Albert Einstein's 'God Letter' dismissing religion is auctioned for more than £2 million

In the one-and-a-half page letter, Mr Einstein, who was 74 at the time, identified himself as a proud Jew but dismissed Judaism as a religion, referring to it as being “like all other religions, an incarnation of childish superstition.

"The Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and in whose mentality I feel profoundly anchored, still for me does not have any different kind of dignity from all other peoples.

“As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

The theoretical physicist also wrote that “the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

The letter, which was found among Mr Gutkind’s papers, previously came up for auction in London in 2008, when it was sold for £170,000.

Christie’s auctioned off another rare letter from the scientist, to his sister Maja, in May, while last year another note he had written, describing his theory on a happy life, was sold for £1.19m at an auction in Jerusalem.