The problem is, what if I think I understand this or that religious tome, but in reality I’ve misinterpreted it. That’s the other alternative besides just pure disbelief. That it’s too dangerous to risk interpretation in the first place. Everyone thinks they’ve got it right. See what Dave says? People are more than happy to create or buy into Biblical interpretations without even reading it. It seems to me that you need to skirt the fine line between reading it as fiction and historical account. That that makes for the best interpretation. But that is just my take on it. Someone else would say you have to read it literally.
The problem is that seemingly subtle, casual distinctions in interpretation seem to lead to murder or war. We seem to have an irrepressible drive to search for deep, life or death meaning in things like this. There’s nothing that I might say that would relieve that. People have developed their belief systems from whatever resources they’ve encountered in the course of their lives. They only change slowly and with difficulty.