admit what should be obvious to him as it was to Einstein.

The man's said enough relating to both sides of the topic that his true opinion is as inscrutable as your average book of holy writ.

Errr, Buddhism is an atheistic, yet spiritual, belief structure. ANY worldview, no matter how metaphysical, that denies the existence of God is, frankly, much closer to atheism than agnosticism. Buddhism (in it's purest form, without being filtered through Hinduism or Taoism) does exactly this. And, besides, most people who believe in God would say that someone who believes in a God that in no way has any effect on this world, is functionally an atheist. Most of Einstein's beliefs fall closer to those of an atheist with a love of mystery, really.

I'll claim Einstein. Not in the name of my religion, nor in the name of science, but in the name of brotherhood. Let us not, in the wisdom of Solomon, divide him.

What part of "transcending a personal god" would cause an atheist pause ?