religious experience Flashcards
What are the 3 types of religious experiences?
Corporeal, Imaginative + Intellectual
What is a corporeal vision?
Empirical; supernatural experiences mediated through physical senses
Visionary sees the figure in the same way someone would see a chair
What’s an example of a corporeal vision?
18 visions of Mary that Bernadette of Lourdes saw
Mary identified herself as the ‘Immaculate Conception’
What’s an imaginative vision?
Visions mediated through the ‘minds eye’ not physical sight
Often dreams
What’s an example of an imaginative vision?
Josephs dream where he was told Mary was preg. through power of Holy Spirit
What’s an intellectual vision?
No image, but the subject claims to ‘see’ things as they rlly are
Mystical visions; hard to understand but they enlighten the soul
What’s an example of an intellectual vision?
Teresa of Avila - a mystic who saw “nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul” but saw Jesus as he rlly was
What’s a numinous experience?
Exp. thats the basis of all gen. religion
Non rational + unique
Sense of the wholly other
What is meant by the term ‘holy’?
‘Other than’ ‘Separate from’
Attempt to describe the sense some ppl have of a reality totally beyond their exp. of themselves
What is meant by mysterium?
Far removed from humanity
What is meant by tremendum?
Fearsome experience of God’s overwhelming energy
What is meant by fascinans?
Nature of the experience creates a desire for a relationship w the Being
What does Mysterium tremendum et fascinans mean?
Fearful + attractive mystery
What did William James believe about religion?
He was sympathetic to it but wasn’t a part of an organised religion
What did William James believe organised religion grew from?
People comparing their religious experiences
What did William James believe the true purpose of humanist is?
Union w the higher universe that gives this world its significance
What is William James’ 4 criteria for assessing the genuine nature of a mystical experience?
Ineffability, Noetic quality, Transiency, Passivity
What is meant by ineffability?
Private experience that makes sense only to other mystics
What is noetic quality?
The encounter gives a genuine insight into truth
What is transiency?
The experience is usually short + it becomes difficult to reproduce the mem. after time
What is passivity?
The experience controls the mystic
What does William James say about the wide range of mystical experience?
Moving power of music
Deja vu
Drug-induced states where ‘depth beyond depth of truth’ is revealed
What did Walter Stace think about Gods existence?
There’s little point in attempting to prove God’s existence
He’s either a mystery or nothing
What 2 types of mystical experiences did Walter Stace identify?
Introvertive + extrovertive
What is an introvertive experience?
Sense experience = suppressed
No awareness of world
No intellectual function
What is an extrovertive experience?
Normal objects are seen w the physical senses but they’re transfigured so the non-sensuous unity shines through
What did Sigmund Freud say about religion?
It’s ‘wish fulfilment’
God helps control fear of the unknown
Religious experiences are hallucinations caused by out need to have control
What is hinted at in the New Testament?
St Paul hints at being affected by a condition called a ‘thorn in the flesh’ but it sounds like temporal lobe epilepsy
What are symptoms of TLE?
Temporary blindness, seeing light, having visions, hearing voices
What does science of neurotheology show?
Religious experiences are produced by electrical stimulation of temporal lobes in the brain
What is said about the God Helmet?
Magnetic coils stimulate temporal lobes
Results include experience of mystical states, visions of God etc
What is said about drugs + religious experience?
R.E. can be caused by drugs
‘Entheogens’ - generating the divine within (LSD, mescaline etc)
What can a religious believer respond w about TLE?
If God wants ppl to have religious experiences, they have to be processed by the brain
An area in the brain needs to be resp.
What does Swinburne’s principle of credulity (POC) say?
How things seem to be, is the way things really are
Believability of a persons experience
What does Swinburne’s principle of testimony (POT) say?
Where there’s no spec. consideration, we should believe what ppl tell
Reliability of what ppl claim
What are the 4 special considerations of the principle of credulity?
Reliability of the claim, truth of the claim, difficulty showing God was present + what is claimed can be accounted for in other ways
What is the meaning of the special consideration: reliability of the claim? What principle does this apply to?
If someone describes a religious experience but has been known to lie in the past then you have good reason to doubt it (POC)
What is the meaning of the special consideration: truth of the claim? Which principle does this apply?
Reasonability of the claim (POC)
What is meant by the special consideration: difficulty showing God was present? Which principle does this apply to?
Proof of God is difficult (POC)
What is meant by the special consideration: what is claimed can be accounted for in other ways? Which principle does this apply to?
Accounted for w medical explanations such as TLE (POC)
What is Swinburne’s rejection of the 1st special consideration in POC?
It can’t be shown that all claims are unreliable just bc someone’s lied in the past
What is Swinburne’s rejection of the 2nd special consideration in POC?
It can’t be shown that all claims are untrue just bc its unlikely/unreasonable
What is Swinburne’s rejection of the 3rd special consideration in POC?
God is supposedly everywhere; so why would we need to prove he was there
What is Swinburne’s rejection of the 4th special consideration in POC?
God arguably may cause medical conditions that can be used as explanations
What is Swinburne’s 1st conclusion in POT?
Someone who’s had a religious experience of what seems to be God has by POC good reason for believing
What is Swinburne’s 2nd conclusion in POT?
The testimony of others who report similar experiences supports claims
What is Swinburne’s 3rd conclusion in POT?
W/o R.E. the prob. of the existence of God would be 50/50; adding testimony of R.E. makes it greater than 50/50
