Challenges to Religious Experience Flashcards
Theme 4C
What are the categories which religious experiences can be challenged?
Physiological
Psychological
Sociological
Interpretation Difficulties
What was Caroline Franks-Davis’ 3 Categories?
Description - Reliability doubtful
Subject - Reliability of person can be doubtful
Object - Reliability of claimed experience is doubtful.
What is Caroline Franks-Davis’ Description-related challenge to religious experience?
An explanation cannot be seen as appropriate because of the logical inconsistencies that can arise where St Teresa said she saw Christ to then say she experienced him
The inconsistency could be someone else’s voice on their own where the behaviours can vary to claiming.
There could be an exaggeration and they could have history of having a untrue, fantastical claims
Memory is very unreliable and so they could have misunderstood it
What is CFD’s Subject related challenge to religious experiences?
Dreams etc are generally unreliable because the result of a physiological event can prompt a altered sense of mind
Conflicting claims between varied experiences and the cultural background ties into a God revealing themselves which could lead to confusion eg Falcus
What is Object-Related?
Entities of existence is improbable eg Yorkshire Ripper claimed God told him to murder them
Other people present may not experience anything themselves
You would not believe until you saw it.
What did Dawkins say regarding this issue?
“Had I been both impressionable and religiously brought up,m I wonder what words the wind might have spoken”
Compared religious experience to mental illness because they had a naturalistic interpretation and the perception of sights and sounds alter brain. virus of the mind.
What are the challenges to CFD’s challenges?
Description
Ineffable nature of experiences means we cannot describe them fully and the pluralist interpretations of God can show there is commonality between religious experiences.
Subject
Would testimonies be objected if they were not religious experiences and because she hasn’t received the impact she doesn’t understand
Object
Possible to draw the limited knowledge because improbable doesn’t mean impossible.
What did Swinburne say in terms of religious experience?
No reason why claims of experience should be different to ordinary claims
What is the principle of credibility and testimony?
Accept unless otherwise
Unless there is evidence of misremembering we should believe unless otherwise
What did Freud challenge about religion and religious experience?
Religion is an illusion that stops critical rational thinking where the id super ego and ego are compromised.
Religion is designed from uncritical desires where it affects everyone mentally where we have a natural ability to be idolised to kill fathers to gain access to women
Oedipus complex - inherited neurosis of all males and is the root of all religious behaviour.
Religion is a wish fulfilment from unconscious desires to protect the father and reaction against the world strategies.
Used Little Hans who was used as evidence who was deprived of sexual feelings - Darwinism ideals.
What did Persinger come up with?
Idea of a God helmet where it had weak magnetic fields which reported to have mystical experiences and altered states stimulating the brain
What did Karl Marx say about religion?
Religion is a tranquiliser against the deep anxiety provoked in modern life where it is a illusionary happiness where it is a distraction for the masses.
