I thank you for both of your replies, Craig.

I will mention something which stirred an emotional response in me. "The Source, the Higher Power, has built the universe for you." When people mention Higher Power of whatever name they choose to call what others call God, all I feel is anger. Because this is a universe full of confusion, fear and suffering, which doesn't go away with a couple of prayers, as religious folk (and me too, admittedly) would like it to be.

I find it easier to cope with knowledge of suffering that's caused by humans to each other, which you talk about in your other post, because it's exercising our free will and the source of it is our choice and responsibility. However, so much of it is not our doing (at least seemingly) - the fragility of our body and psyche, old age and disease that hurts it, and this ignorance of the big scheme of things and explanations... I find it very hard to believe that I deliberately chose to face this ignorance combined with a striving to know the answers.