Little Hawk says, "People... don't expect to find the answers within, and they seldom look for them there. You can't actually do it unless you still the mind, and most people find that virtually impossible! I have the greatest difficulty doing so most of the time myself, and trying to only aggravates the problem."

Yup... and don't think of a white horse! *G*

LH also says, "I talk about the things I believe in, not to convert other people, but because it gives me joy to talk of things I believe in, and it helps to reaffirm my own sense of identity and purpose."

I have trouble discussing the things I believe in, precisely because I don't want to come across as someone who's attempting to convert other people.... and yet I do want to persuade people to think outside their own little boxes on the religious hillside, so I'm conflicted. This is another case where the dogma of the Bible-thumping Christian warps something healthy – reaffirmation of one's sense of identity and purpose – into something unhealthy: in my upbringing, the fatherly advice I was given was to not talk to people who weren't of the same faith and denomination as I (meaning "the same as he") AT ALL unless I was witnessing to those people. The reason given was that talking to such people would "undermine my faith". The only way to reaffirm one's sense of identity and purpose, to my parents' way of thinking, was to reaffirm one's faith with one's fellow believers (to keep talking fellow believers into believing, and talk them out of doubting!) to the point of disallowing disbelief.

Of course, I "rebelled" by having friends of other faiths (and thereby having some semblance of a social life!) and I'm richer thereby. But even now, decades later, I still hesitate to discuss my beliefs (particularly face-to-face) because I don't want to fall into "witnessing mode"; I don't want to force my views on anyone. Mudcat is helping a lot in that regard, since no one is forced to read anything I post! *G*

Even so, I feel strange sometimes when post messages telling people here that I'll keep them in my thoughts instead of saying I'll pray for them, because (a) it sounds inadequate and less supportive, somehow, not to call upon a supernatural power for intercession on the person's behalf; (b) I don't want to come across as refusing to pray for someone; (c) I don't want to come across as "testifying" to my own lack of religious faith, as if I were making a point of rubbing it in the faces of believers who post messages of prayer.