I probably agree that Einsteins view on God were not clear. But i'd rather go by his actual words rather than what people over the years 'thought he meant instead'. I agree his view of a creator God was not a classic or a simple one but it's clear from an his actual words he did believe in a creator God. He also clearly stated he was not an atheist I'll just leave with a few quotes from the dude himself and let peops make up their own minds
(The following is from Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer, Princeton University Press)
"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."
Nowhere there does he say anything about a creator.
"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."
Source?
''I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details.'' (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p.202)
Again, Einstein, and many other scientists, can, and have, used this sort of language metaphorically.
“I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist. Your counter-arguments seem to me very correct and could hardly be better formulated. It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere—childish analogies. We have to admire in humility the beautiful harmony of the structure of this world as far—as we can grasp it. And that is all.”
Again, where is the creator?
Like I said, it's presumptuous to say Einstein was an atheist, but it's also so to say he believed in a higher intelligent being. The most we can say, is he that humbly admired the order in the cosmos, so much so that he said he was religious in 'that sense, and in that sense only'.
Topic: Islam or Atheism - The Big Debate