steamboat28 wrote: But there are at least 375 ways to interpret any scripture, and honestly, within Christendom, the Bible is the #1 source of disagreement between members. So, it's not really helping a lot in that regard, is it?
Certainly. It is of course also a sort of agreement and in either case, for what its worth, the fact that most scriptures are awfully inconsistent with themselves, each other, logic, naturalistic facts or moral standards of any degree of decency and the least we can say is that if it weren't for the scriptures' constant failures, there would be way fewer grounds for those massive disagreements between denominations of larger faiths.
It must be also noted, that, for the case of Christendom, there are certain expectations reasonable to have of every believer. I don't think someone qualifies as Christian if he does not believe that Jesus is his savior in at least some sort of metaphorical sense or does not believe in any gods or any afterlives. So whatever and however vague a conclusion can be drawn from these few core beliefs that are common to everyone who can afford even remotely labeling oneself as Christian, they are still of some value. Of course one must not build prejudices or close one's mind to changes or expansions of these conclusions, but its not that nothing can be said of a believer just by virtue of knowing what faith he follows.
