most anything can be interpreted in many ways, but especially?

Question

when concepts like God and spirit come into question. how do you know you have the right interpretation of your belief system?

example-
when Jesus said ~I am the life and the way follow me-
to some it means to literally become his follower and make him your personal savior

to others it means simply, to follow his example if you want to achieve oneness with God

i agree it is experiential- but then why do people use their own experience to negate someone elses?

you can't know whether or not someone else has achieved communion with God through a differnt method or path

religion is politics in disguise

Answer 1

The truth resonates. Oh, and proof is good too!

Answer 2

Given your example...

Statements that Jesus made can be interpreted in many ways, it's true. And yet if you take it on faith that he was the Truth, and you accept him as your savior, you are sent the Holy Spirit. This is something that actually happens. It isn't a metaphor. But the only way a person gets to know that it isn't a metaphor is to accept Jesus as their savior.

Jesus did say that he would send the Paraclete. This can be interpreted in a myriad of ways if you haven't been sent the Paraclete, but if you HAVE been sent the Paraclete--after confessing your sins to God and accepting Jesus Christ as the Son of God--interpretation becomes moot, because now you have experience.

In other words, Truth is not theoretical. It is experiential. Yet, again, the only way to know this is to enter into the experience.

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Regarding your addendum: Jesus doesn't offer communiion with or oneness with God. He offers the one Way to get right with God. What you're talking about are mystical experiences. But first it is important to note that one does not achieve oneness with God in this life, for the plain and simple fact that we are not--and will not presently be--God. Therefore, for us to enter into God, our being not-God, is impossible. We can achieve a sense of being connected to God, and we can certainly seek his will and submit to his guidance and direction once we become attuned to it...but we cannot BECOME him. We can sense his presence, sure. But if you know anything about God, you know that his majesty and goodness far, far surpasses anything that we can achieve on our own, no matter how ardent our prayers, earnest our intentions, and disciplined our practices.

All that said, any Christian who knows his or her theology and the Truth of things cannot say that another's perceived experience of God isn't real. But that Christian can say--with dead certainty--that one must get right with God in order to be right with God. And the getting right entails realizing with clarity that we aren't God; believing that he sent the One to pay the price for our sins; accepting the gift of mercy that he offers through his Son, and heeding the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Either you believe this or you don't. If you don't, fine. No one will force you. It just means that you don't believe that the Way to God has been made abundantly clear by God himself.

God is not political. You seem to be having political objections--along the lines of, "Who's to say what the right path is?" The answer to this is that God is to say what the right path is. If you--and by "you" I mean "anyone"--don't like it, fine. But if you believe that God himself provided the Way, which is mercy through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus, then that is what you believe, which thereby effectively renders all other paths, no matter how ardent, earnest, and disciplined, the wrong way.

It all comes down to choice. God will let you and all others make the choice.