I am therefore I think that "I think therefore I am." Or not...

Descartes has a lot to answer for. He turned the way people think on its head by declaring "I think, therefore I am." This deifies the concept of thought - it is a magician's argument, implying that we can simply will things into (or out of) existence and that things only exist if, or critically because, we think they do. It is actually nonsense - we do not think first and exist second - we are alive first, and that enables us to think.

So when Moses asked God who to say had sent him to speak to the Hebrew people, God replied with 4 words that translate literally from Hebrew as "I Am Who Am". In other words - "I Am What Is - I Am He Who And That Which Exists." God did not think first and therefore come into being - He first "Was" - as the only Unproduced Producer he always was and by virtue of His existence He was able to think and create.

As we are said to be made in His image, we follow the same basic principle - we have to have life in order to be able to think and be creative. The being comes first - we must "be" before we can think - the saying should really be "I am therefore I think."

A dangerous side-effect of the "I think therefore I am" culture, is the aforementioned deification of thought. "Thought" or "Argument" rather than Being is elevated to the status of God. That which is not viewed as thinking is devalued. So consequently a fetus is not really seen as alive and people consequently decide that it is morally acceptable to exterminate it if its existence is deemed as inconvenient. Many see nothing wrong in having recreational sex and then aborting any unwanted life that results from their pleasure making.

A senile elderly person is seen as having no quality of life and therefore the concept of euthanasia becomes considered acceptable. Sanctity of life is replaced with utilitarianism: "I think therefore I am" becomes "I think therefore I have a right to existence". Simply "being" is no longer valued in its own right - we are no longer valued if we are unable to be cognitive and creative and / or lack any further potential to become so, or simply if we are inconvenient within the lives of others - i.e. if we get in the way of their pursuit of pleasure: the pursuit of pleasure being another thing that has become elevated to the status of a right. Pleasure is another god of our time.

Another dangerous side-effect of the Descartes culture is that God is reduced to the status of a human concept. So even though we do not have any alternative explanation for how we or the universe came into being unless we were created, by elevating thought to be the god of our time, we declare that we do not need to know - we no longer need to exist so that we may be able to think. To think is enough, now that we can take our existence for granted. It is as if we are now declaring that we somehow managed to think ourselves into existence without first having to exist. And that makes no sense.

"To be or not to be - that is the question." If you want to think, you'd better be.

It is precisely because people love the product above the producer, the creature above the creator, that people love thought itself above the life that allows thought to happen - people love themselves more than their own parents and more than the God who made them.