Record few Americans believe in Biblical inerrancy.

[vulcanlogician]

The entire Bible concerns practical as well as spiritual matters, so that's no basis to separate Paul's letters from other Scripture.

I meant to say practical for that church at that time. Perhaps he wasn't intending for churches hundreds or thousands of years later to continue following his advice to the letter. It was practical in the sense that it was useful for his contemporaries to follow. If there was a manual on how to cut down trees written at that time, it might have suggested that an axe is the best tool for the job. It might have been correct at the time it was written. But since the advent of the chainsaw...

I disagree that the verses are vague or nebulous.

There is no clear set of verses that get you to the doctrine of inerrancy.

If Timothy 3;16 had said "In all the books that will one day be collected into the Christian canon, including this letter, you will not find one single error. The epistle written by James is without error. Both of Peter's epistles are without error. The accounts of Jesus' life according Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are without error"... This would be much clearer than "All scripture is god-breathed and practical..." etc...

Taken by themselves, these verses aren't vague. But when used to justify inerrancy, they require interpolation. I have trouble wrapping my head around the notion that Paul referred to works that had not been written yet and with which he himself was wholly unfamiliar. (But then again, I try to avoid magical thinking.) To summarize: by themselves, the verses might have clear meaning. As justification for inerrancy, they are vague.

There are a number of ways to clearly state the doctrine of inerrancy. You'll find no such clear statement in the NT.

I agree that it's circular. Since you mentioned the Timothy passage, I thought you were looking for Biblical references on the subject, which are necessarily circular.

Fair enough. I guess this brings our argument to the old crossroads: You choose faith/ I choose logic. Circularity is a lapse in logic. But I suppose strict adherence to logic may demonstrate poor faith. Kind of a deal-breaker for me personally.

If you're just wondering why I accept it personally, it's a matter of faith. The Bible feels right to me. It speaks to my soul. When I follow its precepts life is good. When I lapse, it's not so good.

I can accept that. Heck, I might even admire it if so many believers didn't use such reasoning as an excuse to leave issues unexamined. But put the way you have put it here, I respect your position. Who am I to say that you are not entitled to employ a given thing in your life when it benefits you? 

William James made a good argument for the viability of faith along those lines in "Will to Believe." John Hick also wrote an essay titled "A Rational Basis for Theistic Belief" which argues that your line of reasoning here is actually logical and doesn't require faith.

But by the same token, logic works for me, as well as many others. There are those who would not only impose scripture on themselves but everyone else too. We can't forget the bloody history of Christianity. Left unchecked, it will move beyond the sphere of what works for a given individual and try to shape society according to its precepts-- often in a way that exudes hypocrisy.

Also, getting back to logic, have you considered that confirmation bias might be at work when you "follow its precepts and life is good" ???

See above. You don't know what most scholars believe on the subject, as you haven't defined scholar and haven't surveyed them.

LOL, I hate to leave a wikipedia link after what you have said, but the authorship of Peter is discussed within: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Peter

I actually was drawing from memory before. My sister got me an annotated Catholic Bible which discussed scholarly interpretations of verses in the footnotes and also discussed authorship in the introduction to each book. (I think she was trying to lure me back to the flock, tee hee.) That Bible is somewhere in my many boxes of books and I wish I had the will to go dig it out. But when I use scholar, I mean "the community of educated theologians." No, I haven't surveyed them personally. But this doesn't mean such a survey hasn't been performed? The annotated Bible explored many avenues from Peter being the genuine author to pseudonymous authorship.

Further, truth isn't determined by majority vote. When there's disagreement on an issue I take an interest in, I tend to read the different sides and come to my own conclusion, or sometimes remain agnostic.

Majority vote? A majority vote among all believers would most certainly result in "Peter himself wrote it." A majority vote is different than a consensus among theologians. 

Here is a thought experiment: If you were to conduct two polls, one among Christians who have actually read 1 and 2 Peter, and another among Christians who haven't read them, which group would express a higher percentage toward Peter's authorship? It is my guess that you would find many more Christians who have not even read the books claiming with certitude  that Peter wrote them. There would be more disagreement among those who have actually read the works (because this group would include theologians). This involves some guesswork on my part, but I think you can see where I'm coming from.

One informed opinion is a thousand times more valuable than a thousand uninformed opinions.

It's just that when one examines the landscape of believers "a thousand uninformed opinions" seems to be the more appropriate descriptor. You are an exception, as are the community of those who study the Bible as a profession.