3C: Challenges to the objectivity and authenticity of religious experience Flashcards
1
Q
Who is Caroline Franks Davis?
A
- author of ‘The Evidential Force of Religious Experience’ which highlighted three challenges to the validity of religious experiences
2
Q
What Davis’ three main criticisms?
A
- description-relatedchallenge: way in which event happened
- subject-related challenges: who experienced and described the event
- object-related challenges: what actually happened
3
Q
Criticism - description-related challenges:
A
- Davis argued that any event described must have empirical evidence to support it.
- if I were to describe a religious encounter with God, this claim would not be valid as I would have no empirical evidence to support it occurred - especially if it was a dream-based religious experience
- secondly any event that is described needs to be rejected if it contradicts normal everyday experiences. As RE are not everyday normal experiences any description of them is not valid
4
Q
Criticism - subject-related challenges:
A
- the recipient claiming the religious experience may be an unreliable source
- e.g. they may be suffering from a mental illness or suffering from delusions, brought about by some sort of substance misuse - alcohol, drugs etc
- if the recipient is suffering from one of the above they are not in a position to properly understand what they have experienced and must have their claims of a religious experience dismissed.
5
Q
Criticism - object-related challenges:
A
- Davis focuses on the source of the so-called religious experience. She believes that the likelihood of having experienced a God-like figure is so unlikely as to be totally true
- For Davis the idea that God has been experiences is no more likely than a claim of having seen the Loch Ness monster
6
Q
What are examples of other criticisms of religious experience?
A
- religious experiences are subjective
- religious experiences are meaningless
- alternative explanations
- Bertrand Russell
7
Q
Criticism - religious experiences are subjective:
A
- science demands that for anything to be deemed ‘true’ it has to be verified by empirical evidence. e.g. the laws of gravity can be tested using common criteria and then verified. From this objective truths can be stated
- however due to the unique nature of religious experiences common criteria is impossible to create and therefore verify
- therefore religious experiences cannot be objective truths, that are instead subjective, i.e. based on individual judgement or belief
- as contemporary society tends to only believe ‘objective truths’, subjective accounts of ‘religious experiences’ can be readily dismissed.
8
Q
Criticism - religious experiences are meaningless:
A
- logical positivists helped clarify whether certain language could be considered either meaningful or meaningless.
- all language that cannot be supported by empirical evidence are meaningless. Therefore, religious experiences are should be considered meaningless.
- Anthony Flew’s ‘Falsification Principle’ stated that religious experiences could be made meaningful if there was some evidence that could count against them
9
Q
Criticism - alternative explanations:
A
- some theorists believe that the characteristics of religious experiences are similar to the effects of alcohol and/or drugs - such as LSD. This could be confused with a religious experience
-Sigmund Freud held the view that all religious experiences were nothing more than the result of repression of sexual feelings - David Hume argues that a direct experience of God is impossible. This is because how can something that is greater than humanity be experienced by a mortal human being
10
Q
Criticism - Bertrand Russell:
A
- argued that James’ point that religious experiences are real because of the effect they have on the recipient.
“the fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favour of its truth’
-e.g. one can be influenced by a character from a good story but this doesn’t mean the character is real
11
Q
What are answers back to critics?
A
- powerful experiences
- non-physical knowledge
- Richard Swinburne
- Carl Jung
- influential religious figures
12
Q
Powerful experiences:
A
- religious experiences have been recorded that have had a very powerful life-changing effect upon certain recipients
- e.g. C.S. Lewis moved from an atheist to faith in 1931 and then became a lifelong Christian
- he cannot be accused of being gullible as he was a highly intelligent and well educated individual
13
Q
non-physical knowledge:
A
- a challnege to religious experience is that there are not completely comprehended through the senses and are non-physical and therefore lack validity.
- however it can be argued that people are willing to accept non-physical attributes as knowledge.
- e.g. we can accept a person’s ‘inner-beauty’. In the same way we may be able to experience God in a non-physical way
14
Q
Richard Swinburne:
A
- Swinburne created the principle of credulity and testimony
- these stated that it is reasonable to believe what people tell us, unless there are specific reasons not to
- e.g. when people say they have fallen in love, others tend to believe them. Why doubt the similar claim of a religious experience
15
Q
Carl Jung:
A
- Jung provides a possible support for religious experiences. He argued that humanity has a collective unconscious. This is basically knowledge that all of humanity is born with
-0 we are all unconsciously searching for GOD - this supports Otto’s belief that human beings seek out the spiritual as part of their non-rational nature
