Quote:
Originally Posted by A_PoMo
For most people I think it boils down to personal taste and an honest attempt to interprete scripture the best they are able. Really, isn't that why there are so many different flavors and brands of Christianity. Christianity has become a niche market with every spin-off denomination and group that has it's own distinctives. Kind of like 7-UP. You can buy regular, diet, cherry, dark cherry, and today I even saw pomegranate 7-UP. Pomegranate? Huh? Who would like pomegranate 7-UP? Not me, but I'm sure somebody will like it. Churches are like that too aren't they? All churches cater to their base in terms of style/liturgy/ecclessiology. Birds of a feather like to flock together.
Plus, the Bible is more open to interpreation than most OP's want to admit. Not to mention lack of education and knowledge illogical logic, bad hermeneutic that result in faulty conclusions that go into formulating doctrinal positions. I believe there is absolute truth, but I doubt that any of us have it all figured out exactly right. So, sincere people attempt to be intellectually honest and due to their humanity come to different conclusions about biblical interpretation and over time they move away from each other in terms of regular fellowship and association. Once they do they find other people who agree with their theology and whose worship style/liturgy/ecclessiology they prefer and they become ex-whatever they were before.
I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily.
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I've always thought of a scenario where 50 people who had no bible knowledge were each given one and told to read it. A month or two later, you would no doubt see 50 different doctrines adopted (granted, with the bulk falling into a couple of general groups).