That would be way too easy! First, this is not a simple matter. It's as if someone said "Tell me everything about yourself in 30 seconds." Second, this is not about spoon feeding. What you know, from what I can tell, is what you worked on. No one poured the knowledge onto the silver plate for you to use.
HD, 1000 silverlings, what good was telling people that the earth was not flat if they refused to consider the evidence? How can you tell is someone is a doctor unless you know what being a doctor is? And it isn't something you can just list in a half a dozen bullets. You will just have to find out yourself, the way you found out everything else.
Now, it is your choice to say "Bah, I give no authority to these lies" and dismiss a number of academics with very impressive backgrounds as charlatans, but then the Reformation did that with the 1,500 year-old-Church. It's an option, just as it's an option to state that if God wanted man to fly He would have given him wings!
Agrarian, your charge that the academics are dead set to destroy the religion would have to be substantiated. Bishop Eusebius, the first Church historian (4th c.), specifically said that the Church will use only that information which is profitable for the Church and ignore the rest. We must assume that each side seeks to defend its beleifs, and not prejudge their motives.
You can't make the claim that Orthodox/RCCers accept the traditions handed down by the fathers and then say, "It's OK to ignore those traditions."
You are absolutely right! And, contrary to what you think, I don't! I have said it before and I will say it again: I believe Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity, as my tagline says. I believe in everything the Church teaches, even if I don't understand it.
That does not, and should not, preclude me or anyone else from seeking and engaging information that seems to contradict, alter, supplement, widen, etc. the faith and/or ecclesiastical praxis, and put them to a test, especially if it is not some old heresy that has been rehashed and rejected, but something new and previously unknown.
I will drop yet another bomb: to me it is inconceivable that anyone would feel perfectly at peace, perfectly content with their faith, as if they have reach perfect sainthood, live a sinless life, and believe in perfect knowledge, and have no need or desire to be purified as long as they live, but instead believe they have learned everything there is to learn, to know everything there is to know, believe and live their faith perfectly.
Apparently, many seem to believe themselves that good, having nothing more to learn, but only to preach and teach us less perfect beings something about perfect faith and perfect knowledge.
Whep, that clears that up.
I'm not actually here to participate in "tests" K50, as I have left school behind. Now is the real world. I will speak for Hrley here, even though I do not know him very well, but as to the latter half of your statement, again, it is unsubstantiated, certainly neither of us think that we are the authority here, we are just readers of the Word which we appeal to in our arguments and it is our authority.
Since I have no reason to think Paul wrote gnostic texts, I will not waste my time wandering around the internet looking for them. If you have an argument to make, please make it and use some facts, thanks. Now please don't take this the wrong way, :)