number theory

In the beginning, darkness was upon the face of the earth.

Then the Lord said, "Let there be Light!"

And there was!

what He saw in the brightness we don't know, but He was obviously not very happy about it. so He went about 'creating' (He was the progenitor of all us creative folks, I don't know where all you others came from).

what i DO know, was that He hated math as much as i do. why else would He say "Go fourth* and multiply"?

(*that's not a spelling mistake, in case you're wondering. i'll come to it later)

notice, the people He knew could multiply (e.g., mathematicians, accountants, businesspeople) He ordered to "Go" (away). from this it's quite evident that He loved the others and wanted them to stay (the fact that we, His beloved children messed up His garden is of course, OUR fault, and the reason He'd kick us out of it later, for even God can have limits to His tolerance).

why does God (and the majority of humankind) hate math?

"Mathematics is an EXACT science!" my dad (who taught math at university) used to chide me when i tried to solve my sums 'creatively' (the fact that my answers seldom matched up with what was printed in the text books, is another matter entirely).

to be more precise: 'Math is an EXACTING science'. it taxes you like nothing else in the world ('tax' being the only three-letter word which, as we all know, is a dirtier word than any four-letter word could ever hope to be).

...and why would it be safe to assume that God is responsible for our fear and loathing of math?

again, examine the command, and you'll notice that He was quite specific about which part of humanity should handle the numbers: the "fourth".

the other three quarters--the cadre of humanity i belong to--He didn't bother to allocate any particular task (that's the reason we still wander about, clueless about what we are supposed to be doing), or bestow with the grey cells that handle the squiggly-wiggly number-thingies.

if you're a normal human (as in 'not the bose-einstein variety'), stop feeling guilty about forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, telephone numbers and other such stuff that involve numbers, and being ‘all thumbs’ at arithmetic. remember, God loves you, and the fact that you have no head for numbers is actually A GIFT from Him.

go forth and party.

it's what He created you for.