I agree that mathmatics is the most useful tool we currently have to expand upon our use of language and thought toward the ultimate goal of knowledge (understanding of reality). However, ever since I was a child the only part of it that I could grasp (accept as realistic)were simple addition/subtraction/multiplication/division and geometry but once I began algebra it seemed my instructors were telling me fairy tales in which they could make up rules as they went along, canceling out, the addition of two negatives is positive and so forth, none of it made any sense in reality and so I rejected it early on, although I played along long enough to make B`s.
I have been told all along that algebra is the foundation of higher mathematics, so I had no desire to pursue such higher things because they are (to me) built upon a false foundation. Of course my beliefs do not dictate reality, so I also keep in mind how many experts agree that it is all correct, and it is without a doubt useful.
Thank you for the encouragement, I may just take your advice and try my hand at it again with the thought that I may only come to grasp it after I have accepted it enough to work within it and build steps toward an realization of its nature.
It is kind of funny, the one thing I thought demanded no faith actually requires alot of it.
There are many things which I tend to stay away from such as the laws of relativity and thermodynamics which assume things such as time as a reality and the imposibility of perpetual motion, an enclosed universe and curved space, but I guess that in order to present a valid argument against these accepted facts, I must first become fluent in its language and reasoning.
Again, thank you for the encouragement, I am off to seek a tutor who will put up with all my petty questions at every step of the learning process :)