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10:99 - If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? Not very important.

That's what I was trying to ask initially, why choose a sect at all? Not why did you choose Shia over Sunni. :) Personally I think most if not all of the problems of Islam come from extra-Kuranic sources.

If I see someone being hurt unfairly I believe it is my religious obligation to help them, this may require me to use violence. I understand that he may have had more specific cases in mind with this speech.. but then he should be more specific, especially when your words hold such weight to so...

So if you did not belong to a particular sect of Islam, you would be a mindless fundamentalist?

I think so. Whatever Gods plan is, it is perfect and all roads will lead to it. It's like watching rain go down glass. You don't know the speed and path each drop is going to take, but you know where they are going to end up.

Can you explain the relevance? If God knows I am going to do something, it is as good as done right? What does it matter whether or not He directly influenced me to do it or not? That's the problem I am having, if God knows the choices I'm going to make before I make them then they are merely...

Why is it a circular argument? I don't know that I didn't just "pop into existence", I just consider it more likely that I did not.

Whether or not He determines it is irrelevant. All that matters is that God knows that if I exist I am going to go to Hell. If He knows this then allows my existence He has condemned me to hell and the only chance I have in escaping it is to prove His knowledge faulty.. a steep task to put it...

I can believe my religion obligates me to do something, but still accept responsibility in that I accept that I am carrying out my interpretation of the religion and its obligations.

^ Why choose either?

"It is clear, however, that Polkinghorne has been moved to this view by his work as a physicist" I have no background in physics but came to a very similar conclusion.

Not really. If God knows that I am going to fail His test then by allowing me to exist He has condemned me. If God knows I am destined for hell before I am even born then what chance do I have? I would have to prove God wrong to avoid hell. I don't see how this could be fair or just or good...

Sure it is a difference in degree but an important one. I don't think it fair to say that John Brown had absolute faith in anything. He could of felt as strongly as he did and still not believed in the human ability to achieve absolute certainty. If he did have absolute certainty what was this...

"Violence promoted and carried out in the name of religion can only discredit religion itself. Consequently, such violence must be condemned by all, and especially by genuinely religious persons, who know that God is always goodness, love and compassion, and that in him there is no room for...

LOL yes.. knowing that you have been forgiven is key to benefiting from it. Though I'm pretty sure I could come up with specific scenarios where one would benefit from being forgiven without knowing that they have been forgiven. It is why I said forgiveness CAN benefit the person being forgiven.

I just don't see which part of the article "is about never saying, "I was just following orders."" Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, that this is how it should be.

You are right, many worlds is better. :)

1. I don't think saying "there is no time to God" is accurate, imo "God is not bound by time" or "God is outside of time" is better. I think the simplest way to think of time is as a line that's growing or a bubble expanding.. a wave whatever it is, it is in motion and being outside of...

If that's the case then I can fully agree with it however that's not the impression the text left me with.

Yes it does, but I think it can also benefit the person being forgiven. For example, I started a new job years ago and made a pretty big mistake that cost my boss time and money, I was expecting him to get mad at me, yell, maybe even fire me(I was expecting it because that's how I would of...