Are all atheists this ill-informed about religion?

[Delicate]

That there are apparent wide and important differences is not being denied. What is being denied is that these are differences of core doctrine. Rather they are differences in peripheral doctrine or practice. 

Deny all you like...and when you're done, what will have changed?  Will you have resolved sola scriptura?  Will you have a definitive christology?  Will you be able to comment upon the availability of redemption?  No, no, and no.  

That some like to worship God with ethnic instruments and others do so with electric guitars might appear to be a wide and important difference, but it's merely one of peripheral doctrine or practice. It's not a difference of core doctrine. Even the difference between "God wants us to be poor"-ism and prosperity preaching might appear to be a big difference, but it's not a difference in core doctrine. 

Instrument choice doesn't measure a blip on my radar.  I don't care, and you don't care...so why are we discussing it?  

And yes, this applies even to the wars of religion in Europe. For example the Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland was not fought over religious doctrine, but over issues like home rule, where the division along sectarian lines was predicated on the fact that most Protestants feared Catholic-majority rule, and thus resisted Irish home rule. 

You betray your opening statement in the conclusion, but why should it matter - have either of us been discussing Ireland?  No. 

So what's the upshot? Two things: (a) Differences that appear to be important in terms of cultural behavior or preferences are not significant doctrinally, and (b) a lot of the conflict being pinned to Christianity in particular does not involve Christianity or Christian beliefs but rather cultural and historical associations, of which members who call themselves Catholic or Protestant have no idea what their religion teaches. Not to mention © your whole story about holding onto social purchase is total atheistic fiction for which no independent evidence exists.

Since it's a political history of campaign ideology in public elections, the information is freely available to anyone who wishes to view it.   Is there some requirement for you to waive away a political reality?  Should these groups fail to serve their collective interests, is there some shame in accomplishing that goal?   

 Is adherence to scripture unimportant?  Is christology unimportant?  Is redemption unimportant?

What does resolving sola scriptura have to do with anything in this discussion? Have you even looked into the issue? Are you assuming (wrongly, it should be pointed out), that sola scriptura is core doctrine?

To what extent is the indeterminacy of, say, experimental findings in a scientific subfield an indictment on science? If it's not, how in God's name does your brain convince you that indeterminacy in a particular area of theology an indictment on religion?

It's confused responses like these that ask to be ignored.

That there are apparent wide and important differences is not being denied. What is being denied is that these are differences of core doctrine. Rather they are differences in peripheral doctrine or practice. 

So... I just want to be clear here: the length and breadth of your argument is "atheists are ill informed about religion because it is my personal opinion that the differences they see aren't a big deal"? Really? 

Because, see, when I see different denominations arguing about what it takes to get into heaven, my first thought is not "this isn't a big part of christian theology." 

Heck no. This discussion is situated specifically in the context of atheists who bring up doctrinal differences.

But since you brought it up, tell me, what are the different views on what it takes to get to heaven?

1) Nobody has explicitly invoked peripheral doctrines, at least from what I've seen. 
2) But in the real world, the vast majority of doctrinal diversity is, in fact, peripheral. 
C) So if these uneducated atheists are commenting about doctrinal differences, odds are, they are talking about peripheral differences. 

So where does this leave us? As I've said, most atheists here are too uninformed to draw the core/peripheral distinction. If they're talking about differences in general, they are likely going to be talking about peripheral differences. If you want to suggest they are talking about core differences, where's the evidence for it?

What part of the core doctrines do you think we either don't grasp, or don't address? For just a moment, we'll pretend that all Christian faiths agree with the Nicene Creed (here, I'm using the shorter Apostles' Creed; since you claim that the core beliefs are unchanging, you should have no problem with this), generally considered to enumerate all the core doctrines of belief, and see what you thin it is we don't know or discuss:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

This would be, oh, every single discussion we have on cosmology and evolutionary biology, and the complete lack of evidence for divine influence on what is now clearly a very natural process, even if we're not 100% certain of how two of the major events in this chain happened, yet. But hard to argue that we don't discuss it.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, 

Good grief, I can't even tell you how many discussions I've seen over the ridiculousness of the claim of a God that has a half-God child, that a woman got pregnant and gave birth as a virgin (and including the fact that the prophecy to which they were referring, in Isaiah, to establish Jesus' sovereign claim in their story, is a total mistranslation of the word alma, for young woman, when Isaiah uses betulah, the actual word for virgin, several times... but not there), and so on. 

suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; 

Mountains of posts on this subject, particularly regarding the historical evidence of Jesus (or lack thereof), including the claims regarding Pilate in Tacitus et al, and the writings of the early church fathers on the evolving view of this event.

he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; 

This one we don't discuss, much, though I certainly have seen the "rose from the dead" issue discussed.

he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; 

Not much to debate or discuss, here, other than the fact that none of the non-apostle "witnesses" to this ascension seem to have bothered to tell anyone, or write it down where it could become a testable early relic of the church prior to the 20-years-later crafting of the foundational documents of this religion.

from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 

Again, not much to discuss here.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.

Since I'm not sure if you do actually believe in the holy catholic Church, I'll leave this one alone as potentially doctrinaire, but will note that the concepts of life everlasting and the forgiveness of sins are among the most common topics, here.

In short, if you have a different idea of what constitutes these "core beliefs" you speak of, and why we would or should discuss them in some manner other than our current discussions on these points, we're all ears... but if you're just going to sit there and claim we don't talk about core beliefs, but only doctrine, then you are clearly delusional.

You're making me repeat myself here. 

The fact that most of the atheists here are (still!) too ignorant to even make a distinction between between core and peripheral doctrine, let alone have a clue on what might constitute core doctrine tells me they have no idea what they are talking about. Desperate for some basis to critique religion, they find something that looks like it might work, and mindlessly repeat it like a mantra.

To point out how confused this response is, keep in mind: The discussion is about doctrinal differences between Christians.

Now look at your critique of the Apostles' Creed: It's an atheistic critique of Christian claims!

Somehow, you seem to have made an inference that an atheistic critique of Christian claims as enumerated by the Apostles Creed says something about doctrinal differences between Christians...Do I need to say more about how absolutely confused atheistic critiques of religion are?

No? Good.