Living for something more than just yourself. Do you believe this?

Yes. I have a hard time making up my mind about religion, but I find living for my self alone to be painful, frightening and unfulfilling. I don't have the guts for it, frankly.

Why? My individual body is destined to last for maybe 100 - 110 years at most, if I'm lucky. My individual mind is limited and has limited information. I live in a complex society on a complex planet that is affected by vast social, cultural, ecological and economic forces over which I am pretty much powerless.

Pure individualism under these circumstances is inherently frustrating, a game I am fated to lose in the long term. As Jesus said once in a different context, I am not much longer-lasting that "the lillies of the field, that flourish today, and tomorrow are cut down and thrown into the fire."

If I want to invest my hopes, my emotions, my intellect and my energy in anything lasting, then, I have to look beyond myself to something bigger. If I realize the futility of living for myself alone and start to invest energy and intellect and love in preserving the family DNA, that's one step towards something lasting.

Or If I invest in (a) preservation of the global ecosystem, in (b) the continuation of American democracy, in (c) the Christian/secular humanist effort to bring economic and social justice to the world, or in the (d) appreciation and transmission of religious truths or good music or good literature -- then I think I am "building my house on a rock" instead of on quicksand (to use another Biblical metaphor).

Sometimes I put an Eastern religious or pantheistic or mystical Christian spin on this idea, and think of trying to recognize the union of my soul with the Holy Spirit or the Godhead or something. But whatever I call it, it means trying to step beyond the rather narrow and exceedingly mortal confines of my own ego, which is doomed to die, and trying to attach myself to the rest of Creation (and, maybe, to a Creator -- though I'm not always sure of that.)

I like to think of it in metaphorical terms as being like a coral polyp living in a coral reef. A coral polyp is very small, doesn't really do much or have lots of excitement in its existence, and I don't know that its lifespan is that long.

But along with the other polyps living next to it, and along with the dead polyps that have built up the reef beneath it, the tiny individual polyp with the boring life is helping a grand and beautiful structure arise from the ocean floor, perhaps to break the surface and form the land mass for a tropical island.

That's what all of us are doing at our best, I think.

We are indeed like the "lillies of the field," or perhaps we're as insignificant as those grains of mustard seed -- of faith -- that Jesus speaks of as fostering the advance of the Kingdom of Heaven. What we can hope and work for is being good polyps, good lillies, good seeds, and advancing the progress of something big and beautiful that will long outlast us.

To continue an already overly long answer, I also get some paradoxical comfort from the anti-individualist notion that "my" mind really isn't mine alone, or even mostly mine.

"My" mind and "my" ideas have been formed and programmed by the language I learned from my parents, by all the ideas that my culture has bequeathed me, by all the good and bad things that human societies have done and thought over the centuries. To quote from a young Karl Marx, my "human essence" in fact reflects the "ensemble of social relations" as they are focused on my particular place and time.

That means, as the Buddhists point out, that a fundamental truth of my existence is the "impermanence of the self." Oooh, scary, right? Well, kind of, but real.

Yet at the same time, my "impermanent" and limited self really is thinking and feeling and perceiving right now. And I sometimes like to think that my "mind" therefore is inherent in the universe, in that "ensemble of social relations" just mentioned. I am able to be "me" not because of my individual virtue, but because I am channelling the "buddha nature", or channelling the "Godhead" in Hindu terms, or channelling the "Holy Spirit" in Christian terms.

And I like to think - perhaps mistakenly -- that this super-personal, beyond-personal Buddha nature and/or Godhead and/or Holy Spirit is eternal. Or at least very long-lasting. My temporary ego will die -- there's no escaping it -- but whatever is really thinking "my" thoughts (or at least forming the cultural basis for them) will go on.

So why should I cling to my mortal ego, which will perish, when I can channel the imperishable -- and in doing so, perhaps advance the "kingdom of heaven" or at least human and ecological progress?

Yes. I am Agnostic, but I lean towards Atheism. I can't prove or disprove a creative force.

I have 2 kids so yes I have to live for more than myself, but in a way trying to provide a better future for my kids and grandchildren may be somewhat selfish in a survival sort of sense. I want there to be a good world for my future generations and I want them to enjoy good lives. (This could be considered to be doing something for myself in a way though)

I live for myself.

I hear the voice of a spirit that claims to be God.

He say's, "I can make a person feel that they couldn't teach a child to look both ways before crossing the street and be doing the right thing. You should just concern yourself, with yourself."

Sure is.

I live for myself, my family, my friends, my future children, the future children of the world...

There's no reason I can't live for someone or something else without being religious.

Yes! I live for the Lord, my God! I do his work and enjoy the life in which he has blessed me with! One day I will meet him and what a glorious day that will be. There will be no more sorrow, no sickness, no violence, no poverty and no more poverty.

I live my life to give glory and praise to the One who gave me life on the first place: my LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ. He died for our sins so that we may have life more abundantly - He loved us first, this is why I love Him.