My mother is an enigma. In one breath, she can decry Christianity because it's "all superstitious bunk." In the next, she can say that three is a mystic number that the universe centers around.
She took the phrases:
God is love
God is light
God is spirit
Assigned each letter a numerical value, and then manipulated the final number until it divided by three. She wouldn't believe that it was anything less that proof positive that the number three is special. I told her, "If it's some sort of universal truth, you could do it in Spanish and get the same thing."
Dios es amor
Dios es luz
Dios es espíritu
The numerical values were all different--so she solved for X to get something that would divide by or into 3, and LO AND BEHOLD, found the number three lurking just beyond perceptible reality.
AUGH.
It's like being stuck with Jim Carrey in The Number 23.
So I tried to show her that the number 23 does fun things too, that it's a coincidence. She said it was just a silly coincidence. But then said that 3 does these things because it is holy.
She tried to say that the bible centers around #3 -- Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days, God has 3 aspects-- (But earlier, Christianity is all superstition, remember.) So I point out that there are 10 commandments, far more than three books in the bible, and that I could take things within it and group them however I saw fit. (My mind is just closed.)
She tried to do the same thing with Buddhism. The triple gem. I counter, "FOUR noble truths. EIGHTFOLD path. She says, 8 + 4 = 12. 12/4 = 3.
And when I point out that, in pure math, 3 has no special significance, she tunes me out. (It isn't the natural log. It isn't pi. It isn't e. etc.)
And people all die in 3's, you know. Especially when you don't have any sort of time limit that they have to die within to satisfy the rule.
AUGGGHHHHHHH.
She took the phrases:
God is love
God is light
God is spirit
Assigned each letter a numerical value, and then manipulated the final number until it divided by three. She wouldn't believe that it was anything less that proof positive that the number three is special. I told her, "If it's some sort of universal truth, you could do it in Spanish and get the same thing."
Dios es amor
Dios es luz
Dios es espíritu
The numerical values were all different--so she solved for X to get something that would divide by or into 3, and LO AND BEHOLD, found the number three lurking just beyond perceptible reality.
AUGH.
It's like being stuck with Jim Carrey in The Number 23.
So I tried to show her that the number 23 does fun things too, that it's a coincidence. She said it was just a silly coincidence. But then said that 3 does these things because it is holy.
She tried to say that the bible centers around #3 -- Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days, God has 3 aspects-- (But earlier, Christianity is all superstition, remember.) So I point out that there are 10 commandments, far more than three books in the bible, and that I could take things within it and group them however I saw fit. (My mind is just closed.)
She tried to do the same thing with Buddhism. The triple gem. I counter, "FOUR noble truths. EIGHTFOLD path. She says, 8 + 4 = 12. 12/4 = 3.
And when I point out that, in pure math, 3 has no special significance, she tunes me out. (It isn't the natural log. It isn't pi. It isn't e. etc.)
And people all die in 3's, you know. Especially when you don't have any sort of time limit that they have to die within to satisfy the rule.
AUGGGHHHHHHH.
