You're missing the context of that quote entirely. Einstein was irreligious: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1656.pdf Einstein also once said: "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." (source: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einstein.html )

Einstein actually believed the question of God was the most difficult to answer, which could not be answered with a simple yes or no. If you look at his most famous quotes on the topic, you will see this.

Einstein didn't say most of his famous quotes. I do believe that your characterization is accurate though, from a certain perspective.

"Most famous philosophers" - maybe they largely believed in supernatural beings, at least up to the 20th century, but to characterize the majority of famous philosophers as "religious" would be outright false. The ancient philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, made up their own religious views that often challenged the status quo at the time. The same could be said for Kant, John Locke, and Karl Marx, who really pushed enlightenment and irreligious thought, and then there's Nietzsche, who was famously nihilistic toward the idea of a God. "and scientists" - I think you are incorrect here. If you google "most famous scientists," you get a list. If you google "scientists who were atheist" you get almost identically the same list. Einstein was agnostic, but Marie and Pierre Curie were atheist. Stephen Hawking was atheist. Watson and Crick were atheist. Richard Feynman, John Nash, Ernst Mach, J Robert Oppenheimer, Roger Penrose, Charles Richter, Peter Higgs, Paul Erdos, Sigmund Freud, Erwin Schrodinger, Carl Sagan, John Bell, Niels Bohr, etc. etc. all atheist. The exceptions would be Newton, Galileo, and Charles Darwin. Not even close to a majority, and as far as characterizing them as "religious," Darwin would probably be the only one who would really qualify, ironically. Who do you consider a famous scientist who believed in God?

I know the views of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, they would have been based on similar beliefs of the mystery schools and they weren't atheist. Karl Marx said he didn't believe in Marxism, plus Karl Marx wrote the communist manifesto, and so in order to bring in communism you have to get rid of individuality, or any idea that separates including religion, and look how many lives communism has claimed?. Nietzsche would of again been a follower of the mystery schools as he wrote so much about the god Dionysus, towards the end of his life, when he was losing his marbles he believed he was the god himself. Pierre Curie believed in spiritualism which in fact if you look at many of the most influential figures in history, they too believed this way, as did Alfred Russell Wallace -theory of evolution, Descartes who developed the scientific method, many of them spoke of having conversations with spirits. Srinivasa Ramanujan credits his mathematical findings to the Goddess of Namagiri. Carl Sagan was not an atheist in fact he said "An atheist would have to know a lot more than I know." Erwin Schrodinger again like Einstein spoke about the hand of God being at work in the universe, he wasn't a yes or no man. Francis Collins, Gerhard Etrl, William D Phillips, Oliver Lodge, none of whom are atheist. Isaac Newton was an occultist, Charles Richet spiritualist, Louis Pasteur who said "A little of science will take you away from God, a lot will bring you back to him." Gregor Mendel – Father of Genetics, St. Giuseppe Moscati – Pioneer in Treating Diabetes with Insulin, Louis de Broglie – Nobel Prize winner in Quantum Mechanics, Fr. Georges Lemaître – Father of the Big Bang Theory, Jerome Lejeune, Galileo Galilei – Father of Modern Astronomy, Dmitri Mendeleev who invented the periodic table, all believed in God. Even Charles Darwin who's father was Eramus Darwin was a 33 degree freemason, passed the theory of evolution to his son Charles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_opus_%28alchemy%29 Aldous Huxley, relation of Thomas Huxley (Darwins Bulldog), was involved in the Esalen Institute, in fact he helped fund it, this was an institute to bring Buddhism and Christianity together, in a from of Gnosticism, and many famous influential people visited this place. Other "influential figures," John Dee, Francis Bacon, Edward Aleister Crowley all occultists not atheist.

There's a lot to unpack in what you stated, but I'm afraid people might not take you seriously if you claim that Nietzsche was a theist. Also, going down the Carl Sagan road, I think it can clear up the religious views of most of the other famous scientists you mentioned. Sagan famously wrote: "Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others—for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein—considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws." So, Sagan did not believe in God in any way that theists define God. If Sagan is to be believed, then Einstein was in the same mindset, and having studied physics and the history of physicists, I can assure you that the same applied to nearly all modern physicists of note, as you mentioned Louis de Broglie and Erwin Schrodinger. They believed in their trade, the laws of physics, and not in any sort of sentient (nor especially a vaguely anthropomorphic) celestial being that ruled over our lives. But, I suppose that one could define "god" as anything one wants, hence the reason all of these discussions evoking the religious beliefs of these famous scientists (many of whom were known during their lives to have been combative atheists, including Carl Sagan), as though these people believed in God, by taking their quotes largely out of context. Carl's wife Ann has even been outspoken about this mischaracterization since Carl's death (source: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2003/11/ann-druyan-talks-about-science-religion-wonder-awe-and-carl-sagan/ ).

There is a great deal of what Nietzsche wrote, that is Nihilistic and it's what I believe to be the truest and most honest form of atheism, which is nihilistic, but you have to also consider the mans life, in the context of his belief, and other lesser known books that he wrote, including the texts on Dionysus, which was a focus in the mystery schools. I didn't dislike Sagan, but he was wishy washy, he had ideas about life on other planets, and multiverses, which again slips into the non evidential belief, he couldn't accept the nihilistic viewpoint of an atheist, which is based purely on physical evidence, determinism, and the material, he wanted to somehow romanticise it, when there was no ghost in the machine to do that. What you've said about Einstein saying that it was the sum total of physical laws that govern the universe, but what you are not saying is that they saw the universe as a mind, the mind of God, not something that was abstract from them, and this wasn't a new belief it's very old, and related to Kabbalah. These men did not display the same Nihilistic belief Nietzsche initially displayed, and I didn't just read about them, because the amount of people who are atheists that I have spoken who haven't even read Darwins Origin of the Species by Natural Selection or the Preservation of the Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life, is unbelievable, but I also looked into their backgrounds, to see what groups they were joined to, and who funded them etc, which was quite telling. Most Royal Society Members, which was originally called the Lunar Society, were freemasons or Rosicrucian's. And then of course many of those where joined to the X-club. I was an atheist for quite a number years. But then I thought only fair to really examine my own belief, and where it had come from, including the influential authors I had read, and their background, because if I was just to swallow ideas without any real examination, then I'm a hypocrite for accusing the theist of the same thing. But along the way, the most common school of thought throughout is man has been governed or led by entities outside of this universe. And again, it is echoed in the New Age religion, The Lucis Trust which was started by Alice Bailey and her 33rd degree freemason husband, and she was influenced by Madam Blavatsky, and you can follow this influential thought right back to Francis Bacon, and to Plato.

Atheists don't believe in God. Nihilists don't believe in anything, even nihilism. There is a vast swath of philosophical territory in between. Equating atheism to nihilism is no more valid than equating monotheism to pantheism.

To say that atheists merely don't believe in God is a cop out, it's saying it is merely a negation of belief, that's a lie, as an atheist most hold to believing in science, physical evidence to say otherwise is dishonest. Atheism is nihilist, how is it not? Firstly, an atheist believes that he is purely determined by chemicals and neurons, there is no free will, no ghost in the machine, the reason they think the way they do is because that is the way they are pre-determined. Secondly, they believe the universe began for no reason and will end for no reason, hence there is no objective meaning to life or existence, no matter what you do here, all adds up to zero, Hence, regardless of "feeling" like life has meaning, it clearly cannot.

Atheist literally means against belief in God. That's all. Why are you trying to insist it means something more than that? Your characterization of atheism is reduced to the point where it sounds absurd. The same sort of thing could be done with Christianity and would be equally unfair.

"Probably most accredited scientists are religious people" - Nope. Sources: https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33 "Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think", Ecklund, Elaine Howard, Oxford University Press, 2010.

It's interesting that you first cite the very source I rely upon to support my answer. Perhaps you should have read that article.

You ought to also be aware that that survey is concerned solely with the U.S...and even so - even in the U.S. - more than 50% of scientists are religious.