John,
Yes awareness and knowledge are joined together in many ways as I mentioned in my last post. Awareness is actually a form or part of knowledge. To gain awareness of the existence of one's self and other things in the world is synonymous with gaining a degree of knowledge of these things.
You definitely have the right to believe what you will. That is what free will is all about. Opposing ideals are a problem if one assumes that all ideals are of equal value. In general, if two ideals are in conflict or mutually exclusive, one or both of them is either being misapplied or is not a true or complete ideal. Although there are some faulty ideals there also, many of the problems in the Middle East come from misapplications of ideals.
Absolutists whether religious or otherwise often don't see that there are exceptions to most laws, rules, or ideals. At first it seemed odd to me when I noticed that in one place in the scriptures God would tell the people to do or not do a certain thing and then in another place he would command people to do the opposite. It took me awhile to see that the problem was not with God, but with man's placing the law (that God gave to them to keep) higher than God as though God should be subject to the laws that he commands men to keep or should not have the right to change them according to his will. To a degree, the exceptions to the laws are God's way of showing people that the law is not the absolute, but that God is the true absolute and is above and rules over the laws. In addition, the exceptions that God has put into his laws are for the most part due to various circumstances (aspects) that must be considered (weighed) to arrive at the full absolute understanding of how the law is to be applied, so it is a combination of absolute laws or ideals that are complex in nature so that every aspect or circumstance must be weighed in order to come to the understanding of the absolute application of the law for all possibilities of circumstances. The problem is that man likes to have everything very simple, so a man will likely read the first place that the law or ideal is mentioned and apply the partial meaning that is given in that one place to all circumstances thus causing many problems due to its misapplication in other different circumstances. In order to make things simple man will usually only look at and then gravitate toward one side of an issue without searching out the whole issue. This can be seen in the psychological test in which a cup with water in it to the center of the range between empty and full is presented to someone and he is then asked to state the amount of water in the cup. The person will usually respond that it is either half empty or half full (the complete answer is that it is both half empty and half full) and the choice that was made will then be interpreted as either a negative or positive outlook on life. The person could have said that it contains water to the mid point of its range, but that would be a more difficult concept, so the average person will give a half answer rather than the complete answer because of his desire to have everything be simple. People tend to apply these half answers in their lives even to the circumstances where the other half of the answer would be more applicable and thereby generate many unnecessary problems. The form of democracy that has so far worked the best in the real world (the government of the United States of America) was produced by those who were predominantly Christian monotheists.
At one time I would have agreed with you about the way the world was formed, but over time as I have delved further into the arguments and observations I have found them lacking in their ability to explain how it could have happened that way in any truly reasonable way. First, the concept that the world came about by some chance event does not truly exclude God from the equation, as many believe, because when we speak of a chance event we are saying that we do not know the cause of the event or its results. If we truly knew the cause we could predict the outcome before the event and it would not be a chance event. You might assume that if you throw a balanced coin into the air and let it come to rest on the ground, it will land with the head side up half of the time and with the tail side up half of the time, but in reality the results will not be distributed that way most of the time. First any odd toss cannot yield an exact fifty to fifty percent ratio because you have an extra toss that cannot be divided between the two possibilities. Even if you restrict your observations to only the even tosses, you will find that you will not likely have an exact fifty to fifty percent ratio of heads to tails vary often compared to the number of results that are not exactly fifty to fifty percent. There is obviously something that is causing the results to vary in a way that we call random, but that cause is not known. In this and all other similar cases of supposed random behavior that we observe in the real world because we do not know the cause of the results of these events we cannot logically rule out that God may be causing them. When we see such things we may be just seeing one of God's interface levels with the universe. He may be varying the result of such things in such a way as to generate the results that he desires in the world. If those who believe that quantum mechanics describes the ultimate limit of the amount of knowledge that we can obtain about the world around us because of the uncertainty principle are right, the quantum level could just be God's ultimate interface level with the universe beyond which he will not let us go to observe his workings in the world (I am not saying that I believe that quantum mechanics truly is such a limit). The point is that saying that the world came about by some chance event could be synonymous with saying that God created it if he is the source of random events and we do not understand random events to the point that we can come close to saying truthfully that he does not cause them. The belief that he does not cause them is as much a leap of faith as the belief that he does cause them. At the current level of technological knowledge, it ultimately just comes down to what a person desires to believe. Science works well only when considering repetitive events that can be tested and observed. One-time events that cannot be repeated or those that cannot be observed in some way (and therefore cannot be tested) the cause of which cannot be determined are outside of the proper application range of science. From my point of view and that of all who truly are of God, the point of telling others about God is not to win an argument over them or to gain money from or power over them, but to do what can be done to aid as many as possible to be saved from the destruction that unbelievers ultimately suffer due to their choice to disbelieve God out because of our caring and compassion for them. That choice, however, is ultimately each person's and no one can truly force anyone to choose against his will. God has given that freedom and that responsibility to each of us and we all ultimately make it one way or the other. God counts a choice to not choose either way as a choice against him because he requires a positive choice to believe in and accept him and his only begotten son Jesus Christ to gain salvation. As long as you are alive, you can make or change that decision, but you are stuck with the last decision that you made before death. You cannot change your decision after death. A person might think that he will put off that decision until just before death and then choose God (I have met some like this), so he can live the way that he desires for most of his life and then still be saved. The problem with that way of thinking is that people sometimes die quickly without warning, so that person might not get the chance to make the decision for God and salvation. Of course, the idea that any of us can be free to live our lives as we please is not true. We are made to serve God and if a person leaves God, he ultimately gives him over to Satin to rule over him and he will serve him although he may not know it at the time. I did not see the similarities of belief and behavior of those that don't believe in God until I crossed over to God, but now I see the similarities within each of the two groups (those that believe in God tend to have similar behaviors to each other and those that don't believe in him have similar behaviors to each other). This is somewhat masked, however by those that are either leaving God, but have not yet completely left him and those who are coming to him, but have not yet come all the way to him. The only true free choice we have is the choice of whom we will serve. Even in our daily lives we find that we are not in control of many things and this causes the desire for pleasure that generally is at the center stage for those that do not believe to often be unfulfilled. In this world it generally takes a lot of hard labor to make the things that give us pleasure. A large part of the life of the average unbeliever tends to be spent in working hard to make such things and is unpleasurable and thus meaningless to him. Only those few who are at the top of the social and wealth structure are in a position to come close to doing all that they desire and they even find that they are limited by lack of ability to do things that they desire to do and by bad things that still happen to them regardless of their position. Those that are successful in giving their lives over to pleasure often after some time find their lives to be empty and void of any real meaning or purpose. These often attempt to escape through the use of drugs or liquor. In general, the more intelligent a person is, the more likely he is to perceive such things in his life and be unhappy. The world seems to be designed to work against a life based on maximum pleasure as a viable concept. I have been on both sides of the conflict at different times and am expressing what I have seen, both in myself and in others. I hope that this helps you to understand that although I do realize that you have the right to believe and to express your beliefs as you will and I believe we all have those rights given to us by God along with the responsibility to choose who to serve, I still am compelled by my compassion for you and others to do what I can (while still respecting your rights) to provide all the information that I can to encourage as many as I can to make the choice to be saved.