Biblical Interpretation

The bible is a really long book. There's lots of information in there; almost too much to comprehend. I think nearly every Christian looks at the bible differently though, even though they're all reading (pretty much) the same words. Basically, though, the readers can be broken down into these three categories.

The Literalists:

These are the people who believe every word of the bible verbatim. There are no mistakes and there is no necessity for interpretation. The bible is what it is. One of the benefits of this method is that it requires pretty much zero thinking. There's no need to interpret anything. The folly for this believer is that the literal reading of the bible leaves no room to reconcile contradictions in the bible; and there are a LOT of them. How can literalists believe in something that contradicts itself over and over?

The Intepreters:

These are the people who read the bible and believe that some of the bible is a historical account of events and that other parts require interpretation to be understood. On the surface, this seems like sound reasoning. This somewhat resolves the issue that the literalists have with contradictions as they can be explained away as either meaning something else or inserting a personal understanding of the bible that resolves the contradiction (well, God said don't kill but God is always right so if he commands you to kill it's OK). There are a couple problems with interpretation, however. 1.) How do you know what parts are supposed to be interpretted? 2.) How do you know what the correct interpretation is? If I'm going to be following rules to assure my ascendancy to heaven when I die, I want a firm list of rules. If I have to go about interpretting what is right and wrong than I run the risk of doing wrong even when I believe I am doing right.

The Buffet Lovers:

The buffet lover is very similar to the interpretter, but with one key difference. I would consider the interpretter to be someone who interprets the entire bible. The buffer lover on the other hand is someone that believes what they want to believe, literally or interpretted, and simply ignores the rest. This method allows the believer to get around contradictions, because they simply ignore them. It still suffers from the same issues of interpretation, and probably moreso, because now they are discarding parts of the bible they don't like rather than trying to explain them away.

I find it impossible to be able to reconcile the teachings of the bible in my mind seeing it through one of these three archetypes. How do believers do so? Am I missing an archetype?

Some Examples of God and his Follower's "Love" and "Compassion"

The following are just a small sample of the horrible things that God does or commands his followers to do:

Joshua 21:16 'They devoted the city (Jericho) to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.'

Numbers 14:18 'The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'

Deuteronomy 3:3-6 'So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women and children.'

1 Samuel 15:2-3 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'

I think these passages really speak for themselves. How can a benevolent God be so unfair and command his followers to commit these heinous acts? It's also interesting that these acts are in contradiction to the commandment to not kill and Jesus's concept of turning the other cheek. I don't understand how a book that is supposed to be the rule book to life and, presumably the after-life, can have so many mind boggling contradictions and promote so much bloodlust and violence.

What would it take for you to believe/disbelieve in God?

I've been wondering, what exactly would it take for me to believe in God? This is something I've thought about quite a bit and, unfortunately, I feel like I have more questions than answers.

My initial thought was that I, and several other individuals who I could verify were in no way delusional at the time, would have to witness some kind of testable, miraculous event. However, such an event could easily be perpetrated by a deceptive individual like Satan. If my goal in life was to turn people away from God, like Satan, that would be a good way to do it. That raises other questions as well. When people think that they hear God telling them to think and do things, how do they know that it's not Satan tricking them. This is particularly interesting when two people are "told" by God to do conflicting things. Which one, if any, is right?

So after thinking about this for a while, I really can't come up with a particular event that could happen to make me believe that God is real.

I would be very interested to hear other people's opinions on what would make them believe in God. I'm also interested in finding out what it would take for the faithful to turn from God.