The ancient Greek philosopher Plato gave us Platonism. Its most interesting concept is its theory of Forms, it says that the physical world is but a shadow of the true reality. Platonism says that there are objects that are abstract such as a number 3, the sum of two plus two, or the properties of something like the color red, or shapes like round and triangle, these exist independently of the physical world. also things that could have been but never were. This world of Forms is very similar to our Christian concept of Heaven, which also is abstract, within a non-material reality that is ideal and perfect. Most of these ideas can be found compiled in Plato's Republic, which if you were to study it, you would find that much of the Neo Platonic, Gnostic and Christian concepts come from Greek Philosophy. 433