Originally Posted by c0wbait

Reason.

Originally Posted by DukeOfDeath

how about faith in reason and reasonable things?

Originally Posted by kurto

I'll try to make a brief comment but supporting and denying what Dogg has posted.

The gist of my comment is that much of what Doggg says is true. That a religious life can improve your quality of life, aid in deeper friendships. The 'inspired word of God' can speak to one's heart and soul. And it can give some meaning to some's existence. And many religious organizations do charitable works

That being said, this is not true of just HIS God. Believers of other faiths make the very same claims.

With most religions comes a religious community. Being part of a supportive community that shares a belief system is very positive. WHETHER OR NOT THEIR BELIEF SYSTEM IS TRUE IS IRRELEVENT. Whether you're Christian, Muslim, Mormon or other... this is true for all. The fact that they all speak to different truths doesn't change the positive parts of the religions existing.

That being said, ALL of these positive traits can and are found outside of religion. It just happens to be one way to find many of these positive things.

In summary... much of what Doggg says is spot on. I only point out that there's nothing unique about his belief system and that other belief systems have the same benefits while making contradictory (and equally faith based) statements.

Originally Posted by RoundGuy

Doggg,

I have never understood why the Bible NEEDS to be the inerrant, inspired "Word of God". I read the Bible regularly, and have done so since childhood. It is an incredible read, and there is so much in it to inspire us to be the best HUMANS we can be. Jesus was the greatest humanist that ever lived!

Why can't we just accept the Bible for what it is -- the best example of man's attempt to explain God, and how humans have in the past, and should in the future, interact with each other? In the end, it's still just a book written by man, not God.

Originally Posted by jewbinson

For example, it may be the case that Jews have a particular DNA sequence structure that non-Jews do not. Their DNA may give them advantages in life. I don't know if this is 100% true, but so what?

Originally Posted by DukeOfDeath

how about faith in reason and reasonable things?

Originally Posted by jewbinson

The wikipedia link talks about diseases and disease rates of Jewish people based on their gene type.

I was talking about advantages in life, not survival rate.

Advantages in life =/= survival rate.

However, it might have been the case that my claim "Jew's DNA is better than other groups' DNA" is false. Maybe "Jew's social ties (on average) are better than other groups social ties (on average)".

Maybe it is something other than social ties, but my ""claim"" is that: Jews are somewhat "better" than non-Jews. Hold on, I haven't finished.

I am not wanting to have an actual discussion to determine whether or not my claim is true or false.

But the point I want to make is that, you should not assume my claim to be true on faith. Moreover, even if my claim were true and it was statistically verifyable, that does not mean that the superiority of Jews has anything to do with a magical sky creature. For anyone with rational thought, the next step would not be to jump to a conclusion about the cause of the claim, but instead to investigate what the cause might be using the scientific method.