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Some noodling from a zafu

Human nature, which has us rate a spiritual path in terms of whether we feel we are continuing to progress upon it or not, is just another dream about the dreamer.

If an awakening from this dream is what we'd prefer then consider instead how one relates to any incoming phenomena rather than deliberately attempting to align one's views to anything.
Emulating some part of the Dharma functions like an aircraft controller trying to keep a pilot, who is too nervous to land his plane, within sight of a landing strip so when the plane finally runs out of fuel, that pilot has the best chance of surviving that forced landing. This is what many teachers of the Dharma often think that they are doing. For many students, depending on their present karma, this is the best teaching of the moment for where they are.

I think though that it's usually safest to only recommend that folks hold teachings as possibilities best left to their best attempt at an unbiased observation. A thousand more mirages of water appear to the thirsty than to anyone whose thirst has been quenched. Would you rate the many sights a dehydrated observer reports of water over the observation of one adequately hydrated observer? Who is more likely to know what is a mirage of water and what is actually drinkable.

All Dharmas are simply what's revealed when we get ourselves out of their way. They are not so much the manufacturing of truth as they are what is left when we learn how to stop leaving our responses to all passing phenomena in the hands of our dreamer's storyline.

I think there does need to be a certain amount of blind trust at the beginning. Most people seem to come to Buddhism looking for some sort of spiritual help in their life and they see something in the people who practice it that tells them there may be something here worth checking out.

Then I think we learn about the tradition and take things on board. I've pretty much always been told if there was something I didn't understand or agree with it was alright to set it aside.

Early on I took refuge vows and considered myself a Buddhist, I more readily looked for reasons to believe the teachings were true. As I aged and learned more outside of the tradition I saw that what is true isn't so simple. That many things fall into the blind men and the elephant analogy and others likely post hoc arguments explaining why something they already believe to be true is.

At any rate, learning is a life long process and things we once thought true we later think otherwise and vis versa. And the more you know the more you realize you don't know. So I agree with most of your last paragraph, but would say its fine to have some reasonable conviction in a set of knowledge such that one is willing to make a commitment to it, at least on the provision that it isn't later shown to be mistaken.

It strikes me that in a lot of traditions you are expected to take a body of teachings “on faith”. You are supposed to commit without knowing exactly what these teachings are, usually you find out about them afterwards from some kind of book. Even in buddhism I remember from my early days at the Gelug Tibetan Buddhist temple that we got a “basics course” and were told that a lot of the topics covered were elaborated in these little booklets written mostly by the Dagpo Rinpoche, which we were assured we could borrow.

Now the Buddha said to “test the teachings”, which seems to me a more sensible approach, but how can you test them if you do not know them? If you come across a tradition with a large amount of teachings and you think it may be for you, are you going to need to study for years before you can definitely call yourself a member with views aligning to theirs?

Or are you going to admit that there is no such thing as aligned views, only the absorption of limited amounts of teaching which you can make your own, that you can never call yourself a member of any tradition? You can only keep learning, but to say you are a Theravadan or even just a Buddhist may be going too far.

Go with what you know.
Go with what is True for you.
The rest is like the number of simsapa leaves. You cannot count every one. So admire the tree for its foliage, but just keep the leaves you can hold.