Only this experience …
Thirty
years ago a young British soldier found himself in a conflict in which
Christians were killing Christians. When he protested that involving
the Army would provoke more violence from both sides, his government
ordered him into a military psychiatric hospital, to be treated - on
arrival - for schizophrenia.
Instead, the hospital staff found him perfectly sane.
Meanwhile, under their observation, he had a spectacular spiritual experience.
He had previously decided that God is just a delusion.
Here now was a perfect setting for a modern revelation: not only that
God is an authentic human experience, but that God is very likely the
human experience.
Modern atheists are surely right to claim that God
has little to do with biology - and physicists, that God little to do
with physics. Yet without an understanding of what this intense and
complex experience is actually like - and what cultural changes it can
inspire - human history is virtually incomprehensible.
When he was later training to become a maths teacher
at Cambridge University in England, both philosophers and theologians
urged him to find a way to express his inspiration through his teaching.
He was soon a head of mathematics at one of England's
most prestigious international schools. There he realised that orthodox
mathematics instruction does a great deal of moral and social harm -
as well as being obviously ineffective.
Mathematics should teach youngsters to think honestly,
critically and constructively - even to accept other's criticisms gladly.
This is what democracy requires. But youngsters in schools are usually
rewarded more for their dishonesty. They learn to resent others' ability,
to reject any criticism.
These are major reasons why modern democracies fail.
In the last century the same habits of teaching arguably handed power
to Stalin and Hitler. Both called their politics 'scientific'. Both
savagely destroyed criticism and dissent. Both enjoyed popular support.
These tendencies are active today.
In 473959 he describes how his revelation became the
foundation of his life - then of his teaching. He explains how teaching
mathematics properly and effectively will preserve children's natural
honesty, encourage and support their natural desire to think, to understand
and to treat others honestly.
In this way, he believes, there is even a possibility
of ending the ancient conflicts between Jews, Christians and Muslims:
by combining the fundamental moral principles of their most famous exponents.
…
makes understanding human history possible!
