1.5 - Religious Experience Flashcards
Forms of religious experience
-numinous experience
-mystical experience
-corporate experience
-near-death experience
-conversion experience
The influence of religious experience
-stories common in bible, qur’an, and other sacred texts
-some people have changed whole directions of their lives due to a religious experience, sacrificed everything
-christian church based on first christians corporate experience at pentecost
Schleiermacher’s views
-essence of religion based in personal experience
-every person has a consciousness of the divine, religious people are most aware of this and develop it
-‘self authenticating’ needs no testing to see if its genuine
-experiences should have priority, statements of belief should fit them
Schleiermacher’s views continued
-feeling and experience all important
-religious experience could take a variety of different forms in different cultures
-christianity highest of religions but not only true one
William James’ views on conversion experience
-included many accounts of experiences in his book
-his understanding of the process is where someone is ‘divided’ and conscious of being wrong/unhappy
-religious experience makes them more confident about what is right and a firmer hold on reality
Test of religious experiences
-religious experience should not be tested by the voices/visions the subject claimed to see
-the real way to test should be in the reaction and changes in the subject post experience
-experiences from outside christianity can be valid if they produce the same effects
James’ four qualities of a religious experience
-1. ineffability, impossible to express in normal language
-2. noetic quality, gives an understanding of truths
-3. transcience, the experience is over quite soon but the effect can last a lifetime
-4. passivity, the person feels they are being controlled from outside themselves
James’ belief on gods existence
-although religious experience doesn’t prove anything its reasonable to believe there is a personal god
-it is not reasonable for scholars to reject religious experience purely because they start as sceptics
Rudolf otto’s views
-tried to understand what made religious experience religious rather than just an experience
-wanted to show experience fundamental to religion
-‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’
Otto and the divines 3 qualities
- god can be met and his work seen but never truly understood
- god is recognised as being of ultimate importance
- god has a quality that is both attractive and dangerous, individual feels privileged during an experience
Otto and numinous experience
-used to describe the feeling of awe inspiring holiness
-ordinary language can’t do justice to religious experience
-all the person can do is describe their feelings during the experience rather than what actually happened
What is mystical experience
-encompasses many different kinds of experience
-includes dramatic events where people see voices
-moments when people sense being in gods presence
-times when people feel they’ve united with god
The origins of mystical experience
-strong emphasis on religious experience in christianity in the middle ages
-accounts of individuals feeling they encountered god
Origins of mysticism
-came about during late 19th and early 20th century
-Christianity becoming less popular, some wanted to understand about other world religions
-belief that world religions came from same original belief
-some used mystical experience to show god’s truth
Happold on mystical experience
-mystics understand the physical world is only part of reality and comes from a ‘divine ground’
-human nature is so people know ‘the divine ground’
-people have two natures, the ego and the eternal self
-purpose of humanity is to discover eternal self and unite it with the divine ground
Numinous experience
-when the individual gains a new understanding of reality
-filled with a sense of awe and wonder
-can happen due to witnessing beauty/nature
-experience fleeting, effects lasting
Stages of conversion experience
-person dissatisfied with current system of ideas
-searches for a basis to make a decision eg bible reading
-point of crisis, sense the presence of god etc
-followed by a sense of peace and joy, loss of worry
-convert experiences a new purpose, change of direction
Corporate religious experience
-where people have the same religious experience
-have more evidential force as multiple accounts
-eg toronto blessing, children at medjugorje
Swinburne on religious experience
-we should believe religious experience stories
-we should accept the person who had the experience is in the best position to know what happened
-treat them same way as non religious experiences
Principle of credulity
-balance of probability says trust religious experience
-what our senses tell us is likely to be true
-we know our senses can mislead us but still trust them
-so if we sense god then we should believe its really him
Principle of testimony
-we believe most people are telling us the truth
-shouldn’t make different rules for religious experience
-if someone tells us they’ve had an experience with god we should be inclined to believe them
Feuerbach on religious experience
-religious belief/experience come from the mind not god
-people take the best aspects of human nature and project them on god, getting something to worship
-there is no real god beyond human nature
Freuds views on the psyche
-works on more than one level, unconscious as well as conscious mental processes
-there are daily thoughts we have as well as deeper layers such as memories and associations
Freud’s 3 layers of the psyche
-the ego, obvious to us as the conscious self, aware
-the id, unconscious self containing memories/desires
-the super ego, equivalent of the conscience, an inner moral voice which tells us about right and wrong
Freuds views on religious belief
-those who believe in god/they encounter him are foolish
-they cant cope with adult life so invent an imaginary parental figure
-infantile neurosis, needs to be grown out of
