(V):

That makes for very interesting reading. Ramban's (Maimonides) view of the yetzer tov (good impulse) and yetzer ra (evil impulse) makes more sense than simply personifying evil in the Devil and then blaming the Devil for tempting humanity.

Buddhism sees all human actions as arising from the ego. Everything that is constructive and destructive in humanity arises from the need to satisfy our ego and to control the inherent impermanence of the universe. That is more like the yetzer ra explanation in that link. The big difference is that Buddhism sees everything as impermanent and ever changing. The idea of an eternal, unchanging God goes against that Buddhist idea. It is why Buddhism is a religion without Gods. (That does not mean that Mahayana Buddhists do not rever Buddha as if he were a God, but in the Hinayana tradition Buddhism has no Gods.)

For me the problem is not so much in the interpretation fo the Bible, but in how organized religion uses fear of punishment to control people. Organized religion also limits God. "God believes only in those who believe what our religion bleives. The rest are doomed to eternal punishment. Everything that we can know about God is in the Bible. Outside of the Bible all that we have are interpretations, but God gave us only this one book."

To think that the Bible is the only thing we can know about God is very limiting. If God is infinite, then explaining everything about God would require an infinite number of books. One book is at best a starting point. Anybody who claims that they know God from reading the one book is like claiming to know the ocean when all that you have seen in your life is a drop of water. We have read one book, and based on that we tell ourselves that we know God's nature and God's purpose. Then in our limited way we assign to God petty human limitations.

"God accepts my religion but not others." "Our team is the winning footbal team and other teams don't even know how to play the game." It sounds like a very petty view of God to me. If God plays favorites, why make the rest of humanity? Then we contradict ourselves and we say that God works in myseterious ways. With one sentence we say we know God from the one book, and with another we say that we don't understand God. It is nothing but a reflection of our limitations, not God's.