2006-09-28 03:01:20 · 30 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
r2/kKk-JC(USA+50)
--------------------------- = GOD isn't so clever
J1H@d+IQ~90
2006-09-29 07:41:40 · answer #1 · answered by Mark S_UK 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
An atheist's answer would be something like this:
This question is very hard to answer. The concepts of god and of mathematics were invented in pre-historic times by very primitive societies. As such it is impossible to say which one came first. This is like asking what came first a bow or a wheel? One must have come first -- but which one is very hard to say except that both appeared in years 9000-5000 BC. Same is true for gods and mathematics.
2006-09-28 11:30:02 · answer #2 · answered by hq3 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Tricky. But I reckon humans invented god before we invented maths.
I'm assuming stories came before number systems - a sweeping assumption, and based on nothing more than personal prejudice. Thunder rolls across the valley and everyone cowers in fear, not knowing what it is. The smartest hominid in the room says, Ah, that'll be the guy who lives in the clouds. He's angry because you haven't given me enough food.
Really? the others stammer. Uh-oh, how much more should we give you?
At that point, god-inventor guy (aka priest/fiction writer) is stumped, until a sidekick comes up with a way of counting stuff that's more sophisticated than 'one', 'two', 'some' and 'lots'.
Maths was invented to solve problems. God was invented so that we might have important problems to solve. Such as 'How tall exactly do you want this pyramid to be?'
2006-09-28 21:34:23 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Primitive man turned to a belief in god in explaining the unknown and hostile universe.
The cerebral cortex was a more recent development among Homo Sapiens, say around 100,000 years ago. This is where our rational and logical thought processes put us up above the lower forms of life...therefore it makes sense that mathematics came after god....at least in terms of awareness and acknowledgement by man.
Although the axioms and theorems were yet to be discovered, some may get technical and say they were always in existence (which is true), but in terms of man's awareness between God and Math, god came first, albeit via distorted world view.
2006-09-28 16:53:40 · answer #4 · answered by Its not me Its u 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You see Gods were before the modern mathematics and Christens came and fought with pagans for saying god is poly they insisted that god is only 3 not poly and they won and the middle east became Christians, then came Muhammad and fought with the Christians for saying God is 3 and insisted that God is One not 3 and he won the war in the middle east and they became Muslims, then came the modern mathematics and invented the zero so they found out that God is not 3 nor 1 but zero that is he does not exist. So the number of gods gradually decreases with time tell it became 0.
2006-09-28 12:57:40 · answer #5 · answered by Nabil 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you're talking about which came first between monotheism (i.e. belief in a single god) and mathematics, then mathematics. The Babylonians are generally credited with inventing mathematics about 4000 years ago - they were the first to use mathematical symbols and to use maths to solve relatively sophisticated problems. They worshipped gods too, of course, but the single God of Christianity/Judaism/Islam whom we know and love today didn't come along until about 1000 years later.
2006-09-28 10:11:14 · answer #6 · answered by hosmer_angel 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you believe God created the universe, then God came first.
If you believe that God is invented by humans, then Math came first. You start being interested in how many rocks or sticks you have the minute someone tries to take one. Obviously that concept came along long before we started inventing Dieties.
2006-09-28 12:21:35 · answer #7 · answered by gg 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Math came first God (not that there is one) second cos God needed to know that 1+1=2. How else would he have known to make Adam and Eve?
2006-09-28 11:40:26 · answer #8 · answered by Christ 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
God. He comes out of an innate need to understand, but is not in-on-itself a methodolgy for understanding. People believe innately in God, and have since the beginning of thought. Math came along later, a methodology for proving and defining the Universe. I believe there's a SF book out there somewhere entitled "Calculating God," I wonder how that fits in with the whole thing?
2006-09-28 10:34:33 · answer #9 · answered by Alobar 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Man invented god before he discovered mathematics... however the principles that mathematics acts as an observation of have existed for all time.
2006-09-28 12:34:46 · answer #10 · answered by ChooseRealityPLEASE 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mathematics, because God never existed. Easy.
2006-09-28 10:25:32 · answer #11 · answered by genghis41f 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋