Sara, I found your first post really interesting because in a way it was quite close to the Islamic perspective on Christianity. In Islam we believe that Judaism and Christianity are both derived from legitimate revelations but that they have lost thier authenticity and the messages delivered by the Prophets have been altered to such an extent that it is now difficult to know what is correct and what isn't.
So whilst we don't nessescarily agree with thier contents we hold the religious texts of Christianity and Judaism in high esteem. In Islam it's regarded as a crime to destroy a church or synagogue.

In regards to food - that's one of the areas that we think that Christianity has lost its way.
Gargy, in regards to the shellfish, there is a legitimate scholarly differance of opinion on whether it is halal (permissable) or not. Some of the madhabs (schools of thought) argue that it's ok and others disagree. In such cases both opinions are regrded as legitimate and you can make up your own mind. Many people just follow all the rulings from one particular madhab but I prefer to pick and choose.
In order to be halal animals have to be slaughtered by having thier throats cut - the same as kosher. So we regard kosher meat as being halal. The Quran says that meat slaughtered by people of the book (Christians, Jews & Sabaens - because they follow Abrahmic law) in the correct manner is Halal but these days Christains no longer follow traditional/correct methods of slaughter. The thing I find really interesting about Halal & Kosher meat is that BSE isn't an issue if Halal & Kosher methods are used. My uncle is C of E but when I went to stay with him for a while he had to find me Halal meat and once he read up on it he started buying Halal and Kosher instead of going to his local butcher or supermarket.

FWIW I like the King James version of the Bible best because from a purely asthetic/literary perspective I believe it to be the best written. They way that there are so many differant versions of the bible is one of Islam's main criticisms of it in regards to its authenticity. The Quran today is exactly the same as it was 1500 years ago - right down to the last dot. We believe that the Quran in itself is a miracle because of this. Unlike the Bible the language of the Quran is still alive and spoken today and unlike the Bible if every physical copy of The Quran vanished it would not be an issue. In every country of the world there are people who can recite every word of the Quran so all we would need to do is find one and write it down again. I could be wrong but I suspect that if every copy of The Bible vanished tomorrow there would be a great deal of confusion about how to go about re-writing it.

I hope no-one's offended but I thought that maybe some of you would be interested in the Islamic perspective....