...the ''goal'' is not an eternal quest for truth, but a conclusion that I can be confident enough in for practical purposes.

I agree, though it's a great reminder to hear again.

I certainly wouldn't take back the entirety of my "quest," I learned a lot about various cultures and how different people think, but I continued far beyond the point of diminishing returns. Keep track of your expectations of learning new things.

Good point as well. I've also learned quite a bit, particularly about cosmology and how we know what we know in that area. I'll have to think hard about what it would take to convince me even if I learn new things. Solutions to the problem of evil, for example, seems like it will always rest in speculation or what is possible; without god confirming a hypothesis or showing what, exactly, the greater good of little Johnny's suffering is... we'll never know what speculation is accurate.

Without a time machine, we'll never confirm what really happened at the hypothetical tomb, either. And what we have of the Bible will also pretty much remain the same and continue to be reinterpreted to attempt to explain various issues away.

So... even with reading someone else's take on these things... I'm always left puzzled and unconvinced because they seem to be based on vague speculation and there's never anyway to verify the answers.

Does that make sense?

Perhaps that's the "decidedness" I should focus on, anyway. Proceed with a practical stance until something comes along that can be shown to have merit from apologists?