Religious Experience Flashcards
“Religious experience justifies belief in God - how far do you agree” essay
A: they are not enough to prove God’s existence as religious experience is a form of neurosis. Freud - unconscious mind stores information about events. When they surface can be in the form of hysterical behaviour - illusions. Bernadette
CA: Swinburne - principle of credulity, people usually tell the truth, we should accept the statement unless there are positive grounds to prove them wrong.
E: A.J Ayer argued that recipients don’t give factual accounts if they are recounting from a dysfunctional mind. So we cannot prove R.E from testimony
A: Mostly individuals tend to have religious experience so they are subjective. No empirical proof for others to judge whether it is true.
CA:Healing services may demonstrate a corporate experience. More people experience this so it would be more difficult to doubt. More testimony can prove God exists and increases the validity
E: some healing services have been found to mental manipulation. Mass hysteria. Therefore not a problem as most corporate experiences have been shown to be false
“Mystical experiences are of God” essay
A: James said religious experience have the 4 things in common. However this can be explain psychologically. Freud - neurosis, father figure = God, illusions. Feuerbach would also agree
CA: Swinburne - principle of testimony We should believe people. Alston would agree and argue our senses are generally reliable so why would they not be in regard to R.E
E: O’Hear - we should apply other checks against our senses. Check against other senses, check across time, check with others. Mystical experiences cannot go through all these. So unscientific
A: James pragmatism - would argue that mystical experiences lead to conversions and have long lasting effects. S.Hadley - an addict has a religious experience… Starbucks would argue these psychological effects are a normal adolescent phenomenon. Being depressed, struggling to find personal identity
CA: James observed that these conversions resulted in ‘fruits’. How god is presented in church teachings
E:These impacts are not unique to
Religious experience, cant jump to the conclusion. Movies can also have the same effect.
“Critically asses William James’ view on religious experience” essay
A: William James - mystical experiences: passive, infallible, noetic, transient. Actually neurosis. Suppression of childhood trauma. Humanity has created a God which can be seen as a father figure. Feuerbach agreed - people hold memories in the subconscious- results in neurosis. explains why alot of mystical experiences cannot be explained.
CA: Swinburne, principle of credulity. Should believe someone unless good reason to not believe. Would dismiss a lot of religious experiences - of someone was a serial liar - wrong
E: We don’t have a way of proving the validity of the religious experience. A.J Ayer, we cannot trust a faulty mind. R.E cannot explain coming from a faulty mind clearly.
A: James wrong - religious experiences have profound effects - depressed, not depressed, conversion etc. Starbuck - not prove religious experiences as is common for adolescents to go a switch in their lives.
CA: such profound changes must be from God. E.g. drugs and suddenly no drugs. St. Paul conversion. St. Theresa of Avila. Aligns with God in the bible. Many people have been more selfless aligns with teachings in the bible. shows it was God.
E: Weak argument as the same effects can happen through things other than religious experience such as listening to music. Not unique
Religious experience scholars & arguments
SCHOLARS FOR
William James: Wrote ‘the varieties of religious experience’. All mystical experiences have a common core: 1. Passive, 2. Ineffable, 3. Notice, 4. Transient. Says that often ‘fruits’ came from he experiences.
Swinburne: principle of credulity and testimony: Credulity: if someone things they have experienced something probably have. We rarely question, only when God is involved we question. Testimony: Unless evidence to the contrary should believe the person who experienced it
Caroline Franks Davis: uses a cumulative argument, there could be a God
William Alston: your senses are generally reliable, why would they not be for religious experience
S.Hadley: was an alcoholic, had an experience, didn’t want to touch alcohol again.
Rudolph Otto: explores the idea of the numinous to describe an encounter with the ‘wholly other’. Describes the meeting as a kind of seduction (mysterium tremendum et fascinas) - seeing the sun? - consistent with James - ineffability
St. Teresa of Avila: had an experience. Some argue it was due to sexual frustration.
The Toronto Blessings: Rolled around on the floor.
SCHOLARS AGAINST
Bertrand Russell: “There is no difference between a man who eats nothing and sees God and a man who drinks too much and sees snakes” - experiences are not genuine
Jung: associated St Paul’s conversion as a mental breakdown triggered by guilt
Michael Persinger: St. Paul’s conversion was temporal lobe epilepsy. Exhibited symptoms of epilepsy throughout the bible. Used the God helmet experiment to stimulate the frontal lobes - The God Helmet experiment
St. Paul always had ‘a thorn on his side’.Perhaps had an illness
Feuerbach: God was a psychological construct formed from human desires
Freud: religion is a neurosis. Id and superego. Wishful thinking. God is a father figure.
Starbuck: described two types of conversion 1. Volitional 2. Self surrender. He argues that religious conversion experiences are normal for adolescents. PINT symptoms similar to these adolescent feelings.
Pankhe’s Good Friday experiment: a group was given entheogens to simulate religious experiences.
Hume: inconsistent that Catholics experience Mary, Hindus experience Shiva, e.g.
C.S Lewis: had a gradual conversion
Hick: seeing a sunset - some may argue is divine and feels touched by God, other may just find it beautiful. Difference in experience, not a difference in fact.
Flew: leaky bucket argument. All argument for the existence of God has faults
William James
- Wrote ‘The Varieties of religious experience’ which is a collection of first-hand accounts of religious experiences
- Mystical experiences have a common core: passive - people were not in control, ineffable -difficult to put into words, noetic - the experience provided insight or knowledge, transient - lasted a short time but had a larger effect
- Most religious experiences produces ‘fruits’
Arguments for and against corporate experiences
Examples:
- Toronto blessings: Holy Spirit intervention - mass laughter. Falling on the floor…
- Bosnia and Herzegovina - apparitions of ‘Our Lady, Queen of peace’ - six children in town made reports - drawn millions of pilgrims (The Vatican has not approved it as an actual religious experience)
Issues:
- Mass hysteria is a recognised phenomenon. The people that visit evangelical chuches are already likely to be effected by group suggestions. (Group hallucinations)
- Why would God make people behave in these laughable ways. Making fools of themselves. If God wanted to reveal himself what would he be trying to tell these people.
- Is the Holy Spirit more interested in plying with a small group of people than challenging dreadful things that happen in the name of religion (God not worthy of human worship?)
Arguments for and against conversion experiences
Examples:
- St.Paul: was blinded on the way to Demascus was persecuting Christians. (Suffered an epileptic episode/ frontal lobe epilepsy)
- S.Hadley: had a R.E and never wanted to drink again
Issues:
- Starbuck: normal of an adolescent to feel depressed divided etc - finding identity. Described two types of conversions: volitional - gradual change or self-surrender - sudden, pivotal
- lasting experiences are not unique to religious experiences
- Freud: he church is responsible for a lot of guilt, repressed in the super-ego. Psychological, phenomenon
- Kant: logically impossible to experience God in a noumenal reality when we are rooted in the real world.
