What, in your opinion, is the most important goal for mankind?

[moot]

Lazs, it's the path of reason that guides you to best satisfy your love for fellow men.  If the guy is drowning and you (for whatever reason) would sink while trying to rescue him, or die and thus feed two rather than one soul to the sharks, and have nothing to show for your efforts (save a few seconds of hope to the drowning guy), you haven't done something that stands up to reason
Just as it doesn't stand up to reason to feed an addicts habits.. Nor try and meet him "halfway".  You get him out of the addiction.

I think if reason supplants emotion, there's never more, and probably less than, 1% of hesitation where reason gets in the way of action.  Reason is sovereign, not emotion.. I'm all ears to being proven wrong, but so far, I haven't seen any reason to think otherwise.

If all you have in your head is your goal, then the time of hesitation is very very small.  1% at the very most.  If you have things figured out well enough, you don't have to crunch any numbers. Reaction's instantaneous except in situations where you have to reassess a lot of things.  It's like turning one cog at one end of a chain of cogwheel machinery:  turn the first, and everything else turns, including the other extremity of the chain, where the "solution" cogwheel says what to do.  Not the clearest analogy, but that's how it works in my mind.
I don't think it really would be longer than an emotive response.

[lazs2]

moot.. you don't know if you would sink or feed the sharks.   you can go to the computer and figure the odds.. you can come here and ask people what to do but...

reason will have killed him and you will go through life regretting.

certainly there are clear cut examples but most are not.. you have to ask what your god or.. what your humanity if you prefer.. would want you to do.. what you can live with.

My girlfriends daughter in laws cousins (yes confusing I know) had a fire 2 days ago in their home.. the mother lost the 2 year old trying to get out and was dazed.. the uncle..  rushed in to save the baby.. the roof caved in and he and the baby were killed.. burned or crushed to death.  It happened in Arbuckle Ca.  couple days ago.

I would like to think that I would have went in to save the baby.   I would like to face my maker having died trying than to try to explain why I didn't.

lazs

[SkyRock]

ok..for athiests.. the most important goal for "mankind" would be to prolong human life for as long as possible.

lazs

What, in your opinion, is the most important goal for mankind? 

I'm not sure why you keep speaking for the atheists, when you claim you're not one.

[deSelys]

I have to disagree and agree with Lazs at the same time.

I don't agree that "the goal" for an atheist (or an agnostic which is more accurate in my case) is to prolong physical life. I prefer to think there is some kind of afterlife in the loving memories of the living. And this is where I agree with you Lazs: going into the furnace wasn't the reasonable thing to do, however the uncle paid the ultimate price trying to save a kid and deserves an infinite amount of respect for it.

[CHAPPY]

Drinkin BEER

[moot]

Lazs, I don't want to split hairs, but deciding whether or not to go in wouldn't have taken me more than a few seconds.  Either I'd have gone in right away, or I'd have stayed out.. It's really hard to say without being there in person.

Either way, there's no reason to regret doing what seemed best at the time.  Hindsight is 20/20 everytime

[JB88]

scarlett

[Samiam]

We can't succeed at achieving any of these noble goals (definitely including Scarlett) without the freedom to do so.

So our most important goal MUST be to preserve every freedom for ourselves. I haven't seen a better framework of freedom than that set forth by the Bill of Rights in the US constitution, so concretely reestablishing those freedoms and encouraging other nations to adopt them should be mankind's greatest goal. Through this, all others goals can be achieved (and there is clear evidence that this is true).

[SkyRock]

(Image removed from quote.)
scarlett

yowzer! 

[VERTEX]

To teach our children how to teach themselves. Then they will be able to gather information on their own, and form independent, and educated opinions on any subject.

 

[Roundeye]

Our purpose is no different than any other living thing on Earth:

Continue the species

[lambo31]

Purpose.

Ditto

[moot]

My answer was sort of a play on Skyrock's.  Purpose is guided by reason.  Reason is fed by knowledge. 
I do think, though, that purpose is an important step, because without being true to it, you've got people stagnating or aimlessly following tangents. 
I also implied by it that there's no specific goal for mankind, because each one of us has a different goal. What will get all of us our goal is the means to reach it, and that is knowledge.

[Jackal1]

What, in your opinion, is the most important goal for mankind?

#1 To put hips back on women.

#2 To get their heads out.

[Ripsnort]

Okay, serious answer from me:
The pursue of technology gained primarily from space exploration. 
Sure, Steve Miller can cry about feeding all the children while NASA flies like an eagle, but the reality is, this technology helps the world. From satellites mapping out where the best place to plant crops, to detecting weather, etc. etc., space technology helps mankind.