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The case of Locke v. Davey -- which was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on December 2, 2003 -- could have a great impact on President Bush's Faith Based Initiative, often described as the top domestic priority of the Bush administration. The case involves Joshua Davey, a college student who had his state-funded scholarship revoked by the State of Washington after he enrolled in religious courses to become a pastor.

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Pythagoras: The First to Mix Religion and Mathematics?
Pythagoras (c.582-530 BC) is sometimes represented as a man of science. At other times he is represented as a preacher of mystic doctrines. The truth seems to be that both characterizations are accurate. "The union of mathematical genius and mysticism is common enough," notes The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1 That conclusion appears to be an historically sustainable conclusion all the way from old Pythy right on through Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, Sagan, the Cabalistic Cosmologists and assorted Big Bangites, and even the quaint math-modeled Panspermia "theory" of professors Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. You know the one; it’s all about alleged comet-borne bacteria kick-starting evolution on the Earth and throughout the alleged millions of galaxies (HERE).

One could wonder of what sort was the "religion" that was mixed in with "mathematics" to achieve the theories of the above-named "geniuses". And, since pure mathematics knows nothing of subjectivity, much less of religion, isn’t it immediately clear that increasingly arcane mathematics has been nothing more than a specialized tool employed to create a rich variety of "scientific hypotheses"? And is it not equally clear that it is this mystic tool of arcane math which has established the idol of scientism in the all branches of "knowledge" while furthering the "religio/ philosophical" proclivities of the "geniuses" in the driver’s seat at the time?

As for Pythagoras, his religious side led him to teach the doctrine of Rebirth or transmigration [of souls]. Xenophanes made fun of him for pretending to recognize the voice of a departed friend in the howls of a beaten dog. Empedocles seems to be referring to him when he speaks of a man who could remember what happened ten or twenty generations before. It was on this that the doctrine of Recollection, which plays so great a part in Plato, was based. The things we perceive with the senses, Plato argues, remind us of things we knew when the soul was out of the body and could perceive reality directly."

(Here we see the real origins of the "immortality of the soul" doctrine which is still a pillar in the Roman church and many Protestant Denominations. This Pythagorean/Platonic Paganism is, of course, the essential cornerstone of the eternal torture chamber Hell doctrine. This is a demonstrably contra-Scriptural teaching that has misrepresented God and will be one of the false doctrine heavyweights to be exposed in the coming Fall of Babylon. A 110 page book that tells the Biblical truth about Hell is available HERE.)

As for the cosmology of Pythagoras, we learn that it "...started from the cosmical system of Anaximenes, which tells us that the Pythagoreans represented the world as inhaling ‘air’ from the boundless mass outside it, and this ‘air’ is identified with ‘the unlimited’." 3 (Now there is a cosmological concept we don’t hear much about...the "inhaling air" part, that is. The amorphous "unlimited" as a god designation, however, fits quite well with a variety of attenuated agnostic concepts that characterize many past and present leaders in the Theoretical Science Establishment, Kepler (HERE) and Sagan (HERE) being prime examples.)

Anyway, the summary given in the Internet sketch is this: "Briefly stated, the doctrine of Pythagoras was that all things are numbers. In certain fundamental cases, the early Pythagoreans represented numbers and explained their properties by means of dots arranged in certain ‘figures’ or patterns."

So, the long and the short of it is that Pythagorean mysticism--fetchingly disguised as something "scientific"--reduced practically everything to mathematical numbers.

Does that ring any kind of bell in our "information age", frequently called the "digital age"?

Because factual math is so dependable, so exact, so capable of producing technological marvels, people have had good reason to trust anything that is said to be mathematically supportable...such as the Copernican Heliocentricity Model for example; and Newton’s work...and Einstein’s, etc. The same is true of factual science, of course.

Little, however, do people in general even remotely suspect that there is any subjectivity (much less occult spiritism!) involved in either mathematics or science. The general belief is that both math and science are strictly objective enterprises, and strictly secular tools in the hands of a rather elite band of altruistic laborers for mankind. The Theoretical Science Establishment has cultivated the image that it is uniquely removed and aloof from any contamination by philosophies and religions. The Establishment’s mantra is that Mathematics and Science represent a dedicated search for "Truth". You want proof?? Just take a look and how they got rid of all that superstitious stuff about a God Who created everything that exists in the heavens and on earth! Yeah, man....

How utterly deceived we’ve all been! Mathematics and Science have been the Devil’s playground at least since Pythagoras! Because of the trust and respect that real math and real science command, they both together have provided the perfect soil in which to plant deception without ever being suspect of wrongdoing...much less detected, exposed, and shut down. Perish the thought!

  more: http://www.fixedearth.com/pythagoras.htm