religious experience Flashcards
4 features that william james says is fond in all religions
- ineffable (beyond language)
- noetic (knowledge gained / insight)
- transient (temporary)
- passive (happens to the person they dont make it happen)
what word does williams use to describe relig experiences
mystical
what is at the core of religion and what is second hand according to william james
religious experiences
teaching and practcies
what does william james say about religious teachings and practices
they are second hand and not what religion is really about
What does Paul Knitter, a pluralist, say about religious experience and wells
metaphor of wells - each religion is one and If you get to the bottom a well (through mystical experience) you get down to the underground water that you then realise is also sourcing all the other wells, i.e. all the other religions.
alternative, naturalistic explanation for the cross-cultural similarity of the features of religious experiences
human brains hallucinate similarly since we have evolved together
how does william james respond to the idea that they are hallucinations
they cannot be since they have profound and life changing effects
what did james think the validity of religious experience relied on
the effect they had on people (hes a pragmatist)
def of pragmatism
a philosophical view on epistemology which states that if something is good for us or works, then that is evidence of its truth
what case study does william james use to prove the effects of religious experiences
the alcoholic who was unable to give it up until after
- had gained the power to do it
- came from higher spiritual power
william james on conversion experiences
-transformation from an unhappy divided or imperfect self with a guilty conscience to a more unified happy state.
- strong evidence of validity
- life changing impact
eval on james saying experiences are life changing so must be valid
The reason for it being life-changing would only be because of their beliefs about its significance which their own mind is supplying.
It’s not coming from some higher spiritual reality, it’s just a hallucination. This does seem like a simpler explanation.
state swinburnes two principles
testimony and credulity
explain Swinburnes principles of testimony and credulity
credulity - that your religious experience should be believed unless any reason to suggest otherwise such as psychological influences
testimony - should believe what others tell you unless reason not to such as - known liar
what religious experiences does Swinburne reject
those that have sufficient reason to believe they may not be real
- known liars, psychological influences, fasting, drugs or alcohol etc
which scholar has an evidence analysis approach to religious experiences
Swinburne !
what would Swinburne say to those that dismiss religious experiences without any evidence
that by doing that they are dismissing evidence themselves - irrational
evaluation of Swinburne
extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence - a mere experience of god is not enough evidence
what two reasons do people believe in god according to freud
- fear of death
- desire to be a child again (god is father)
the desires are so strong we hallucinate
Freuds argument on religious experience (parental figure and moral commands)
- argued people who believed in God were fooling themselves - unable to cope with the idea of adult life so invent a parent figure
- mistake moral commands of the super-ego as the voice of God – which is ‘infantile neurosis’ and something which people should grow out of for better mental health
criticisms of freud (5)
- small sample size
- regarded as unempirical by many
- regards religion in a unscientific and overgeneralised way
- fails to explain mystical experience which is unlike no other and goes beyond wish fulfilment
- the need for a father could be an in built mechanism by god to make us closer to him
who talked about the god helmet
Presinger !!
Presinger on the naturalistic cause of religious experiences
built machine ‘god helmet’ that manipulated brain waves and caused ‘religious experiences’
- many felt presence of unseen beings or god
demonstrates that these experiences do not originate from god they are just a dysfunction with the brain
according to presinger religious experiences are not caused by divinity but the…
temporal lobe
criticisms of presinger :( 2
Unbiased researchers repeated them without getting the same results. -he got his “sensed presence” effect because his participants were SUGGESTIBLE
- (influenced by him because they knew what was supposed to happen
This means his theory doesn’t explain REAL religious experiences.
- If God exists, he might have created the temporal lobe in order to communicate with us. The fact that our brains are “wired for God” might itself be proof God exists.
the argument of negative credulity by Michael Martin and swinburnes response !
An atheist who experiences the absence of God can argue that the world is probably as this experience represents it as being (ie. Godless). The negative experiences of atheists cancel out the positive experiences of religious believers.
response:
only works for positive situations because the absence of evidence does not mean that it doesn’t exist.
(it doesn’t follow that, if you don’t experience something, it probably doesn’t exist.)
describe St Pauls religious experience
conversion experience from a jew persecuting christians to a defender and apostle of christianity
- road to Damascus had a religious experience - blind for 3 days after
Freuds explanation clashes with conversion experiences - why?
cannot be wish fulfilment if they believed in a religion prior to this that promised an afterlife etc
What are corporate religious experiences?
experiences that are shared by a number of people
Examples of Corporate experiences: Toronto Blessing
in the 1990s, this phenomenon began at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and subsequently spread worldwide. The most widely reported part of this was uncontrolled ‘holy laughter’ as well as crying, shrieking, falling on the floor and barking like a dog.
- Christians claim they were acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit
psychological explanations for corporate experiences such as the Toronto blessing
One psychological objection where a group of people can spontaneously start to generate physical symptoms in response to a psychological stimulus such as fear e.g. in history there have been a number of cases where a large number of people have become convinced they caught some serious illness and have displayed symptoms that upon analysis were purely psychological
It’s suggested that the style of worship in evangelical Christian Churches might trigger this
evaluation of Toronto blessing and other corporate experiences
why would God want to make someone bark?
Seems strange that if God were to intervene in the world or directly communicate with humans that these events would take place, rather than more useful miracles or messages
– However, could argue that we should not try to understand God or his methods of working but accept his offerings
explain the issue of all religions having religious experiences
if all religions have religious experiences and yet most religions cannot be true, then they must be generally unreliable.
- since religions all contradict so Any principle that identifies a religious experience as evidence, inevitably also brings far greater evidence against it.
evaluate with pluralism !! hick would say all experiences are true
What does Phillio (Hume) mention in his play
P.. p…
Prior Probability
social compliance and the relation to corportate religious experiences
if one person is doing it others will feel pressure to also feel this ‘holy spirit’
evidence that ppl share delusions
witches
