The lives we live today are all extremely influenced with the ideas and teachings of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was the first prominent time period of significant questioning of life and everything its comprised of. In our contemporary lives we are taught to express ourselves, question things, wonder why something is the way it is and search for answers. This all stems back to the idea of individualism, which was so heavily believed in by the moderns of this time period. We also see a push for equality during this period with beliefs such as “broad education for woman.” Ancient Enlightenment beliefs like this led to future accomplishments such as women’s suffrage and race equality. Although we have come an extremely long way since then, there are still a few more equality boundaries to break such as equal pay for men and women. Additionally, some ideas of the period conflicted with the times. Women were mostly seen as domestic caregivers but at the time of the Enlightenment, upper class women began expressing creative visions and began doing things such as writing books. For the most part I do agree with Descartes’s thinking but I believe he was a little too quick to push religion and the idea of God away. There is no reason logic and reason can’t be question while also having a belief in God or any religion for that matter. Religion gives people hope and without hope what is there? Descartes portrayed his views in a way that made citizens not believe in any “God-given authority.” Kings were being executed and new rulers rose. This idea can even be seen in modern day politics in which we have an election for our ruler, which includes no God-given authority. Overall, Descartes changed the way people viewed life and questioned the known and unknown. His views intrigued people around the world and the effects can clearly be seen even to this day.