Religious Experience

Question 1

What are the key concepts of religious experience ?

Answer 1

1) it’s an encounter with the divine and it’s beyond ordinary empirical explanation and may be:
— individual and subjective
— corporate : with a group of people
— ineffable : a state of feeling that defines expression

Question 2

What is an example of a religious experience ?

Answer 2

-the biblical account of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus
- “… suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’” (Acts 9:4)

• the experience of Saul is convincing. He was converted from hating Christian’s to bring convinced of the reality of Jesus, the Messiah

Question 3

What does William James argue?

Answer 3

He argues in his book, ‘the varieties of religious experience’ (1902) that religious experiences are emotional reactions directed at God. The result of such an experience will be:
- a renewed approach to life
- a sense of joy and well being
- a sense of union with the design

Question 4

What are the four common factors of religious experience according to James ?

Answer 4

1) ineffability
- the person experiences a state of feeling that “defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words”

2) noetic quality
- the experience provides revelations of universal and eternal truths

3) transiency
- the experience is brief but profoundly important

4) passivity
- the person feel that they are taken over by a superior authority

Question 5

What does James further believe ?

Answer 5

• that religious experiences are deeply personal, but this made testimonies too subjective to be convincing proof of the existence of God for those who have not had such an experience
• however, for those who have had religious experiences, they are the most convincing proof of all
  “ the only thing that is unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace”

Question 6

What are they different types if religious experience ?

Answer 6

1) mystical experiences
2) conversion events
3) numinous experiences
4) prayer
5) meditation

Question 7

What are mystical experiences?

Answer 7

• an experience where the believer becomes one with ultimate reality
• the subject feels they are on the same level of understanding and being as the ultimate reality while still retaining an awareness of self as a distinct entity

Question 8

What is a conversion event

Answer 8

• usually a direct experience, one that is numinous in nature.
• ## numinous experiences are experiences that inspire awe and wonder in the presence of an almighty and transcendent God.

Question 9

What does rudolf Otto argue

Answer 9

• all religious experience is numinous in nature
• religious experience produce a “sense of taste for the infinite”
  -during the experience the person feels that they are in communion with another level of reality
• believes numinosity defines religious experience

Question 10

What’s a quote by Otto to help back up his argument?

Answer 10

“there is no religion in which the numinous does not live at its innermost core”

Question 11

What are corporate experiences

Answer 11

• one that happens simultaneously to two or more people.
• this type of experience usually carries more weight because of the number of people testifying to it.

Question 12

What’s an example of a corporate experience

Answer 12

The Toronto blessing, 1994:
- it involved a large number of believers who reported being affected by the holy spirit and receiving divine revelation.
-

Question 13

What is the principle of testimony and how does support religious experience?

Answer 13

• Swinburne supported religious experience because of principle of testimony
• it’s the idea that we cannot constantly doubt people’s accounts of religious experience
• so many thousands of people have had an experience of what seems to them to be God that we should believe them. The sheer we right of testimony from so many people us sufficient to prove the existence if God.

Question 14

What is a quote from Swinburne to back up the principle of testimony

Answer 14

The existence of God, 1979
“The overwhelming testimony of so many millions of people to occasional experiments of God must, in the absence of counter evidence….. in favour of the existence of God”

Question 15

What is the principle of credulity and how does support religious experience?

Answer 15

-thought of by Swinburne
- says that our experience is normally relibable, so the experience can be trusted as being more likely to be true than not.
- and unless we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then we should believe that things are as they seem to be.

Question 16

What is a quote from Swinburne to back up the principle of credulity

Answer 16

The existence of God, 1979
“how things seem to be is good grounds for a belief about how they are”

Question 17

What are some weaknesses of Swinburne principles?

Answer 17

1) people aren’t as trustworthy as Swinburne assumes. People have good reasons to lie. Even when they believe they are telling the truth about a religious experience, there’s no guarantee that this is the case
2) we have no means of verifying non-cognitive experiences, so we cannot evaluate testimony about them in the same way.
3) Swinburne also makes the assumption that God wants to interact with his creation and religious experiences are a manifestation of this, but there is not proof for this

Question 18

What does Michael Persinger argue against religious experience ?

Answer 18

-he constructed an electronic helmet which induces religious experiences by putting small electric signals and magnetic vibrations into the temporal lobes and front of the brain.
- by suppressing this part of the brain, the sense of individuality is lost,
- people reported experiencing that there was ‘something there’ but no knowing what it was

Question 19

What does Richard Dawkins argue against religious experience?

Answer 19

-claimed that there is no such thing as a religious experience, it is just expressions of a person’s psychological needs
- claimed that testimonies are an illusion created by the mind to enable people to cope with their fear of the unknown.

Question 20

What’s a quote from Dawkins to back this up?

Answer 20

“If we are gullible, we don’t recognise hallucinations or lucid dreaming for what it is and we claim to have heard or seen a ghost or an angle of God”

Question 21

What does John Hick argue against religious experience?

Answer 21

• in his book, ‘the existence of god’ (1977) Hick observed that testimonies of religious experiences might also be equally well interpreted in non religious ways and therefore cannot carry the weight of proof for God’s existence

Question 22

Describe a psychological challenge to religious experience?

Answer 22

• Freud suggested that human religious behaviour is caused by childhood insecurities and the desire for a father figure
  -religious experiences are hallucinations, they’re a product of our subconscious need for security and meaning