1.5 Religious Experiences

Question 1

Religious experience

Answer 1

Some kind of encounter between people and the divine.

Question 2

Swinburne’s principles

Answer 2

Credulity and testimony

Question 3

Principle of credulity

Answer 3

When someone thinks that they have experienced something, normally they have.

Question 4

Principle of testimony

Answer 4

Normally people are honest, and we should trust their description of an experience and thus accept their testimony.

Question 5

Schleiermacher

Answer 5

Experiences should form the basis of faith as they are self-authenticating

Question 6

Rudolf Otto

Answer 6

Explored personal experiences of God in James’ work

Aimed to show that all people should have an experience of ‘mysterium, tremendum et fascinans’

Question 7

Otto’s three characteristics of religious experiences

Answer 7

Mystery, importance and dangerous attraction

Question 8

St. Teresa of Avila

Answer 8

Had religious experiences

Argued that experiences come from within a person’s religious framework.

Question 9

Examples of conversion experiences

Answer 9

St. Paul

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Question 10

Conversion experiences

Answer 10

Sudden/dramatic moments in someone’s life in which they drastically change their beliefs

Question 11

Five things that conversion experiences are described as

Answer 11

• Someone that is dissatisfied with their current ‘system of ideas’
• An emotional search for an answer.
• A point of crisis wherein someone feels they have experienced God.
• A sense of peace and joy.
• A new sense of purpose and direction.

Question 12

What does it mean when religious experiences are described as a union with a higher power?

Answer 12

Experiences of God revealing himself

Question 13

Feuerbach

Answer 13

Psychological interpretation of religious experience
Argued that when people worship God, they take admirable aspects of human nature and project these onto God.
The notion of God fulfils the needs for love and significance in humans.
God is therefore a human creation.

Question 14

Winnicott

Answer 14

Psychological interpretation of religious experience
Identified children as having illusions to help them make the transition from being reliant on parents to real life. These illusions are necessary for all people but become damaging when forced onto others

Question 15

Mobbs and Watts

Answer 15

Naturalistically explained near death experiences.
Emotion altering hormones released at times of stress could explain NDEs.
They also identified trauma drugs as having hallucinogenic side effects, therefore contributing to the feelings experienced

Question 16

Bertrand Russell

Answer 16

“The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favour of its truth.”

Question 17

Anthony Flew

Answer 17

Statements that cannot be empirically tested are meaningless.

Question 18

J.L. Mackie

Answer 18

The fact that James accepts the possibility that mystical experiences can be explained psychologically means they cannot have any real authority, and if one were to accept them they would be ‘insufficiently artificial.’

Question 19

F.C. Happold

Answer 19

Believed the search for truth may be beyond Christianity.
Mysticism is what underlies all religion. It is dependent on the non-rational, intuitional side of understanding.
“So that aspects of truth unplumbed by the rational intellect are revealed to him.”

Question 20

Edwin Starbuck

Answer 20

Found parallels between conversion and normal process of finding your identity in adolescence.
Two types of conversion:
- Volitional - the individual decides they want to make changes which is spiritual in their life
- Self-surrender - the person feels they have done all they can to develop their religious belief but they are aware of the sinfulness in their life and the type of life they wish to live

Question 21

John Lofland and Rodney Stark

Answer 21

Noted a pattern between all types of conversion: an element of passivity