For christmas, instead of giving presents to anyone, I gave 100 bucks each to the Red Cross and the RRS because I believe in the motives and goals of both. Perhaps a good first step towards the ethical code I'm proposing. I think next year I'm going to ask my family not to buy me any gifts, rather to make charitable contributions in my name as well. I feel especially shitty that I might be enjoying the new possession of frivolous items I don't need while other people are suffering from living without things they DO need and that they're forcefed theism to cope with their unhappiness.

Void has a point I'd like to expand on a little.  Helping others is always a noble cause, but, it can also weaken the charracter, and sometimes, the morals of the reciever.  One who recieves a neccesity through charity is often not rewarded with the lesson of how to achieve it on their own, and is therefor robbed of the personal growth said lesson can bring.  Thusly deminishing the character of the individual, and in some extreme cases, teaching them that they can get what they need by doing nothing but asking for charity.  We must always be mindfull of how much we help.  Guidance is one thing, but generosity should be tempered with consciencious foresight.  It is very eloquently summed up in the old proverb, "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.  Teach the man how to catch a fish..." and, well, y'all know the rest.  So, to answer the question at hand.  If I were bestowed with the knowledge suggested, I would try to teach people how to achieve the same knowledge on their own.  Show them which path to walk, but not hold their hand the whole way.  Some, would inevitably, stray from said path, and they may learn something positive in doing so.  If not, well, you just have to accept that some people (more than I like to admit) aren't ready for said knowledge, and that others are just plain near-sighted and selfish.  Some people will never listen to reason, no matter how hard you hit them with it, or how well you present it.  You can only truely help those who are willing to help themselves.

Whoever said that quote about giving a man a fish vs teaching him to fish obviously never went fishing!

Four Points:

1. Triften: We assume only that you are omniscient and that you have ONLY the ability to right a letter to humanity about what to do with human life. Rather than making this my own argument -- I am asking you what YOU would write. But my conclusion is that regardless of the answers to most of the "big" questions, the letter might contain the same information: That is, enjoy life; and help others to enjoy life too.

2. Hellfiend: There was one point in my life where I studied Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity, and a number of audio courses from the company "Nightingale Conant" (which includes Deepak Chopra among its speakers). Wayne Dyer is another.

Let me focus on Nightingale Conant first. A recurring theme of all the speakers for that company is to be selfless and virtually annihilate your ego in order to learn the real truths in the world.

I reject this assertion.

If we are to be "selfless" and help others while denying our own selfhood, we lose track of what it means to help other people.

If it is good to help others, then the reason is because other people have "selves" that are worth helping.

In other words, when you help someone, you do so because of their ego and self; and to deny your own selfhood would be contradictory to the reason for helping others.

Thus, I am arguing strongly against ascetic religious traditions.

I think it is very important for individuals to have an ego, to enjoy life, and ascend on Maslow's hierarchy. Denying your selfhood denies the very reason for helping others. So rather than punishing yourself by helping others (Mother Theresa), I would encourage people to live full lives and realize their full potential... But help others in addition.

If everyone in the US adopted an ascetic lifestyle, our economy would go in the toilet. As a result, we would have no money for foreign aid or any resources to help anyone else. In essence, our capitalism is necessary to help others. But we should at least try to help the economies of impoverished countries.

3. On "Teaching a Man to Fish". I'm by no means advocating we just throw money at problems and think they're going to go away. I think we give billions of dollars every year to African countries that wind up in the hands of warlords and tribal chiefs. I watched a segment on the nations most generous philanthropists by John Stossel. I'm not a fan of Stossel. Stossel was giving one of the philanthropists a hard time about not donating MORE money -- since he had billions and donated still only a fraction. Aside from the argument that he needs investment money to make more money... He argued that simply throwing money at charity does no good. One must carefully study how to put the money do good use so that it succeeds. I think the reason why Warren Buffet gave 30 billion to the Gates Foundation was because he was confident in the ability to distribute the funds successfully and not wastefully. I totally agree with you that we should teach people to be self reliant.

 Voiderest states:  "My real suggestion is to think not just how to help people, but get them to help themselves at the same time. Yes its good the man doesn't die that night, but you can't be there for him every night."

I would argue that "helping people" means also getting them to help themselves and for a long term solution. 

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4. On Africa: Africa is a continent full of misery; and I think a big part of it is the lack of contraception -- taught by Christian missionaries. In some cases, bringing people up on the hierarchy and providing for their needs means preventing some kids from being born so that others may flourish. I'm awfully glad my parents had only 4 kids instead of 13. As for the violence and warlords in Africa, I have no answer. It would seem that if we're ethically bound to liberate Iraqis, the same could be said for Africa, ie Sudan, Rwanda. But realistically, we know that the Iraq war had nothing to do with humanitarian reasons and the Bush administration spun everything and tried to rewrite history after no WMDs were found.

 5.  And on illegal immigration:  Stop spending billions on a silly fence that will do nothing.  Spend money on INS administration to facilitate legal immigration.  It takes years and years to come to the US legally to get citizenship.  So Mexicans are going to come here anyway.  Better to regulate them than have them here illegally.  We can't keep tabs on illegal alien criminals.  And we make it basically illegal for illegal aliens to pay taxes.  Then we bitch about illegal aliens not paying taxes and using our school systems.  Make them legal, and let them pay taxes just like everyone else.  If we don't want them in because they speak another language and they have darker skin, then that's racist in my opinion.  I think Mexicans have a shitty living situation in Mexico.  First, we should do what we can to make Mexico a happier place to live so they won't keep coming here (if that's what we want).  But catch 22 -- we secretly want to suppress the economy of Mexico to buttress our own.  Remember all the opposition to NAFTA and free trade?  So we want the Mexican economy to be shitty, but we don't want Mexicans to leave Mexico.  How does that make sense?  Furthermore, it is obvious that many Mexicans coming to the US are poor -- but that doesn't mean they're stupid or have less potential than Americans.  I think it's silly to say that Mexican kids are eating up our school resources and State budgets.  Even if they pay their taxes -- we still need people to do menial jobs, and if they don't quite make enough money to pay for their children's education -- then so be it.  We would suffer much worse without their workforce.  They get paid crappy wages, so sending their kids to school seems like a fair tradeoff.  Case in point:  helping people is a difficult dilemma.

I wouldn't want to write anything, because I couldn't write about the answers, and the answers are what we need. This sort of letter wouldn't be anything different from any other holy text in existance. It would promote the same stagnation in our ethics and behavior as these holy text do. Something like this will only perpetuate faith over reason.

Also, a letter without the answers wouldn't quench many people's thirst for knowledge about the world, and I believe this is an important need. It's the unanswered big questions that kept me a Christian long after I realized the bible was full of it.

 Well, I would agree that it would be good to add some predictions in to boost your authenticity and superlative knowledge credibility.

AFTER you do that, then what do you say?  I agree that you should make yourself seem credible, but considering that the essay must tell humans what to do with their lives or "how to act as humans," then what would you say? 

You're a little hard to follow, doctoro, but I think I understand what you're getting at now.

Fight Club is just about my favorite movie. It really struck a chord with me. I grew up really poor, but with the understanding I could be happy without much material things. I got this attitude from my father, who's about the only Christian I know who takes Matthew 6:25-34 seriously.

Later on the band Fugazi was very influential with me. This is from their song Merchandise:
"Merchandise keeps us in line / Common sense says it's by design /
What could a businessman ever want more / than to have us sucking in his store / We owe you nothing / You have no control / You are not what you own"

Although I wouldn't hurt a fly, I found the destruction in Fight Club intoxicating. Maybe it's my desire for the rest of the world to quiet down and let me spend some time thinking.

I don't know if my need for knowledge is more than my need for love. I'd say they're about the same for me. I really value people who have the same knowledge need, and foster that in me. But I can be comfortable alone, and being around lots of people actually can give me migraines. I would value learning above recognition and success.

Anyway, down to the main point. I don't know how to answer whether or not there are objective goals for society. I would think a generally better quality of life (more happiness, less suffering) would be a goal. How to do this is debatable. How is the quality of life in the western societies? Depends on who you ask. I, for one, think my quality of life went up when I moved to a smaller town and didn't have to deal with things like commutes, loud urban environments, etc. But, my brother lives in Manhattan, and loves it. This sounds pretty subjective.

Am I getting the sense of what you're saying?