RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Question 1

Give two of the arguments against religious experience.

Answer 1

1. Mass hysteria / brain washing.

2. Mental illness.

Question 2

Why does Bertrand Russell reject the argument?

Answer 2

Rejected the idea that these experiences reveal something about God, as it is impossible to see what is happening inside someone else.

Question 3

What does Kant argue about religious experiences?

Answer 3

Our sense can only experience things in the empirical realm: phenomena.

Question 4

What did Marx argue that religious experiences are?

Answer 4

The ‘opium of the people’ - it surpasses and controls.

Question 5

What did Freud argue religious experiences were a result of?

Answer 5

Human religious behaviour was a neurosis caused by childhood insecurities.

Question 6

Give the supporting argument posed by William James.

Answer 6

Talked about the ‘good disposition’ that people could be left with.

Question 7

What is a numinous experience?

Answer 7

Experiences of awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God.

Question 8

What did Otto state about numinous experiences?

Answer 8

Allow people to develop ideas about God as they are drawn into an experience with the divine.

Question 9

What does PINT mean from William James? (do not write PINT in exam)

Answer 9

P: Passive
I: Ineffable
N: Noetic
T: Transient

Question 10

What does James argue about religious experiences and religious belief?

Answer 10

Religious experiences are central to religious belief - open to the possibility of God’s existence.

Question 11

How does J.L. Mackie critique James’ claim?

Answer 11

If mystical experiences can be explained by psychology then mystical experiences have no authority.

Question 12

What did Alston argue in ‘Perceiving God’?

Answer 12

Our sense experiences are usually reliable so why should we doubt them when examining religious experience?

Question 13

Give a strength supporting religious experiences.

Answer 13

Corporate experiences provide evidence from so many people as witnesses - must be true.

Question 14

Give a weakness against religious experiences.

Answer 14

Toronto Blessing. Profiting off of corporate religious experiences. Must be mass hysteria.

Question 15

What does Russell state about individual religious experiences?

Answer 15

“If you fast, you can see snakes, and if you drink you can see God.”

Question 16

What did Swineburne state that can be applicable to corporate religious experience?

Answer 16

“What one perceives to be is probably so.”

Question 17

What did Swineburne point out about believing religious experiences?

Answer 17

We would only trust an individual experience if we could say for certain the person had experienced it.

Question 18

What did James believe that an experience needed to have?

Answer 18

“A curious revise of authority for after-time.”

Question 19

What did Russell state about change in people as evidence of religious experiences?

Answer 19

“A moral change in a man is no evidence whatsoever in a [religious experience’s] truth.”

Question 20

What did Marx state about corporate religious experiences?

Answer 20

Marx saw religious experiences as wish-fulfilment and origins come from society.

Question 21

Who is an example of an individual who changed their life due to a religious experience?

Answer 21

John Pridmore.