  We report on a pedagogical experiment to make mathematics easy by changing
its philosophy. The Western philosophy of math originated in religious beliefs
about mathesis, cursed by the church. Later, mathematics was "reinterpreted",
in a theologically-correct way, using the myth of "Euclid" and his deductive
proofs. The fact of the empirical proofs in the Elements, was, however,
contrary to this myth. The discrepancy was resolved by Hilbert and Russell who
rejected empirical proofs as unsound, reducing all mathematics to metaphysics.
We explain why that formalist metaphysics is anti-utilitarian and culturally
biased, not universal. Historically, most school-level math originated in the
non-West with a practical epistemology, but was absorbed in the West after
superimposing on it an incompatible Western metaphysics, still used to teach
it. This has made mathematics needlessly complex. Accordingly, math can be made
easy and more universal by reverting to a more practical epistemology.
