I did read this thread yesterday and it lingered with me - so I thought I thought I should answer the 3 questions it raised for me:

• On the question of ableism relation to atheism and moral. I do believe that you can raise an atheist argument that is filled with all different kinds of offences - some of them might be pertinent to the discussed subject (given the third point I will just link to this article). I believe the question asked is whether an offence can be avoided. Because we (at least me) don't want to exclude people from a discussion by offending them, or to offend when ever we can avoid it (I do believe passionately that avoiding a discussion altogether because it might or will cause offence is one of the worst arguments raised throughout the history of human culture). And about moral - well it is your opinion and your definition of moral that has to equate between ableism and moral. Taking the first definition of the Miriam Webster online dictionary:of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior
  I will have to say - the context is the key. In a discussion forum which is open to every one - you should be as kind and open as you can be. Or at least you should be moderated to be as much. It is also the prerogative of a discussion forum to clearly outline what are the limits of the discussion taken within it (as long as there are other forum for such disscussions, but hey it's the internet).
• On the question of whether a post that does show 'ableism' is worthy of deletion. I do believe that it should first be moderated - if it can be changed to include as much people as possible without offending them, that should be suggested as a better way. If that is not possible and the offending subject itself was already discussed - it might better to place it in that context (and alerting readers that a subject discussed might be offending to them). If it is a new subject and it is one of the principles of the forum to keep that subject out of discussion - it should be explained with kindness and openness pre deletion (not with expletives which could show that the moderator itself being "guilty" of excluding people) with suggestion on forums that do allow such discussions.
• The post itself raised (to me) the question of whether I should censor myself and not take part in it - just to keep myself out of being possibly banned (as any other person who has used language to raise arguments - my arguments might and have offended other people). But I do believe that self censorship is the worst kind of censorship - not to be confused with not having common courtesy or being a deliberately offending person. And I also believe that just by stirring out of a discussion we don't allow ourself and the world around us to explain why this discussion is worth stirring out of, instead of just avoiding (like boring discussions).

Several quarrels I have with the above discussion and then my humble opinion in regards to the context of the question raised:

• The quote below postulates the equation between ethics and the question of meaning - I think you should first define what you understand as meaning for us to discuss its relations to ethics:

but it certainly isn't an excuse to ignore the ethics or fundamental principles of the reality that you — Lif3r

• By the following quote I assume you mean "try no to kill each other" is a given postulate of existence shared by all humans. Reading between the lines in regards to my previous question - it looks like you equate between meaning and such postulates. Well I will have to say that given human history I would say the postulate should be - try no to get killed whenever possible. Humans have (and do) kill when they can do it with impunity:

Try not to kill each other and gravity. — Lif3r

• The following quote is the same as saying the propose of blue is being blue, you can also say the purpose of human is being human, the purpose of meaning is meaning, etc...That brings back the first question - define what is meaning, so we can discuss your view:

Existence cannot exist without existing and so it must exist in order to retain it's significance of existence which is to... you guessed it... exist. That's the purpose of existence itself to it's very root. — Lif3r

There is much to say about what is meaning and what is life - and I have strong views about the path to such an inquiry. But the definition of meaning is at the heart of it - I based my observation in belief of fundamental similarity by which we perceive the world outside and inside us: physiology and psychology. I can attest to why I also believe in such explanations of the world - but that was not the question raised.
The question takes fault with the two suggested postulates. My first responses to those postulates is as follows:

Because reality isn't fully consistent in tangibility, life has no foundation in existence or serves no purpose — Lif3r

I assume the meaning here is - because we cannot fully explain the world, we cannot explain our existence in the world and from that derive a notion of purpose. Well I do believe we can "explain" the world, or at least provide a clear path for such explanation (in the most broader of terms). But "purpose" is what you are seeking and discussions about evolution and chemistry just explain the world. The fact something "exists" doesn't mean it has a purpose. If I am correct you define purpose as the quality of being in existence - good for you, but that also means that you have the same "purpose" as the emptiness of space. And I have no fault with that - it's a question of definition. But it does seem like a simple explanation thought long ago and not a new idea - you just have to look it up.

2.) Because we are tiny we can't be significant in existence — Lif3r

I will react to it by just quoting Jurassic park:

The shorthand is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.

Hi Qwex, I really liked that you question the concept of numbers.
I believe that when you try to search for the origin of words and the way in which we pour meaning into the world around us - it is most fruitfull to search how those meaning are first discovered, whether it is understanding how a baby generates those concepts or reading the history of how those concepts were created in the early human culture.
A child starts by counting objects in the world - the concept of numbers as something other than an adjective to a group is outside the scope of our first usage of them. This is on par with how we evolve language itself - we use sounds and words that allow us to interact better with the world around us.
In the same way the usage of numbers in the human history evolved as a way to describe actual acts in the world - ways to divide a field of wheat, to make commercial transactions, etc...
It was then used as a way to allow us to make astronomical inquiries - taking part in one of the most early abstract human endeavours: religion. The Pythagorean sect in ancient Greece even evolved mathematics as a religion of its own. It is not weird than that Geometry, so closely related the world of mathematical usage in those days, was the tool by which the Pythagorean advanced their understanding of the world. And an ancient greek would asked then, in the same way you ask now - why do we talk about lines, what are lines?
So my answer to what are numbers - they are signs (verbal/graphic), like words, by which we are able to interact better with the world. The scope in which we use them is sometimes confined to the abstract term - mathematics; But this term, describing a narrower usage of them, isn't all that we do with those signs. We use numbers to describe concepts in every field of human knowledge.
And for a more concrete terminology - they are most widely used to describe a quality of a group of objects, distinguishing that group by the count of object within it. You can basically grow all of the mathematical knowledge from that definition (given a set of logical axioms on such groups).

There is this widespread view of a long mathematical winter between Greek antiquity and the 12th century AD, i.e. a millennium-long standstill

It is not just a view, but a fact, that the study of mathematics in the so called "western" society almost grounded to a halt. There were further advancement in the Arabic and Indian cultures - most famously the use of the decimal system.
The next major advancement came during the Age of Enlightenment with the development of the calculus by Newton and Leibniz - but there were notable mathematicians even during those intervening years: Fibonacci, Fermat, etc...
An anecdote that I really like to reflect upon - about the potential of all that was lost during those dark ages - is the finding of Archimedes Palimpsest. The finding of lost mathematical methods recycled into religious texts, is exemplary - in that regard that those centuries were not just a time in which mathematical development was repressed, but also a time when the raining culture erased most of the culture that came before it.