I feel that mathematics is just a way of demonstrating that the universe is constrained within a set of rules that allow it to exist.

Ultimately there is only right or "not right" and nothing in between.
It has is great beauty of itself but has no moral value beyond that.

Then again maybe Mathematics is just a global scam conceived by governments and accountants and conducted by evil scientists to get their hands on generous research grants.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Dylan Thomas

'Most mathematicians have rejected the notion of God as a supernatural being who loves us and wishes to be loved in return. '

Professor of Mathematics at Oxford Uni John Lennox is an exception.

Grim, I think you've given us an example of what I said in my second par "I've been reading the comments and I think most of them bring their own prejudices of what God is and can't see what you are saying".

I'm not talking about what you call a "postulated mythical being" as I make clear in paragraph three "I don't think you're suggesting that God is a being that you can talk to, or that God is a supernatural being." I'm hoping Brian will be able to tell me whether I am reading correctly.

I get a bit tired of all the discussion on this site about God being about the Sunday school version that Dawkins sets up as his strawman punching bag. Brian is obviously not using the word in those terms.

It seems to me that humans subliminally understand the "mathematical" patterning of the world around them. Everywhere this quality resonates. To ponder a shell spiral, a wave, the head of a sunflower or a beehive, for example, is to subconsciously absorb that connection as the essence of creation.

http://www.patternsinnature.org/Book/Spirals.html

Hi Graham,
I'm not sure if it was my initial post or George's that you didn't read, but I don't believe I criticised Brian's conjecture, or implied that Brian Holden -or anyone else- believed in a 'Sunday School' God. Indeed, I congratulated him on an interesting article.
It appears you have taken offence at my use of the term “Postulated” (to claim or assume the existence or truth of, especially as a basis for reasoning or arguing) “mythical” (regardless of how you categorise, conceptualise, define or wonder, the 3 letter word 'God' is itself -surely undeniably- rooted in our deep distant past, in the realms of myth, legend and drama. Even if you believe that out of 4,000 postulated deities, only one is genuine, the word “mythical” is still applicable 99.998% of the time, wouldn't you agree?) “being”; perhaps “entity” (or State, or Wave Form, or Field) might arguably have been more apropo. I meant the word in the sense of “in existence”, which is surely what the discussion is about, isn't it?
No, I have no problems with Brian's interesting conjecture, but rather with your use of the word “axiomatic” (a self-evident truth that requires no proof.). I realise you prefaced your use of the word with 'if', but even so the truth implicit in mathematics hardly necessitates an acceptance of God as an axiom; despite, as I admitted, that really being the only way anyone can accept the One God Hypothesis, in the absence of proof.
It is to many of us, however, hardly 'self-evident'.
As I mentioned, I agreed with the rest of your post, particularly “I don't think you're suggesting that God is a being that you can talk to, or that God is a supernatural being”.
I don't think so either.