Dear daughter of Zeus, now I follow you.

↪Athena Pythagoras thought number is the primary substance and I do not agree with him. Being, as described by Parmenides, is the primary substance. My father would always scold me because he thought I wasn't understanding basic arithmetic when I was only four years old and couldn't do so at that age because my mind wasn't prepared for it. — Michael Lee

I am listening to a show now that is attempting to answer what math is. Is math just in our minds or does it exist like Plato's forms?

It is not normal for very young children to comprehend math. While parents mean well to push their children to learn, they lack knowledge of the development of the brain, and lack knowledge of how to teach, and unfortunately have unrealistic expectations. I think this hurts children.

Who in a religion determines what the religion should do? If we can identify that person, perhaps that person can turn to science to explain the psychological reasons for why today's religious teachings work.

I think if we look at what science has done to our understanding of religion, we would realize, religion today is nothing as it was before the modern age.

God was more a fearsome and punishing God than a loving God, before our bellies were full, most children lived to adulthood, and our life expectancy doubled. It was science that over came the evils and that is what leads to us worship a loving God instead of fear and punishing God.

God was more a fearsome and punishing God than a loving God, before our bellies were full, most children lived to adulthood, and our life expectancy doubled. — Athena

It's interesting how his personality seems to change over time. He was a being that killed first born sons and flooded the world. Now he's helping people win football games.

Pythagoreans believed "all is number" and there is absolutely nothing else and Plato seems to agree with him with the Platonic solids and his theory of the forms. Interestingly Athena, I found this section in an old book of mine about Pythagoras' view of the cosmos. It took me over two hours to just type it out because my left hand needs surgery badly and I'm finding it very difficult to type at my age of 53.

Interestingly, the Pythagoreans used to believe the Earth was the centre of the Universe, but had to modify their beliefs in order to get it in sync with their mathematical demands. It is remarkably similar, although imperfectly, to Copernicus' view that came much, much later.

"Pythagorean musical and mathematical conceptions found their highest expression in the cosmological doctrine of the Music of the spheres. When Pythagoras declared that there is a universal harmony, a grand musical pattern, in the movements of the Universe, he was expressing, in his own style of concrete imagining, the conviction that rational law governs the universe. For to the Pythagorean mind, it must be remembered, music was identical with number, and number in turn was conceived geometrically. Consequently, since the circle and its perfection and simplicity made the strongest appeal to the unsophisticated mathematical sensibilities of the Greeks, the meaning of astronomical law became naturally affixed to it. There was no serious trouble conceiving the observed movements of the Sun, Moon and fix stars as basically circular, although the deviations between summer and winter required some explanation, but the apparent irregularities of the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) created a serious difficulty that some kind of geometric pattern must exhibit itself in all of those movements made an article of faith for the Pythagoreans partly suggested by experience from observing the circular movements of the Sun, Moon and constellations, but in any case demanded as a guiding concept for the rational interpretation of whatever astronomical phenomena might be observed; to Pythagoras it appears that such astronomical order was conceived both geometrically and musically, that is by means of visual and auditory imagination combined, for it is recorded of him that on a few memorable occasions in his life he entered into the transcendental experience of actually hearing that celestial music. The general number theory gave rise also to a more particular astronomical result adding the orbits of the five known planets to those of the Sun and Moon and that of the fixed stars gave a total of eight orbits each of which must be conceived as basically circular or as somehow explainable in terms of a combination of circles. However eight was not a good Pythagorean number; the next number above it was ten or the Decad. Two more revolving bodies had therefore to be found and postulated; the need was met by conceiving of the Earth itself as a planet revolving about the same centre as that about which the Sun and other planets revolve and by postulating that behind the Earth on the side opposite to that on which the Greeks and all known peoples resided (Europe, Asia and Africa), there was a tenth revolving body which they called the counter-Earth. A cosmic centre had to be assumed which all ten orbits encircled, and this ultimate centre was conceived as the Central Fire. Of course inhabitants of the known Earth we're unable to see either the counter Earth or the Central Fire; this inability was explained by supposing that the Earth while revolving around the Central Fire kept its inhabited face turned away from the fire and the counter Earth with the result that they were perpetually invisible to Earth people. The hypothesis seems a curious one to contemporary habits of thought, but let it be considered that the Greeks lacking telescopes possess no example of a body rotating on its own axis, whereas experience did show them one example of a revolving body keeping one face towards and one face away from the centre of its orbit — namely the moon." (The Presocratics, Philip Wheelwright).

The period in Medina was met by constant harassment by the same people who had oppressed them for their entire time in Mecca, and most of the controversial verses in the Quran were specifically referring to dealing with said oppressors. There is no contradiction — YusufPonders

Well, maybe "contradiction" is the wrong word. I was referring to the essential difference in the Mecca and Medina verses. The Mecca verses speak of tolerance towards non-muslims, the Media verses demand brutal oppression. Yes, if you consider the context, you do get a sort of consistent message, namely: when the islamic population is small and weak, behave nicely towards the others. Once the islamic population becomes strong and dominant, oppress the others.

What I was pointing out is that this is a political roadmap, and not a divine principle (which of course would not change depending on context).

An Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, thought a goddess granted him his mathematical genius. As you think it so it is because we create that in ourselves and it is projected back into our shared reality.

I don't think Pythagoras should get too much credit for the math discoveries in the relationship between physical properties, movement, and sound. I can not prove it, but I would bet he learned from someone familiar with Chinese concepts. Much earlier in time the Chinese had metal bowls and noticed the size of the bowl determined the sound of the bowl and their math took this into consideration. It is possible to control the size of the bowls and get the full scale of musical notes.

This you tube demonstrates a relationship between the physical world and invisible vibrations. I am prone to believe it was women who made these discoveries because of cooking and cleaning and men who then attempted to write of explanations of them.

As I said previously, and for what it's worth, I encourage you start this project of mapping the Quran into a formal language such as Coq. A couple of things :

Open Source
As you have noted, this is a massive project beyond any one person's capabilities. This wold have to be a cooperative effort.
Must be open to all religions
Even if you were to limit this to Islam, you would still have to allow for the different branches/traditions of Islam to translate those theorems specific to their choices of Hadith & Sunna. Compared to the task of converting the religious text into formal syntax (and speaking as someone who has worked with relational databases) this is trivially easy - just add a few high level keys to the database. And once you have done this, any religion could make the attempt to formalize their religious texts.

This would be very cool. And if - as you believe - the other religions are unable to formalize their religious texts, this would prove how superior Islam is to other religions. Yes/no?

BTW - just to be clear - I most emphatically am not volunteering to assist you in this. . . .

And if - as you believe - the other religions are unable to formalize their religious texts, this would prove how superior Islam is to other religions. Yes/no? — EricH

Not necessarily.

Judaism has religious advisories too, but I am not really much familiar with them. I suspect that the Rabbinic approach would be formalizable, but it would have to be analyzed.

In Christianity, there is the Martin Luther trial in which the Holy Apostolic Church resolutely rejected Luther's epistemic approach, i.e. "through scripture and reason". From the arguments used in his trial, I think that it is obvious that Luther would have agreed with a formal system. Still, that does not mean that all Christians would be happy with such formal system. In fact, formalizing Christian religious law is actually rather controversial. It may rake up the old conflict again.

As a believing and practicing Catholic, I’ll address the OP’s question: What does religion do for us today?

For myself, my Faith provides for me a way of life, a purposeful teleological, rational and benevolent universe designed and managed by a rational and benevolent God of pure Good.

To me, without this, the universe is a purely chance driven existential cosmos in which nothing means anything.

In my mind, it’s far more unlikely that this universe of ours developed purely by random chance after the Big Bang ( A theory developed by Father Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest ) that somehow developed a stable set of physics laws that allowed for us to evolve than to believe in a God Who set off the Big Bang and guided the developing universe along His benevolent design.

As for one poster’s assertion that the Church is a sick joke: I respectfully disagree.

The Church did much good in all her 2,020 years. Sure, we’ve had our bad popes and churchmen; but, we’ve had 2,020 years of many wonderful saints who did great and marvelous things for their fellow human beings.

In fact: I’d contend that the Church built Western civilization after the Western Empire’s fall.

As for Luther, his epistemic approach was badly flawed; IMHO. He didn’t do Scripture and reason. In fact, he stated that Aristotle was the third greatest enemy of true religion. His was a fideist approach that subordinated reason to faith. One of my favorite saints, Saint Thomas Aquinas; famously believed that faith and reason are in tandem; not one over the other nor in conflict with the other.

As for Luther, his epistemic approach was badly flawed; IMHO. — Agathob

Well, I find the subject controversial. Luther's trial has ripped western Christianity apart. I still don't know what to think about it.

In defence of the Holy Apostolic Church, we can say that our beloved Augustinian friar was still a member of its personnel and was therefore supposed "to toe the party line". On the other hand, someone had to say something about the regrettable practices by the archbishopric of Mainz.

On 25 May 1521, on the final day of the Diet of Worms, in Germany, Martin Luther was declared an outlaw, his literature banned, and his arrest required. In my opinion, it is not possible to understand western Christianity without looking in depth at what happened there. It is truly its pivotal moment.

I agree with you, it was a pivotal moment. As for the “ toe the party line “: in the medieval Church, there was a tradition of disputation in which debates were conducted to hash out questions.

Luther’s posting of his Theses was in line with this tradition. He lost the debates he engaged in 1519 with Johann Eck.

I’m not saying the Church was perfect in discipline and practice in Luther’s time. I agree that someone had to speak up about these problems. The problem was in discipline and practice; not doctrine.

I didn't see a definitive answer to either of my comments/questions.
1 - System must be open source'd
2 - At a minimum, this system would have to allow for different branches of Islam.