I am an atheist because when I was about four or five years old, my father brought me down to this little stream at the bottom of our garden and he made me put my hand into the clear cold water and told me about Heraclitus and the concept of panta rhei (everything moves and nothing stays the same). And when I was ten years old, our teacher marched us to a big mosaic/mural in our school depicting Plato’s analogy of the cave. Well, I knew then as much as I know now (45 years later) that I want to always search and find what is real and what can be known and to discover how everything always changes and evolves and not get stuck with some fixed idea/image reflecting from a wall.
Sabine
Germany
It looks like you were exposed to some very deep and thoughtful ideas while you were young. It must have been very interesting growing up in such an environment.
What a wonderful lesson from your father!
I’m so impressed that you were introduced to Plato’s Cave analogy at such a young age. I taught high school in the US, and I introduced it to 15 -17 year old students, who had never heard of it before.