Plato

Have you ever read or studied Plato's Allegory of the Cave? Well I hadn't either until recently. In case you haven't read it, its about a group of people that have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing any daylight at all. They are chained to a wall and they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, laying out of sight. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows on the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because this is all they can ever see, they believe that these shadows are the most real things in the world. Eventually, one of these prisoners is freed from his bonds, and is able to look at the fire and at the statues themselves. He is then taken out of the cave into the world above, he sees that these are even more real than the statues were, and that those objects in the cave were only copies created by illusions. When he goes back into the cave to tell the others, they don't believe him.

I find this interesting; it is a story showing how people accept what they are given without thinking about it, or trying to learn more. It portrays the transformation of philisophical enlightenment, learning the truth will actually set people free, but some still choose to live in the dark. You find people, even today that live this way. There are many people that choose to live in darkness because they do not want to know the truth, or they do not want to accept what the truth may mean to them or how it might change their lives. I think this holds true for the knowledge of God. The sunlight in the story depicts truth and when unbelievers are introduced to God and accept His truth, it is a bit like coming out of the cave and being opened up to a whole new world; a world of sunlight and trees, beautiful flowers and a world of truth. Of course you still have those people that don't believe that anything more exists except the shadows on the wall inside their dark caves. They choose the darkness and untruth.