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Philosophy > Religious Experience > Flashcards

Religious Experience Flashcards

1
Q

Direct religious experience

A

The person sees God and encounters him in some way that they feel they know him on a personal and intimate level. They may have a vision of him or hear his voice.

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2
Q

Indirect religious experience

A

The person feels inspired by the beauty of nature, for example, and feels inspired to want to pray or seek God more. Prayer may be an indirect religious experience where God is not directly revealed.

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3
Q

Ineffable

A

This means that an experience is impossible to put into words

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4
Q

Veridical

A

Religious experiences are what they seem to be, they are true and not delusions. E.g., God is real and is speaking.

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5
Q

Mystical experience

A

Experiences of God or of the supernatural which go beyond everyday sense experience

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6
Q

Conversion experience

A

An experience which produces a radical change in someone’s belief system

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7
Q

Corporate religious experience

A

Religious experiences which happen to a group of people ‘as a body’

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8
Q

Numinous experience

A

An indescribable experience which invokes feelings of awe, worship and fascination

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9
Q

Subjective

A

The experience is ‘true’ (self-authenticating) for the believer / experiencer, but not necessarily true for another person who doesn’t share the experience.

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10
Q

Objective

A

A religious experience truly happens, can be studied and demonstrates evidence of a spiritual realm ‘out there’ (religious experiences are veridical).

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11
Q

Friedrich Schleiermacher

A

1768 - 1834

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12
Q

What approach to religion did Friedrich Schleiermacher take?

A

He took a subjective approach - religion is about ‘feeling’ and personal response

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13
Q

What did Friedrich Schleiermacher believe about religious experiences?

A

He believed that they are ‘self authenticating’ - religious experiences do not need any other authority or test to show they are genuine

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14
Q

How did Friedrich Schleiermacher describe religion?

A

‘The feeling of absolute dependence’

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15
Q

What did Friedrich Schleiermacher believe religious experiences should have priority over?

A

Doctrine

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16
Q

What issue do some people have with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s approach?

A

Is it too subjective? What control do we have here? Surely we should test religious experience?

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17
Q

Do religious experiences have to involve God?

A

Not necessarily, for example, Buddhism with the Enlightenment didn’t involve God.

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18
Q

Who was William James?

A

A U.S. psychologist

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19
Q

What did William James say about mystical experiences?

A

That there were 4 key features of a mystical experience (PINT)

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20
Q

What is the PINT?

A

P - passivity. Happens to a person (where the experience is beyond the individual’s control and cannot be obtained by effort; it is a gift)
I - ineffability. Cannot be described in human language (mysticism like love needs to be directly experienced in order to be understood)
N - noetic quality. Knowledge is revealed (mystics speak of revelations and illuminations, which are held to provide knowledge and transcend rational categories)
T - transiency. Doesn’t last long (mystical experiences last for a short time but ‘…modify the inner life of the subject between the times of their occurrence’)

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21
Q

Is there still an individual element to corporate religious experience?

A

Yes, because even though you have the ‘same’ religious experience at the same time, it may impact people differently. For example, if you went to a concert with someone else, you see the same thing, but might like / dislike it, adding an individual experience element.

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22
Q

Give an example of a corporate religious experience in the Bible

A

The Day of Pentecost (Acts 2)

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23
Q

Give an example of a corporate religious experience that happened in the world

A

The Toronto Blessing

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24
Q

Strength of corporate religious experience

A

Do they have more evidential force than individual experiences? Are they more credible because they are shared?

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25
Q

Weakness of corporate religious experience

A

Is it group pressure? (linked to sociological / psychological causes). Do people want to feel part of the group and part of the experience?

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26
Q

Swinburne quote about God

A

‘An omnipotent and perfectly good creator will seek to interact with his creatures and, in particular, humans who are capable of knowing him.’

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27
Q

What are conversion experiences?

A

Experiences that move people from one view to another view (e.g., atheist > a believer / people changing their religion)

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28
Q

What is the most famous conversion experience?

A

Saul on the Damascus Road

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29
Q

What is personal testimony?

A

If someone tells you they’ve had a religious experience, should we believe them or not?

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30
Q

What is a religious experience?

A

This refers to any experience of the sacred within a religious context, including religious feelings, visions and mystical + numinous experiences.

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31
Q

What would some people prefer to call religious experience?

A

A spiritual experience

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32
Q

What do veridical experiences involve?

A

These are what you are experiencing outside of yourself. E.g., this book objectively exists, we can all see it. It seems to really exist outside of yourself and is not a delusion. These experiences can be very powerful (e.g., dreams), but don’t seem to be objectively true. There are people who have had powerful experiences of God, but are these veridical experiences or not?

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33
Q

How did Christians react to the Toronto Blessing?

A

This split the Christian community. Some said it is the Holy Spirit and the power of God is coming out in ways that we don’t understand, whereas others thought it was bad as it made people laugh at the Christian faith. Not all Christians accepted that this is God at work.

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34
Q

When did the Toronto Blessing take place?

A

January 1994

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35
Q

How did the Toronto Blessing spread?

A

This started in Toronto and spread by people starting to visit the church of its origin to experience it and take it back to the churches that they came from

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36
Q

Where did the Toronto Blessing take place?

A

In the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship church in Toronto, Canada.

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37
Q

What is the Day of Pentecost?

A

The coming of the Holy Spirit

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38
Q

Give some ways in which you may be able to test (verify) a religious experience

A
  • look for causes / reasons (depressed, hungry, drugs etc.). In lots of religions, you have fasting - could this cause a religious experience through the effect of no food?
  • location, e.g., being in Toronto
  • PINT
39
Q

The Toronto Blessing

A
  • January 20th 1994
  • Hundreds of thousands of people came to Toronto to experience it
  • Physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit
  • idea of it spreading all over the world
40
Q

Who is Derren Brown?

A

An illusionist

41
Q

Derren Brown

A

1971 - present

42
Q

Derren Brown’s faith

A

He was brought up as an Evangelical Christian, but he has rejected this and is now an illusionist

43
Q

What did Derren Brown do to test the validity of religious experiences?

A

He went into a room filled with mostly atheists and made them have a religious experience. He used misdirection and psychological suggestion to do this and converted many people in the room to believers.

44
Q

Physiological effect

A

Physical / body

45
Q

Psychological effect

A

Mental / thoughts

46
Q

Sociological effect

A

Group dynamics, wanting to fit in + culture

47
Q

Arguments for corporate religious experiences being more reliable than individual religious experiences

A
  • reliable as there is more than one person claiming it happened. There are more eye-witnesses, giving more evidential force.
  • they give people the benefit of the doubt: due to more claims, we have more reason to believe them
  • Swinburne’s principle of credulity and testimony - we should accept what people claim, unless we have evidence to believe otherwise (e.g., under the influence of drugs / alcohol). But this can be counter argued with the Leaky Bucket analogy proposed by Antony Flew, in that a series of weak arguments doesn’t make a strong one.
  • it gives different perspectives of the same thing
  • the community making sense of an experience is very valuable, e.g., the Day of Pentecost. This could lead to a better interpretation of what happened and what it means.
48
Q

Arguments against corporate religious experiences being more reliable than individual religious experiences

A
  • they can be subject to mass hysteria. E.g., laughter is quite contagious, as people want to fit in with each other.
  • Swinburne would argue that all religious experiences are equally reliable.
  • No religious experience is reliable and can, instead, be proven and explained by psychology
  • who says that all the people aren’t lying?
  • the Catholic Church is sceptical of corporate religious experience
  • experiences can come about by being in the presence of magnetic fields, and not brought about by God
  • William James would argue that conversion experiences are, perhaps, more reliable than corporate religious experiences.
  • it could simply be down to psychology - e.g., some people may be more prone to religious experiences if they had a traumatic upbringing
  • Feuerbach wanted to disprove the concept of religious experiences entirely, as he argued that people often invent this God figure in their own minds in order to fill the gap
  • Freud believed that the idea of God is a result of childhood insecurities
  • religious experiences are hallucinations caused by deep desires
  • can you even have a corporate religious experience, as everyone experiences something slightly different?
  • peer pressure / enthusiastic leaders making people feel like they should have a religious experience
  • group behaviour, social hysteria
  • charismatic leadership? The leaders provide an interpretation of what is going on
  • ‘induced’ experiences, e.g., fasting could cause a ‘religious experience’ through lack of food
49
Q

Give a factor which could make the claim of having a religious experience more credible

A

Seeing how a person’s life has been impacted, it at all, after. If a person changes their life after, it arguably makes it more credible. William James thought that examining how a person’s life changes after a religious experience is very important, given that you can’t really scientifically verify religious experience. If someone claims to have had a strong religious experience and they don’t really change, was it really a strong religious experience?

50
Q

Give some examples of religious experiences in the Bible

A
  • Moses at the Burning Bush
  • Isaiah’s Vision
  • The Day of Pentecost
  • Saul on the Road to Damascus
51
Q

Moses at the Burning Bush

A
  • Moses sees a bush on fire, but it is not burning up, so he goes closer
  • God speaks to him + he is afraid of God
  • God reveals something about himself to Moses (links to natural and revealed theology) and is sending Moses
52
Q

Was Moses at the Burning Bush an individual or corporate experience?

A

Individual

53
Q

Features of the Moses at the Burning Bush experience

A
  • direct religious experience
  • disembodied voice = the voice of God came not from a man, but from the bush
  • noetic = God reveals knowledge through the experience, in this case, his identity: ‘I am that I am’
  • authoritative = God commands Moses to go to Egypt to literate the Israelites and he does so
54
Q

Isaiah’s Vision

A
  • Isaiah has a vision of God on a throne in a temple, surrounded by seraphim
  • he tells God he is sinful and lives around other sinful people
  • The seraphim burns his lips and the sin is atoned for
  • God sends Isaiah to send his word
55
Q

Was Isaiah’s Vision and individual or corporate experience?

A

Individual

56
Q

Features of the Isaiah’s Vision experience

A
  • God is never described, but we hear the voice of God
  • example of the numinous - it is terrifying. There is smoke, seraphim etc.
  • idea of atonement = a live coal is being touched to his lips by a seraphim to atone for his sins
  • mystical vision
57
Q

The Day of Pentecost

A
  • the Holy Spirit filled everyone on the Day of Pentecost
  • strange experience, violent wind and flames of fire surrounding their heads
  • Peter tells the crowd about the nature of God and when people heard this, many said that they needed to repent and be baptised.
  • when they spilled out into the streets of Jerusalem, people thought they were drunk.
58
Q

Was the Day of Pentecost an individual or corporate experience?

A

Corporate

59
Q

Features of the Day of Pentecost experience

A
  • conversion
  • voice
  • numinous
60
Q

Saul on the Road to Damascus

A
  • Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Jesus and his disciples
  • as he neared Damascus, he was blinded by a bright light from heaven and hears the voice of Jesus.
  • Jesus tells him to go into the city where he will be told what to do
  • He couldn’t see when he opened his eyes and regained his sight about 3 days later.
  • Saul was speechless and spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. He began to preach that Jesus is the son of God. He now sees Jesus as the Messiah who Judaism had been pointing towards
  • He changed his name to Paul and dedicated himself to Christianity
61
Q

Was Saul on the Road to Damascus an individual or corporate experience?

A

Individual

62
Q

Features of the Saul on the Road to Damascus experience

A
  • disembodied
  • noetic
  • authoritative
  • direct religious experience
  • conversion
  • voice
  • numinous
63
Q

Volitional

A

Gradual conversion

64
Q

Self-surrender

A

Dramatic conversion / crisis experience

65
Q

Give an example of a dramatic conversion

A

Saul on the Road to Damascus. He was called Saul and then became known as Paul

66
Q

Give some ways in which religious experience can be ‘proved’

A
  • there is no way to prove religious experience
  • you could look at the impact of the experience on the person’s life. If the person hasn’t really changed, then did they have a life-changing experience with God?
  • William James suggested that looking at the impacts is beneficial
  • Saul’s experience was life-changing = arguably adds more weight to the strength of his argument that he had a religious experience
  • Paul mentions his experience in his letters.
67
Q

What does a conversion experience cause?

A

A radical change in someone’s belief system

68
Q

What was William James a key thinker for?

A

Conversion experiences

69
Q

What did William James say about conversion experiences?

A

He said that a conversion experience can be tested by its results. He was a psychologist and doesn’t really look at ‘are they true?’ but instead, ‘what impact does it have?’ Religious experiences don’t give proof of a personal God. You should weigh up the evidence and not go with what you already think. James is saying that the danger is religious people will get hold of these experiences and say this is proof and atheists will see them and disregard them. But this isn’t weighing up the evidence, rather using your already existing beliefs.

70
Q

What are some difficulties with using religious experiences to argue for God’s existence?

A
  • lying
  • delusion, such as physical / psychological causes. E.g., maybe Saul got really hot. In addition, Paul in one of his letters describes a health condition he has, so some argue he could have been experiencing epilepsy. This would fit + 2,000 years ago, people wouldn’t have been aware about this.
  • misinterpretation
  • how can you test (verify) a religious experience?
  • social / group influence? (charismatic leadership)
  • should you believe reports of religious experience? To what extent should you accept this? If you believe everything people tell you, you become gullible, but you don’t want to become overly sceptical and cynical. We need to get the balance, but this balance is hard to strike.
71
Q

What are Richard Swinburne’s 3 arguments?

A
  • the nature of God
  • the principle of credulity
  • the principle of testimony
72
Q

Richard Swinburne: the nature of God

A

If God does exist, then it is reasonable to suppose that this God would want to interact with and engage with his creation.

73
Q

Richard Swinburne: principle of credulity

A

‘If it seems that subject X is present, then probably X is present; what one seems to perceive is probably so.’

74
Q

Richard Swinburne: principle of testimony

A

‘In the absence of special considerations, the experiences of others are probably as they report them.’

75
Q

Give some examples for the ‘special considerations’ associated with the principle of testimony

A
  • we know that the object was not there
  • the person reporting the experience is a known liar
  • the person reporting was under psychological stress
  • the person had consumed alcohol or drugs
  • the person is prone to hallucination and mistaken perception
76
Q

Whose ideas did Richard Swinburne draw upon?

A

He draws on William Alston’s idea that all beliefs based on perception are innocent until proven guilty

77
Q

Strengths of Swinburne’s argument

A
  • the cumulative argument. This states that as so many people have claimed to have a religious experience, for Swinburne, the sheer weight of testimony counts as strong evidence for the existence of God. So many people have experienced events and described them in lots of detail that they cannot all be mistaken or made up.
78
Q

Weaknesses of Swinburne’s argument

A
  • they could just be made up stories / hallucinations
  • credulity: if a person believes that God doesn’t exist (or is unlikely to exist), then they must question any experience claiming to be from God.
  • testimony: ‘ordinary’ experiences can be validated by proof or strong evidence for them having occurred; however, we should not apply the same reasoning with religious experiences as they are ‘out of the ordinary’. Instead, we should validate these experiences in the same way as we do with unlikely or extraordinary experiences, such as claims of UFOs or ghost sightings.
  • there is no agreed quantifier to test what is a religious experience and what is not.
  • if we were to argue that religious experiences are true, then how would we account for contradictory experiences in different religions? Which religion is having the true experience of God or do they cancel the other out?
  • religious experiences always seem to stem from and support an underlying religious belief - are they coming from pre-existing beliefs rather than God?
  • how can we recognise God?
79
Q

Name someone who converted from an atheist to a Christian

A

C.S. Lewis

80
Q

What was C.S. Lewis’ conversion experience like?

A
  • gradual (volitional) / intellectual conversion
  • atheist > Christian
  • he was very clever and got a top degree at Oxford. He became a professor of English Literature
81
Q

Give an example of someone who had a vision / mystical experience

A

Saint Teresa of Avila

82
Q

Who was Saint Teresa of Avila?

A
  • 1515 - 1582
  • she is a Spanish mystic and highly regarded in the Catholic Church, she was a Doctor in the Catholic Church
  • she had a famous mystical experience
83
Q

How can the mystical experience of Saint Teresa be interpreted?

A
  • in psychological terms. This links to Freud who believed we are dominated by our unconscious.
  • it is quite easy to interpret her experience in sexual terms. Her experience involves being stabbed by the divine.
84
Q

What does the mystical experience of Saint Teresa involve?

A

Being stabbed by the divine. The experience involved a ‘great golden spear’ being ‘plunged into [her] heart several times.’

85
Q

How can the experience of Saint Teresa be interpreted in sexual terms?

A

She describes how the spear ‘penetrated’ and ‘the pain was so severe that it made [her] utter several moans.’

86
Q

What did Saint Teresa say the impact of her experience was?

A

She said that after this experience, she had more love towards God, as the experience made her believe that it was from God. It made her more committed to prayer. There is no way to prove whether this was from God or not, but it had a positive impact on her. She believes she has experienced God, but she may have misinterpreted this. She genuinely believed this was God and wasn’t trying to intentionally mislead others. Is there really good evidence from a psychological perspective? Although, from a personal perspective, this seems enough.

87
Q

What did Richard Swinburne think?

A

People claim to experience God and therefore, it is reasonable to believe that God exists. He thinks that we live in a sceptical and cynical society and people unfairly dismiss religious experience. He defends the existence of God in a book called ‘is there a God?’ He argues that we should have an open mind and not just dismiss claims to religious experience.

88
Q

What is the difference between the principle of credulity and the principle of testimony?

A

The principle of credulity relates to you having the experience yourself, whereas the principle of testimony is getting told about the experiences of others and that we should trust when others tell us they’ve had a religious experience.

89
Q

Weakness of the principle of testimony

A

Your relationship with the person who tells you could influence whether you think it’s valid

90
Q

Criticism of Swinburne

A

That he is too optimistic

91
Q

What argument does Swinburne use to suggest that God is credible?

A

The Cumulative Argument

92
Q

What other arguments does Swinburne quite like?

A

The cosmological and teleological arguments and he even has his own version of the teleological. If you add religious experience to this, it builds together and arguably strengthens the case for the existence of God. Although, this can still be criticised as 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0 for example. If you just add bad / unconvincing arguments together, it doesn’t give you a strong outcome at the end and you are still left with nothing. Anthony Flew rejects the accumulation of arguments with his ‘Ten Leaky Buckets’ analogy.

93
Q

Some additional problems with religious experience

A
  • they seem to be unverifiable (they cannot be tested). We have no agreed methods for testing whether religious experiences are veridical. Therefore, is it unreasonable to accept them as evidence?
  • religious experiences are diverse. People from different religions claim visions of different deities. Vardy calls this the ‘conflicting claims’ challenge - how can we adjudicate between conflicting claims? How do you work out which one is true and which isn’t? Hume took the sceptical view and said that they’re all false. Are people experiencing the same ultimate reality, but explaining it in different ways because of their upbringing?
  • another issue with Swinburne is that he seems to assume that religious experiences are like other experiences.

Philosophy (5 decks)

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