Namaste Padipa,
thank you for the post.
i suppose that it wasn't a matter of deciding, per se, it was more a matter of putting the teachings into practice and determining for myself if they worked or not.
i suppose that you could say that i become convinced of the skillful nature of the teachings by testing its' claims for myself and, after verifing them, i had little choice but to accept them and live up to them and remain intellecutally honest.
my own path in the religious area is, i suspect, not all that dissimilar than others that on the forum... so it's not really all that relevant to the discussion at this point.
suffice it to say that, of all the other traditions that i had explored, only one answered my questions in a way that made sense