That seems like a very loaded question. When you say should, are you talking from a religious perspective?

Sprint I saw a poster in the polling booth on saturday with a bible quote about rejecting human understanding in favour of God's command. Or something like that. Do you know what bit it is and what it means?

One quote is from 1 Corinthians 1:24-25 :

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freediver wrote on Feb 12^th, 2008 at 11:25am:


Very interesting article, freediver, thanks for posting that.

Oceans - thanks for your direct answer.
I tend to agree.
There is no reason why an athiest should be a "worser" person than someone who is a believer in any faith.
There is no reason why an athiest cannot help an elderley person across a road, or "do the right thing."

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You'd have to get to know both of them, because appearances can be deceptive. "Respectable people" (like some clergy) can be habitual child molesters. Untidy, divorced people, might have a "heart of gold" and be honest. On the surface I'd probably lend my law-mower to neighbour A, because most of us judge by appearances at first. This is the problem in determining "better". A respectable, upward mobile, "moral person", might have a problem communicating with, or even shun a child of their own, and be tight with their money (none of it ever goes to charity).  

The other question is, do people with faith in God, or adherence to a religion, do this for self-aggrandisement? Belief and morality can be self-serving, you know, the old "holier-than-thou" approach.
The question is what motivates behaviour? Is this "seeking spirituality" a kind of personal obsession with self-interest at heart? Nothing particularly wrong with that, per se, but I'd say what is "better" comes from within. Fred Hollows was an atheist, but rather than going to spiritual development seminars on weekends, he helped thousands here and abroad in a practical way. That's why it's hard to define "better", but I'd say that overall faith and belief more often than not at least provides a "reason". This description from the researchers seems apt:

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I guess strictly speaking I fit into the category of atheist, in that I don't happen to believe in anything for which I have no evidence. However, I recognize that basically many people with a religion think in very similar way to myself and others of the species. I should point out that atheist is not a term that I use to describe myself, because the definition stems from the antithesis of a religious belief. Instead I choose to define myself instead as a rational thinker,  with the goal of self improvement, both physical and mentally.  

What we all have in common is that the subconscious is incapable of processing information (think of it as a cranial hard drive, or CD stacker), and that there is a serious baud-limited bottleneck when it comes to direct perception. For this reason, we all rely on mental models of the universe which may not be entirely correct, and every time we get a direct perception of something, it reinforces our mental model of the universe, whatever that happens to be (in my case, the view that the universe is largely naturalistic and predictable, and devoid of supernatural elements).

In terms of ethics and other areas of self-improvement, I have achieved considerable improvements in my own life, basically using artificial constructs known as personal goals. If other people wish to improve their own lives by using an artificial construct called God, I have no problem with that. They are basically going through a similar process to mine,  and the process of using the power of the brain to improve ones life, can be extremely powerful . They probably don't see it the same way as I do, but the end result is the same.

Basically if we can understand the basics of how the brain functions, we can use this to great effect, because we can use it to inspire others to effect improvements in society. Understand how to control your own brain to change those attitudes that prevent you from attaining our personal goals, and you can then go on to understand what makes others tick.

- You can then go on to understand how to manipulate them, but we shouldn't talk about politics in this thread.