psychological factors

Question 1

jung: on paul’s conversion

Answer 1

emotional breakdown? triggered by guilt at christians he condemned to death?

Question 2

freud

Answer 2

religion is a neurosis rooted in a conflict between the unconscious and conscious mind where ego tries to balance the demands of the id and superego. if religion simply wishful thinking then religious experience would be an illusion, a deception of the mind.

Question 3

Starbuck

Answer 3

‘normal adolescent phenomenon’

Question 4

criticism: subjectivity

Answer 4

tend to be private and so can only be of value to individual Hick developed idea of ‘experiencing as’. may all experience the same things but simply perceive things in different ways. how we choose to react is private and difficult for anyone outside of the private experience to dismiss.

Question 5

strength: empirical change

Answer 5

can be traced to psychological factors. Starbuck argues ‘normal adolescent phenomenon’ as mind adjusts and finds its identity as an adult

Question 6

strength: perception rooted in the mind

Answer 6

feuerbach argued idea of god is a human projection constructed from innate human desires. religious experiences have no reality or objective truth

Question 7

strength: ‘inattention blindness’

Answer 7

i.e we see a clear road instead of a car coming towards us. we can be misled by our minds. we can be sincere in our beliefs about the experience, and even change our outlook as a result but we can be sincerely mistaken.

Question 8

weakness: James

Answer 8

noted there are psychological elements to religious experiences. but this does not negate their significance on a persons life. this is the most important factor for James (‘fruits’)