on this "loose christian" thing...i'd pick up some C.S. Lewis, specifically his "Mere Chritianity", which deals with some VERY heavy philosophical ideals pertaining to christianity which would answer MANY of your queries and challenge your mind in a way that might make it feel like exploding at times before reinforcing and strengthening your Belief system, Understanding, and Faith about christian ideology. I recommend this to MANY a christian as it was recommended to ME to read and would doubt that doubt or questioning could ever intrude upon a christian's mind after reading it. great book. Lewis is an atheist turned christian christian apologist and prolly BEST author for extra-biblical reading for yall.

but as far as this faith thing... one reason other traditions don't use it like christianity or even HAVE it built in is because they operate off of KNOWING and have no problem NOT kowing or dealing with all that intails (ignorance about something). any ideology HAVING to know will have issues when dealing with the unknown and changing nature of reality. as such, these ideologies operate on what they know and are comfortable not creating explanations for what they don't.