measuring ourselves and others

For the longest time it has hacked me off how we as Christians measure one another. Almost always the first question is - what do you believe about.... ? WHY? We almost never ask people how they act, its always about what they believe. I know so many people who 'believe the right things' about all sorts of God stuff but their attitudes, well frankly SUCK. And they really don't act like Christians. One of my pet peeves in this regard is the 'defending the truth brigade' or as I like to refer to them, 'the supervisors' - you know who I mean, the guys who know who are heretics and who not, and why, who is going to 'burn in hell' because of their 'un-biblical' view on left handedness or whatever, people who don't trust you because you don't always preach expository sermons. I particularly like they way they use un-truth to defend the truth. Prime example - miss quoting 'heretical' authors or speakers to prove that they don't believe in absolute truth, and are thus evil, dangerous and a threat to all things biblical. News flash folk, miss quoting someone is the same as telling a lie, which is the same as not telling the truth which is not just wrong but a REALLY stupid way of 'defending' the truth.
Ok so much for the rant, and to get back to my point. Asking someone what they believe or 'constructing' what they believe from your own interpretation of what you think they said or what they wrote, is a really lousy way of getting 'the measure of a man'. A really famous person once said, 'you will know them by their fruit', not by the statements they make or by how successfully you can misinterpret them, or even by your opinion of their 'view of scripture' but 'by their fruit'! In other words, do they love God and people and can you see it. Do they obey God, not just believe 'right stuff' about him, are they full of 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control'?
In other words, do you want to be around them, or do they scare the heck out of you because you may something unorthodox in their presence - and boy then you know you are in real trouble.
I don't know but I think we should try measure like Jesus did not like 'the supervisors' say we must.