RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Question 1

Types of religious experience

Answer 1

• corporeal = touch / sight/empirical (eg st Bernadette saw Mary, Joan of Arc - saw saints)

Dreams (imaginative - eg st Joseph’s dream, 3 kings?)

Intellectual - St Theresa - on fire with love of God

Question 2

Rudolph Otto: views on religious experience

Answer 2

Idea of the NUMINOUS

Not linked to morality altogether but the idea that god is transcendent

Latin for deity/spirit
Exodus - ‘hid his face, now he was afraid to look on God’’

Sui Generis - of one kind - feelings are intense and irrational

Question 3

William James view on religious experience

Answer 3

Religion is SECONDARY to experience which is PRIMARY and ORGANISED

Can be any God

Teaches us significance of the world we inhabit

Prayer Produces real psychological effects

Benefits - zest for life

Have root in MYSTICAL states of consciousness
-> ineffability (cannot be described)
-> Noetic (gives knowledge)
-> transience - cannot be sustained
-> passivity - uncontrolled

Do not always concern religion

Experiences are personal

THIS IS WHAT RELIGION IS ABOUT!!!

Question 4

Value vs problems of religious experience?

Answer 4

• affirms faith
• life altering
• martyrs?
• place of worship (pilgrimage)
• can be problematic for people who believe their religion holds the ‘truth’
• have to take word for it (personal…)
• group experiences?
• must somehow be experienced by the brain.. and if so is this supernatural?
• not able to be described!

Question 5

What is Swinburne’s principle?

Answer 5

CREDULITY
Trust appearances -
Consider reasons for doubt
Consider the source - reliable?
Consider similar experiences
People should consider whether similar experiences have been shown to be false.
Consider other explanations

TESTIMONY
Multiple claims support the above

Question 6

TESTIMONY AND CREDULITY PROS AND CONS

Answer 6

Cumulative arguments make sense!

Normal sense experience is reliable … but what about ‘visionary’ claims?

Sense/experience can usually be verified

No proof that God is correct explaination

Question 7

Walter Stace views on religion

Answer 7

Mysticism is NON SENSUAL AND NON INTELLECTUAL
introverted vs extroverted mystics
- introverted: no sense of being
- extroverted: non sensuous unity shines through objects
AIMED TO TALK RATIONALLY ABOUT MYSTICISM

Question 8

+ and - of WILLIAM JAMES

Answer 8

+
Has been a powerful force in history (many experienced)
Effects of experiences are visible and positive
Similarities and testimonies add up

• Russel: the fact a belief has a good moral effect on a man is no evidence in favour of its truth!
  Too subjective (focuses on truth for individual rather than if this relates to a God existing in real world) - also PERSONAL across different faiths

Question 9

Challenging religious experience

Answer 9

TLE - just abnormal states of the brain?

Drugs - LSD / hallucinogenic (prefrontal cortex)

Neurotheology - electrical stimulation of temporal lobes of brain
‘The God Helmet’ simulation of temporal lobes in the brain

Freud: wish fulfilment - fear of death

HUME: contradictory experiences in different religions

FLEW: if you can’t describe it there’s nothing to describe!

Question 10

Religious responses to challenges

Answer 10

• we have to show our processes in our brain!
• freud’s view is a hypothesis that can’t be tested and also has lack of evidence
• to Hume: god will work through those experiencing Him in a way they can understand - also often DIVINE BEING is the same despite cultural difference
• to flew: if you could describe it , it would be part of our world