The Golden Statue

[Drich]

Why do you assume you were on the wrong path? By you own estimations you were on the right path. What I am suggesting is that Perhaps, you were not on that path long enough to reach your goal.

I was still going with what I said in the OP, which is the authorships of the Gospels. I don't think there is a path that will make you arrive at the 4 names which we have so readily accepted.

Do you personally know how your refrigerator works? The A/C in your house? How Your Car works? The Airplane when you fly? Or do you simply accept that other do and accept it as truth?

What's the difference? Maybe because you haven't experienced God as you expected? What if you were using one of the things I mentioned earlier in a way not consistent with how it was designed to work? Like: Using your fridge to cook your food. Or your A/C to shower? Because you can not shower with your A/C system, does it mean your A/C does not work? That those who do understand how it works are "not telling themselves the truth?"

Good analogy. If I wanted to learn how something worked I would read the manual. The problem is that the 'manual' for God has been written by people whose 'qualifications' I cannot verify i.e. were they really witnesses? For all I know, they could not qualified to tell me how God works.

No, to simply ask seek and knock as directed by Luke 11, and He will let Himself be known.

According to who? Anonymous #3?

It's real simple. If you wish to worship the God of the bible then it is by the bible that you can only know God. The authorship or the validity of the bible is not something you need concern yourself with if you wish to seek an audience with said God. Why? Because it is only through the bible that the God has reviewed Himself. This makes the bible God's responsibility to care for and maintain.

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Do you personally know how your refrigerator works? The A/C in your house? How Your Car works? The Airplane when you fly?

Actually, yes. Yes I do know these things. And not because I know how to use Google, either. I learned the principles of heat exchange, which is how 'fridges work, in physics classes at school.
The same place I also learned the principles of flight - actually I learned about that at primary school. I also read around these and many other subjects in my own time to increase my understanding. I trained as a car mechanic after leaving school; I can basically strip an engine down to its component parts and fit them back together again (in fact I have, many times). If by A/C you mean Alternating Current - mains electricity - that's something else I learned in physics class. If, on the other hand, you mean Air Conditioning, I never learned the mechanics of that directly; however, I do have enough education such that understanding its principles wouldn't be a problem.

Even if I didn't have even a basic understanding of these things, I'd hate to think I'd be so stupid as to try and cook with a 'fridge. Why - is that what you'd do in the absence of instructions otherwise?

...so you do understand what it is I am trying to say?