religious experience Flashcards
mystical experience
direct contact / oneness with god or ultimate reality
what is organised religion to james
organised religion is a response to religious experience
PINT
Passive
Noetic
Transient
Passive
passive
loss of agency over body
ineffable
defies expression, you cant communication
noetic
revelation
transient
temporal shift
physiological accounts of religious experiences
religious / mystical experiences can be reduces to the effects of brain states. (eg temporal lobe epilepsy)
materialist - delusion caused by brain
who talks about the temporal lobe epilepsy
Dr Persinger
bertrand russell criticism
uses the story of the great hero, the story can have a great effect on your life, but may be completely false.
carolyn franks davies comment and Vardy comeback
she says that we are experiencing the same thing but describe it using our own language and cultural traditions
vardy criticises saying “how could one claim that an experience of Mary at Lourdes or of Vishnu were the same?” = closer to an assertion than a real point
william james positives x3
- empirical, objective, scientific
- not drawn into proving a god - universal experience
- focus on effects is observable
william james negatives
- positive experiences dont prove its genuine (russell)
- may be misunderstood (drugs or stupidity)
clifford criticism of william james
wrong to believe on insufficient evidence
swinburne clapback at clifford x1.5
principles of testimony - supporting if a credible witness testifies to an experience, it should be taken seriously, unless there is good reason to doubt their credibility
(prima facie) - innocent before proven guilty!1
Rudolph Otto
“mysterium, tremendum, et facinans”
refers to the fearful and fascinating mystery one experiences when faced with the “wholly other”
BOOK “The Idea of the Holy”
=> use his description to verify whether an individual has truly experienced the divine or if it is hysteria
pros of corporate x2
- collective verification
- greater scrutiny
pros of individual experience x1 and expl
- profound personal change
eg george foreman and saul on the road to damascus.
collective verification plus example
adds to credibility
eg toronto blessing
greater scrutiny plus example
miracle of the sun 1917
was rigorously examined by astronomers, physicists.
cons of corporate religious experiences x2 with 1st example and what counters 2nd
- social pressure and group think
toronto blessing - mass hysteria
COUNTERED BY MYSTERIUM, TREMENDUM, FACINANS
freud quick X4
infantile neurosis
wish fulfillment
unhealthy, obsessional rituals, repression of urges
DELUSIONS
jo marchant claps back at freud
religion is about belonging, meaning, food for mental health and resilience.
cons of religious experience
- lacks verification, easier to dismiss as subjective or hallucinatory
- deception with mental illness
- persinger and materialist views
blaise pascal describes his religious experience as
“god of jesus christ. joy, joy, joy, tears of joy”
william james book
The varieties of religious experience
examples of ineffability
st teresa of avila “i wish i could give a description”
Alfred Tennyson “i am ashamed of my feeble description”
evidence of passivity
the apostles at pentecost speak in tongues
muhammed example
Muhammed’s night journey
Isra - night from mecca to jerusalem
noetic revelation
passive - he repeated the words the angel told him to even tho he couldnt read
transient - wouldnt believe it happened in the short time
st teresa of avila plus book
ecstatic visions
“thrusting at times into my heart an to pierce my very entrails”
she hovered
interior castle = BOOK
Feuerbach
naturalistic explanation
THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
when people think they are worshipping god, they are worshipping their own human nature. people take admirable qualities eg heroism, benevolence and project this onto what they call ‘god’ in order to meet their needs
= similar to freud, psychological and wish fulfillment
william james clapback at freud x3
- we cant look at religious experiences from their origin, rather from their positive, real effects
- maybe it is wish fulfillment, but people need the wish to contact god
- religious experiences may come from the unconscious, but this could be a spiritual facility, no evidence
Schleiermacher
modern liberal theology sees personal experience as the foundation of faith
schleiermacher insisted that to bring christianity back to life, we need to return to its sources in religious experience
alister hardy
founded the religious research centre
49% of british people claimed to have had a direct personal awareness of a power or presence different from everyday life
muslim view on conversion
muslims believe everyone was born muslim under surrender to god. but you lose your way and must REVERT
how does william james justify that conversion experiences are valid
from the positive, transformational effects
saul of tarsus bible passage (on damascus road)
acts 9
describe george foreman conversion
after 12 rounds of a heavyweight competition, he hears god’s voice which pulls him out of an abyss of sadness. he is born again and is an evangelical now
karl marx
religion is the opium of the people
dawkins
religion can be dangerous and damaging
religious experiences untrue x4
- lying, drugs, mentally ill
- subjective, too personal
- cannot check
- goes against laws of nature
religious experiences true x4
- conversion
- principle of testimony
- positive effects
- corporate rel experiences enhance legitimacy
antony flew criticism and james clapback
cultural relativism - we only see what is in our cultural framework
“bernadette occurring to a hindu, or apollo under the shoguns”
james says it can still be true but we fit it into our own understanding of the world, through our own cultural framework
