In the context where he made the god/dice statement he was having an argument with another scientist about something - he also happened to be wrong and later admitted so.

Einstein was very clever with maths, and later in life showed to be shrewd enough to turn down an offer of the Israeli presidency. His views on other subjects however were not as clear cut as the "soundbites" often thrown up these days suggest.

He was purposefully ambivalent on the question of religion and god - coming down on both sides of the argument and none when questioned, just as he was about US politics, the Second World War, and almost anything else reporters asked him. But he was, despite recent claims to the contrary, rather naive in a media-savvy sense and left behind him a plethora of statements in the public domain that suffer enormously when stripped of their context.

In this he was a victim of his own success, and of the American media tendency to "lionize" people based on an easily transmittable trait. Being the archetypal (and available) "genius" must therefore have made Einstein's life something of a misery, and every time I see his "views" (often spoken off the cuff in response to an impertinent approach) being used to justify any stance on any subject outside of quantum physics I cringe on his behalf.