[aishah]

yes, it has for me (here and elsewhere). there are a lot of things in my life i'm not interested in changing my mind on, or that are so rooted in personal experience that i probably will not change (although i can't say never), but there are also a lot of things that i've learned from reading other posters here and elsewhere that have made me look at things from different perspectives and reconsider strong (even rigidly held) beliefs. for me, forums (especially when there is serious discussion) can be a way of working out what i think about something in my own mind, through typing it in a post, or working through my point of view and understanding an issue from different points of view, which sometimes leads to significant changes in how i look at things. for me at least, personal experience is more important than opinion or statistics or whatever when it comes to those discussions, usually, and i value what people share of their personal experiences here. there are lots of other great things about message boards, but that is what i love about discussing difficult topics here.