Alanis
Secular scholars and historians take a serious look at Plato's depiction
of the lost continent of Alanis, because Plato's writings are serious, and
not mythical. (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada similarly said that the
saints and sages of ancient India: Valmiki, Vyasadeva, Narada, etc. wouldn't
waste their time writing myths!)
In her book, From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest, Dr. T.Z. Lavine
writes:
"Plato is the most celebrated, honored and revered of all the philosophers
of the Western world. He lived in Athens...in the fourth century before
Christ...He is said to be the greatest of the philosophers which Western
civilization has produced; he is said to be the father of Western
philosophy; the son of the god Apollo...
"The British philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead said of
him that the history of Western philosophy is only a series of footnotes to
Plato. The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Plato is
philosophy, and philosophy is Plato...Out of Plato come all things that are
still written and debated among men of thought.’"
According to Diogenes Laertius, Plato (427-347 BC) began as a follower of
Socrates. After Socrates’ death, he became the pupil of the leading
Pythagoreans of his day—Philolaus, Eurytas, Archytas, and others. Plato was
also the greatest collector of Pythagorean literature in antiquity. Ovid
attributed Plato’s great longevity to his "moral purity, temperance, and
natural food diet of herbs, berries, nuts, grains and the wild
plants...which the earth, the best of mothers, produces."
Plato wrote about ethics, politics, justice, knowledge, virtue, the soul,
rebirth, judgement, heaven, hell, monastic living, and a transcendent realm
of goodness. The early church historian Eusebius observed: "Plato, more than
anyone else, shared in the philosophy of Pythagoras." Early church father
Justin Martyr is known to have said repeatedly that Plato must have been
versed in Christian prophecy.
Go on to: Americans are Really Secular
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