Religious Experience Flashcards
What did William James claim about Religious Experiences?
Claimed that religious experiences occur in different religions and have similar features. People who have and try to have religious experiences are often called ‘Mystics’ and their experiences are intense and totally immersive.
What is the definition of ineffability?
The experience is beyond language and cannot be put into words to accurately described.
What does the term Noetic mean?
Some sort of knowledge or insight is gained.
What is the definition of Transient?
The experience is temporary.
What is the definition of Passive?
The experience happens to a person; the person doesn’t make the experience happen.
What is the quotation taken from William James’ claim about Religious Experience?
The most useful descriptor of a mystical experience is that it “defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words”. It is ineffable. It has to be directly experienced to be appreciated.
What did William James suggest Religious Experience is like?
It’s like music or love in that regard. If someone has never felt love or heard music, they might find a musician or lover weak-minded or absurd, but that’s just because they lack the required experience. James saying this is true of those who dismiss religious experience too.
What is William James’ pluralist argument?
James’ explanation is that religious experiences really are coming from a higher spiritual reality. Writers such as W. Stace developed this argument much more explicitly, claiming that the universality of certain features of religious experiences is good evidence that they are real.
What is the Naturalist approach to Religious Experience?
Cross-cultural similarity of the features of religious experiences could have a naturalistic explanation, however. It could be that all human brains hallucinate similarly because they evolved similarly.
What is James’ Pragmatic argument?
James was most interested in the effects religious experiences had on people’s lives and argued that the validity of the experience depended upon those effects.
What was James’ argument on Conversion experiences?
Conversion experiences are clearly a strong example of James’ point about the life-changing impact of religious experiences. He viewed conversion experiences as a transformation from an unhappy divided or imperfect self with a guilty conscience to a more unified happy state.
What is a counter argument to James’ Pragmatism?
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.
What is Swinburne’s view on Religious Experience?
Religious experience can be evidence for God that justifies belief in God, so long as it survives standard empirical testing. Swinburne doesn’t favour any particular type of religious experience. Any type could be valid evidence for God, so long as there is no reason to not believe it.
What does Swinburne consider to be evidence?
If we experience something or someone tells us they have experienced something, then that is evidence for that thing probably being true.
Of course, this doesn’t prove God, but it is evidence that by itself does give a rational reason to believe in God.
What is the Principle of Credulity?
The principle of credulity argues that you should believe what you experience unless you have a reason not to.
What is the Principle of Testimony?
The principle of testimony argues that you should believe what others tell you they have experienced, unless you have a reason not to.
Why does Swinburne believe it to be irrational when dismissing evidence for God?
All the other religious experiences that we have no evidence against are evidence for God. If someone dismisses those experiences, when there is no reason to not believe them, then they are irrational because they are dismissing evidence without reason.
Why does Religious Experiences require extraordinary evidence?
However, is a mere experience of God sufficient evidence to justify belief in God? Arguably the existence of God is an extraordinary claim which therefore might require extraordinary evidence.
What is Freud’s psychological challenge to religious experience?
Freud called religion an ‘obsessional neurosis’ and said it ultimately derived from two main psychological forces.
What is the first psychological force proposed by Freud?
The first is the fear of death. We have an instinctual animalistic fear of death which we can’t control but we can control our human thoughts and cognitions. While animals only have their fear of death triggered when in a dangerous situation, humans are the only animal that constantly are aware that they are going to die. So, the solution is to manipulate those to believe that death is not the end.
What is the second psychological force proposed by Freud?
Freud argued that the reason Christians call God ‘father’ is because they have a desire to be a child forever. It’s a desire for eternal innocence in the face of the painful reality of the world. Freud thought these psychological forces were so strong that they resulted in delusions which could explain religious experience.
Why does Freud’s theory fail to explain Religious Experiences?
Mystical experiences are ecstatic, immersive, and totally unlike any ordinary sensory experience, making them harder to dismiss as hallucinations caused by delusory wishful thinking.
What did Freud argue intense Religious Experiences were a result of?
It is the reliving childhood experiences before the ego or ‘self’ had formed. This explains the dissolving of the sense of self and resultant unity with everything in mystical experiences. Freud argued that reliving experiences of selflessness is simply a feature of the mind and only later came to be arbitrarily associate with religion, but in essence has nothing to do with it.
Why is Freud’s argument overly reductive?
The problem with psychological arguments is that while they could be true for many maybe even the majority, it’s hard to argue they are true for all and even if they don’t work for one person, that’s one person they can’t explain.
