Astus,
There are two problems with a symbolic interpretation: it makes Shinshu a path of salvation without any need for personal enlightenment, since in this life there is no effort, no development, and in the next there is no place to practice but instant liberation.
You tend to use narrowing terms all the time which is actually limiting the possibilities of understanding. I would call it a non-literal interpretation, which means it's open to many levels of insight and rooted in personal experience. However you may call it though, I don't get your point really. Yes, in this life there's no effort, if we mean self-effort; there's no development, if we mean a progress towards liberation based on what we could do as human beings; and yes, there's no 'next life' after this if you have been grasped by Amida realizing Shinjin, at least not as just another part of the samsaric cycle. Because you are destined to the attainment of enlightenment (which is what becomes a reality in the here and now by experiencing Shinjin) it will happen naturally without any effort (Jinen) and so there's no need for any 'place to practice'. You simply can not overcome your traditional Pure Land understanding, which is also clear by reading your responses to Dr. Alfred Blooms emails. Only because of this the above mentioned 'problem' comes up.
The second problem is the lack of actual sources for this interpretation in the written teachings of Shinran.
Again, you yourself gave the link to our old debate here on this forum and you received several replies by Dr. Alfred Bloom about this. He tried to explain why he and many other highly valued Shinshu teachers have a different (non-literal and more open) understanding than you (you said that for you Shinran is just telling what every Pure Land master before him said, so nothing new here). He obviously couldn't convince you and I can't do that either. If you still think there's a lack of actual sources for this interpretation, then I don't know what to say. I have studied Shinran for quite a while now and what these Shin teachers say pretty much is what I understood while reading Shinrans works as well. As you said, we have that older thread and I don't see much sense in repeating everything over and over again since my opinion is still the same on every single point we discussed there. If you say that we have no base for this interpretaion in Shinrans writings you are mistaken, Al Bloom explained very well why he thinks this interpretation is a valid one. Like I said in that old thread:
Shinran used his language and we use our own. If you read Shinrans writings though you should be able to see what he thought and how he went beyond words and literal understandings and traditional images. Going beyond the literal word is what we know as a mythical or metaphorical understanding.
If you are not able to see how he went beyond this narrow literal understanding of these texts, beyond the single words and traditional images with their 'known' meanings, then nothing one could say would change your view anyway.
I'm out.
Gassho
Andreas