In existographies, Charles Steinmetz (1865-1923) (FA:150) was a German-born American mathematician, electrical engineer, and philosopher, noted for []
Religion | Atheism
Steinmetz, while frequently being quoted for his 1922 denial of god, soul, and immortality view, was raised Lutheran, confirmed, later becoming “nominally Lutheran”, seems to used coded talk of how god could suggestively be in the infinities of spacetime, or something to this effect, but that science has nothing to say on this. [2]
Technocracy
In the winter of 1918-1919, Steinmetz was one of the members of Howard Scott’s technocracy group, which included: Richard Tolman and Thorstein Veblen, among others.
Other
Steinmetz was an associate (Ѻ) of Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, to name a few.
Genius rankings
Some have speculatively ranked (2017) Steinmetz along with Nikola Tesla and or Einstein in respect to brilliance. (Ѻ)
Quotes | By
The following are quotes by Steinmetz:
“In the realm of science, all attempts to find any evidence of supernatural beings, of metaphysical concepts, as god, immortality, infinity, etc., have thus far failed, and if we are honest, we must confess that in science there exists no god, no immortality, no soul, or mind, as distinct from the body. Science has inevitably become atheist.”
— Charles Steinmetz (1922), “Religion and Modern Science: How They Differ, and the Place of Each” [1]
“There has grown up an increasing antagonism between science and religion, making the two incompatible with each other. Our knowledge of the superior entitles with which historic religion deals has been derived by experience and by ‘revelation’. Undoubtedly experience led to the first conception of superior beings, or ‘gods’: the forces of nature personified; the experiences in dreams; the orderly progress of nature, which seemed to imply a manager of the universe. With our increasing knowledge, this became less and less satisfactory.”
— Charles Steinmetz (1922), “Religion and Modern Science: How They Differ, and the Place of Each” [1]
“The terror of the thunderstorm, for instance, primitive man to the conception of a supreme being whose attribute was the thunderbolt [e.g. Zeus]. But when Franklin brought the lightning from the clouds and showed it to be a mere electric spark, when we learned to make the lightning harmless by the lightning rod, and when finally we harnessed electricity to do our work, naturally our reverence for the thrower of the thunderbolt decayed. So the gods of experience vanished.”
— Charles Steinmetz (1922), “Religion and Modern Science: How They Differ, and the Place of Each” [1]
References
1. (a) Steinmetz, Charles. (1922). “Religion and Modern Science: How They Differ, and the Place of Each”, Speech Delivered before the Layman’s League at All Souls Church (Ѻ), Schenectady, New York, Sunday, Nov 5; quoted in: The Unitarian Register, 101:1089, Nov 16; in American Freeman, Jul 1941.
(b) Haught, James A. (1996). 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (pg. 247). Prometheus.
(c) McEvoy, Don. (2001).
Credo: Unitarians and Universalists of Yesteryear Talk About Their Lives and Motivations (§:
Steinmetz, pgs. 83-58).
External links
● Charles Proteus Steinmetz – Wikipedia.
