Yeah, I see where you're coming from. As a Christian, my guide is the Bible. Now, I choose the Bible, not because that's what was taught to me as a child, but because I became convinced of it.
I'm what you call a "Pastors kid." Yes, some of us have a bad reputation because people expect us to be perfect because our dad is a Pastor. I kinda went through that phase and only followed the belief system, only as a ritual. I wasn't really 100% convinced.
I'm an Analyst by trade...I need data/evidence. I began to read the Bible with a more analytical mindset. This didn't happen until I was in college. Being out of the house, I could do as I wanted and go to church...or not. Now, I could turn this into a whole "Testimony" post, but I'll just give you the "CliffsNotes".
One of the things that most struck me and made me believe. Was the story of the crucifixion. You see, the Bible had a prophecy of this "Messiah", "the Lamb of God" who would die for our sins. There are way too many variables for this and if even one of them was wrong, I could argue it's fake.
Just a few things that made the most impact on me were:
How could the Old Testament prophets know the manner of execution of a different nation and 400 years in the future??? I mean, who would have thought 400 years ago that we could be doing electric executions today? Or lethal injection?
How could the prophets have known that the Messiah would not have his legs broken, as part of this execution style that was foreign to them? This shows special insight.
How could they have known the monetary units used by the guards in gambling away the clothes of Jesus? Didn't they have inflation in their day? How would they know the cost of something from a different nation in a different time?
How could they know the monetary type used to gamble away the clothes of Jesus? We didn't even know 30 years ago we'd be talking Bitcoins today!
How did they even know they would gamble away the clothes of Jesus? This is just to precise. You can argue conspiracy, but it would take waaaaay too many people to participate and keep their blabby mouths shut for the rest of their lives. It's just not probable.
This is only to name a few of the prophecies that had to happen, in order for Jesus to qualify as the Messiah spoken of in the Bible. I was rather overwhelmed with the odds.
Now that I've been convinced of the authenticity of the Bible, I can have faith in what it teaches. Among those things are that we are not to consult with the "dead" because those aren't really dead spirits. According to the Bible, those are spirits of demons. The Bible begins to outline how to identify qualities of Gods people and qualities of Satans people. Those of the occult, qualify very easily.
Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, aren't called by Christians (at least not by me) as Occultists. We (or I) just say they have the wrong information and fewer data to back up their claims.
I know that a Hindu can make the same claims and firmly believe that they are 100% right and I am 100% wrong, and I'm ok with that. I believe that God looks at our heart and not our "knowledge." I believe that you are saved by your relationship to God, not saved by your knowledge of God. If that were the case, the devil would be saved too, because he knows who God is. The Bible says that God "winks" at our ignorance of Him and he looks at our heart. He knows that if the full truth were presented to them, they would follow Him. I believe that heaven will be filled with many people of different faiths...because God looks at the heart.
What God does not "wink" at is willfull ignorance of Him. You can't just say, "I'll be safe if I don't bother to try and find him. Then I can claim ignorance."
Whew...this kinda could have been a post. lol!!!