Quote Originally Posted by syzygy View Post
The text of the Bible is merely a dead letter, and if interpreted literally produces a dull understanding. It should be read with a spiritual understanding, which is to say it should be lived, 'imagined' within. We must think for ourselves here and not just regurgitate pre-established interpretations, either for or against the Bible's validity towards Truth.

Nothing I said in my last post contradicts the Bible, and in fact can all be supported by the Bible. But do not take it from me, I was merely positing a question. Of course it is easy to just pass off what I say as me "imagining what I want", but understand that we are coming at our interpretations from completely different angles. You are trying to discredit the Bible with a superficial, literal rendering, perhaps not even from your own efforts, whereas I am living what I speak about, "for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
The great thing about non-literal interpretations of the bible is you can interpret it any way you please. For instance, I interpret the scriptures to mean that only those who use rational thinking an evidence to back up their claims will go to heaven. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem for me to skew verses into supporting this claim.

As soon as we go the route of figurative interpretation for everything (I stress everything since some things are obviously figurative, such as Jesus' parables) then we are no longer talking about Christianity based off the bible, but a Christianity based off what the person wants it to be and interprets it to be.