Hungarians produce good mathematics because they don't have ganpati processions!!

I revere the man who made this statement. It was one of my math profs from high school days. The story goes thus...

Scene:
A group of young enthusiastic kids sitting in a classroom learning math. It is a day prior to ganpati. Loud processions pass by on the road chanting the lords name.

P: This is a beautiful hungarian problem. (writing a problem on the board) Its solution seems to be from God's book.

Suddenly there is this big procession which begins to pass below the window creating a huge ruckus, enuf to keep u from hearing what your grlfriend might shout in your ear. Dear prof. has to wait for sometime before he can begin opening God's own treasure box for them.

P: (turning to students) Hungarians produced beautiful mathematics... because they didn't have Ganpati processions.


It's Ganpati time again. Ganpati! God doesn'y play dice, but man sure does. Throw a dice and pick an animal. Viola! it's an elephant! Cut his head off and stick it onto a man. And we have our God... Lord Ganesh. ( if I am hurting anyone's religious sentiments I am sorry. Please excuse me for my senile irrational blabber. I hope the world's intelligent humans can surely do that, forgive this poor crazy dumbwit.) Supposed to be the lord of knowledge and intelligence. People pray to him for days on to gain intelligence. Well after such devotion can he refuse them? Nooo! So he gives them enuf to lock their brains and stop thinking.

Yesterday on the streets, today at my home, I was wondering where did this all start? What did the first man gain by instilling the concept of religion in man. Or was religion not a concept but part of the gene mutation that came with evolution from Homo-Erectus to Homo-Sapien. It had to be one of these two. Because we come to identify with things we hav seen. But no one has yet seen God. They all talk of experiencing him though! So they dance and sing and make merry when he arrives, (well if it causes discomfort to some people its ok, those must be sinners hence God himself punishes them) and shouting out loud welcoming him (well you have to shout loud if u want him to hear it in heaven as he descends into the idol in front of you) Why is it that people forget about other people when they are looking after God. I feel people should rather look at how they can benefit other humans than how they can please the lord and themselves. To me religion and god signify only a support system, just the way you need a railing to a staircase that spirals upwards to keep you from falling in case u feel giddy. Why have people made it into a integral part of their system. Why do people think that just because we live in a society means we have to put up with every belief of theirs? Why is there a demonstration of their love and devotion for god? It is too much to go into the debate of how religion came into being or the existence and uniqueness of god. If people can just learn to respect others and their beliefs and needs it would make life so much more peaceful. And this is certainly not in the hands of god... god has done his job, we are left to do ours. Afterall Kronecker's words couldn't be truer... God created the integers, everything else is the work of man.