Woo Hoo!!! (Philosophy)

I love Descartes!!! Or maybe it's just after the sheer incomprehensible wordiness of Aristotle I'm relieved I actually understand something I've been reading =) Anyway I just read Descarts 1st meditation, and here are some thought that popped up:

1. pg. 461 second column 1st paragraph: "For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than four sides. It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be subject to the suspicion of being false." Yet, the best lies are based on the truth, and are also very simple. Is this assumption logically sound?

2. pg. 461 second column, 1st full paragraph (this entire paragraph is applicable, but for the sake of brevity I'll quote only a small part): "But perhaps God has not willed that I be deceived in this way, for he is said to be supremely good. Nonetheless, if it were repugnant to his goodness to have created me such that I be deceived all the time, it would also seem foreign to that same goodness to permit me to be deceived even occasionally." Yet how is there proof of the existence of a God? Futhermore, how can you prove that is there is a God he is benevolent? The records of God are provided by man (the bible, while supposedly handed down by God, was transcribed by man), and according to these very same records man is inherently flawed! (Descartes later shows that to make this assumption was false, so far anyway =) )

3. It is like the writers of the Matrix series stole Descartes' meditation!! I also find it kind of funny to look back at my first 'philosophical musings' in light of this reading. (See entries titled Random thoughts and Random Thoughts Part II dated 6/15) Apparently, I had an affinitly with Descartes and didn't know it =)