Why did God murder children for making fun of a bald guy?

[Urizen]

Typical. Any passage where God is bloodthirsty or unjust, it's "symbolic"

Only in the sense that everything in existence is symbol. It is not an effete literary symbolism. Symbolism is the literal spilling of blood and laughter of children, a mother's tears and the clashing of swords, virgin nature and majestic heaven. Anything less than pure, unmanifested Reality is symbol.

God's anthropomorphism means none other than this: the intelligence that flows through the universe also flows through man. Man is made in the divine image: if God appears anthropomorphic, it is because man is theomorphic. This world is like two mirrors facing each other, casting their reflected images to infinity. God is the original image, while man is a distant reflection of the Original. We are an eternal archetype "incarnated" in matter. It's not that God resembles us; it is we who resemble God. This is the key to understanding Christianity. It is the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ: "God became man, that man could become God."

You also didn't mention how the bear managed to maul ALL42 children? NONE of them running away? Or was the mauling symbolic as well?

Since the illusions of this world are nothing, and the Real is everything, historical fact is subordinated to symbolic truth. If the symbol be oriented to the Real, which transcends this world, then the symbol is Truth; it makes no difference if the truth should be conveyed to us by symbolism of a mythical story or an historical fact. Symbol is symbol. Now in Christianity, history begins with the New Testament, while the Old Testament is essentially mythological. The NT conveys the truth largely by means of the symbolism underlying literal historical facts; whilst the OT conveys the truth largely through the symbolism of mythology (which does not exclude the possibility that the mythical stories of the OT may also be historical events, but their historicity is eclipsed by the mythological, while in the NT symbolism coincides with historical fact: in both cases, symbolism takes precedence over all else).

If a Muslim was explaining a questionable verse in the Koran, would you accept the explanation of "symbolism" ?

As explained in the sense above, yes, the Koran is rich with true symbolism, as are all heaven-sent religions