Are corporate or individual RE more reliable - RE

Question 1

INTRO - define

Answer 1

Corporate: an experience said to be felt by numerous people; individually

Question 2

INTRO - define both sides of the debate

Answer 2

Corporate less reliable as more prone to mass hysteria – James’ criteria for a legitimate religious experience that ‘passivity’’ transience’ ‘life long change’ – necessary harder to access

Question 3

INTRO - position

Answer 3

Neither individual or corporate can accurately and convincingly be considered more valid. Need to focus instead on whether meaningful to the believer as all interpret the world differently

Question 4

Section 1: theme

Answer 4

Corporate: Some may argue that corporate experiences are far more reliable than individual experiences, as a multitude of people experiencing the (supposedly) same thing arguably gives greater wait to the claim

Question 5

Section 1: AO1

CORPORATE

Answer 5

Corporate experiences arguably more reliable than individual, as a multitude of people are claiming to experience the same thing e.g. Toronto Blessing, “holy laughter”, barking, all seen as signs of the presence of the holy spirit

Question 6

Section 1: AO2 FOR

CORPORATE

Answer 6

Swinburne: Principle of Credulity/ Testimony – “what one perceives is probably so”
-People should be believed if they have said they’ve had an experience
-This is a logical assertion to make, since reliance on the senses has been instrumental to our functioning for centuries

Question 7

Section 1: AO2 AGAINST

CORPORATE

Answer 7

Critics suggest that people attracted to evangelical worship are pre-disposed to behaviour such as mass hysteria
-Experience more of a group hallucination brought by the atmosphere of the Church
-Why would God make people bark like Dogs

Corporate situations undeniable that people will be influenced by ideas of conformity – proven in psychological experiments such as people standing in the wrong direction on a lift because other people are
-Influence and desire to conform and ‘see’ God
-Weakens idea they’ve had a genuine experience
-Swinburne’s idea better applied to people who are free from outside influences

Question 8

Section 1: AO2 CONCLUSION

CORPORATE

Answer 8

Corporate not reliable as more prone to extrinsic pressures

Question 9

Section 2: theme

Answer 9

Individual – are they free from outside influence

Question 10

Section 2: AO1

INDIVIDUAL

Answer 10

Individual free from outside influence seems dubious: The psychological challenge - Freud its chief proponent - asserts that religious experiences are no more than illusions constructed by the psyche most fundamentally to satisfy neuroses

Question 11

Section 2: AO2 FOR

INDIVIDUAL

Answer 11

Only experiences worthy are as James put it ‘passive’ experiences and not willed by the individual, contrary to the assertions made by Freud. Equally experiences are ineffable, meaning the recipient cannot articulate their feeling of the transcendent or divine

Swinburne only trust testimony if we know that person would have no reason to experience the RE
-Drugs and alcohol would discount this
-Individual are more preferable to corporate of authentic

Question 12

Section 2: AO2 AGAINST

INDIVIDUAL

Answer 12

Russell “if you fast, you see snakes, and if you drink you see God.”
-People can be under pressure from alcohol or drugs when they claim to ‘see’ God
-Place doubt on the testimony of the RE

Psychological R.M Hare all have ‘bliks’ unfalsifiable truths which influence how we see the world
-Holland’s train when mother says it was an act of God that her son was not run over by a train when in fact the driver just had a heart attack
-If someone wants to believe in something they will

Question 13

Section 2: AO2 CONCLUSION

INDIVIDUAL

Answer 13

Cannot be said with full certainty that that individual experiences are not influenced by psychological factors

Question 14

Section 3: Theme

Answer 14

Impact on the individual

Question 15

Section 3: AO1

IMPACT

Answer 15

Yet ultimately it must be argued that the epistemological problem of other minds means one cannot prove nor disprove the validity of a religious experience; instead, experiences should be judged in accordance to their impacts and value for the individual(s

Question 16

Section 3: AO2 FOR

IMPACT

Answer 16

Wittgenstein’s notion of “seeing-as” in his ‘Philosophical Investigations’ has been developed by John Hick to explain how people interpret the same things in different ways, demonstrated by the duck-rabbit picture.

John hick uses the phrase “experiencing as” to demonstrate that the world and everything in it can be experienced in different ways - ultimately the veridicality of religious experiences is not something anyone other than the experiencer can comment on.
How can corporate experiences be commented on as more or less valid than individual

Question 17

Section 3: AO2 AGAINST

IMPACT

Answer 17

Most religious experiences fit into the culture of the person’s worship - religious people are predisposed to religious experiences, attracted to the unusual and the bizarre, people search for conversions!

Question 18

Section 3: AO2 CONCLUSION

IMPACT

Answer 18

If meaningful to the believer neither corporate or individual can be more or less valid as all experience the world differently