So something I have mulled over in years prior, finally pulled the veil from my head. This is a short version of what I experienced before becoming an atheist.
From the ages 10 to 16 I attended a few different churches trying to "find my way" in life. At this point my parents had very little to do with a church and I just wanted to know for myself
When I was about 14 I noticed a trend from all of the preachers. They would read a pastage and say after "I believe this" and "I believe that"
Then what I began to notice surprised me. Almost none of the "beliefs" matched up to what the other preachers believed. So then I really started to read the Bible and started to read other religious literature and studied as much as I could and when I turned 17 my "beliefs" helped me reconstruct what I truly knew.
I also found it funny that some people ask you if your "believe" in God the same way they ask if you believed in Santa as a kid. And have been an Atheist for 10 years now.
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The concepts of a 'set of beliefs' and a 'belief system' seem part of the language of organised religion.
Absolute belief (in god or creed, for examples) also appears commonplace in organised religion. In reality, believing something should only be a matter of degree, almost never an absolute and it requires justification.
I finally worked out that I have never "believed in" at all. More accurately, I have only believed anything to the degree the belief is justified by reason and evidence. Beliefs, like opinions (if there's a difference), are dangerous if they cannot be altered by reason and evidence.
Keep all beliefs open to challenge. They aren't something to bet one's life on.
It is hard in this day and age being awash in information on what is more correct and what is not. When people are trying to trick you for their agenda and when people are genuinely sharing their knowledge of new information that can be helpful.
Fortunately there is the scientific method, and other methods of discovery and fact finding that help cut through all that.
On a simple basis we practice it all the time. We know to look both ways before we cross a street the evidence is compelling that it is a bad idea not to. We can go up and feel the solid and heavy build of an automobile or large truck. We educate our selves that 2 is greater than 1. Math is a useful concept to keep things fair in financial contracts. We do not take it on faith someone will give us correct change when we buy a soda for 20 bucks we apply basic universally understood principles of math to insure we get the correct change.
Everyone just needs to apply the same to these religious ideas.
Polytheism is the root of theism.
If you and I struck up a discussion about belief and we both professed a belief in the biblical god, your mental imagery of a god would be different than mine. Your psyche would generate into your imagination some fuzzy profile of a god. Mine would also conjure up a similar fuzzy image. Without that god revealing itself to the world, in what we call revelation, then that's the best imagery anyone can apply to the biblical god.
This is not a formally defined polytheism where many gods of different names and purposes are worshiped. It's more towards a single god with as many interpretations as there are people who profess a belief in it. This kind of polytheism, though arguably denied by the biblical adherents, is the truth behind their beliefs.
Your example of preachers giving varying interpretations follows that reasoning. Why? Because without revelation nothing can be common. The visual and spoken evidence needed to create such a common identity for a deity is absent and that means polytheism is at work painting such a deity in all manner of psychic imagery only the imagination can paint.
Mickey Mouse has better commonality amidst people worldwide than the biblical god does. No preacher can interpret Mickey Mouse away from the way Disney has presented him. But, they can interpret a god that a lack of revelation leaves open to such creative license.
What does that tell us about a coherent species that can selectively embrace logic or repel it?