When people quote Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am" (Cogito Ergo Sum), they are usually meaning to say something about how the art of thinking is a fundamental human quality that, for better or worse, has made us what we are today, as a species. However, they almost always - conveniently - leave out the first sentence of the quote, thereby taking it out of context.

The full quote states: Dubito Ergo Cogito. Cogito Ergo Sum. (I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therfore I am.)

I doubt, therefore I think.

If I had no doubt, I wouldn't have to think, would I? I'm not saying that I doubt the bloody obvious, such as a sophist may do with clever questions about the essential nature of existence and how we cannot know anything for certain, but I do doubt my own ability to understand the nature of reality. This leads me to ask questions about fascinating subjects, such as cosmology and quantum mechanics. But I do not try to "believe" either this or that way about it. I am quite happy to just observe how scientists are struggling with what may argably be the high end of all human thinking. I like it. Asking questions keeps me on my toes. Studying things I don't understand makes me less complacent in the way I relate to the world I'm living in.

In many ways, I suppose that having a "faith" of sorts would make me feel more "safe" and important before the vastness of space and the conundrums of subatomic particle behaviour, but I really don't think it would make me a better human being. It seems like cheating, almost sacrilege, to jump to comfortable conclusions such as "beliefs" when in fact I am destined to be alive, as a human being, in this mysterious world such as it is, equipped with the ability to ask questions and investigate matters of a philosophical nature.