Religious Experience

Question 1

Numinous

Answer 1

The feeling of the holy and includes awe, fascination religious awareness and the smallness of self.

Question 2

Intellectual Conversions

Answer 2

A change in the way of thinking about something

Question 3

Moral Conversions

Answer 3

A change in behaviour so that the individual does what is thought to be right

Question 4

Social Conversions

Answer 4

Acceptance of a different way of life or in worship

Question 5

Mystical Experience

Answer 5

A direct and intimate experience of God

Question 6

Divine

Answer 6

A being that is all powerful and is not comparable to anything human. Such a being is usually referred to as a God.

Question 7

Ineffability

Answer 7

The experience cannot be communicated in normal speech

Question 8

Noetic Quality

Answer 8

The mind gaining knowledge and understanding

Question 9

Passivity

Answer 9

Refers to the fact that the religious experience occurs without any action on the part of the recipient.

Question 10

Transcend

Answer 10

God is separate and superior to the physical material world. God is outside space and time.

Question 11

Immanence

Answer 11

God is active in the world.

Question 12

Nature Mysticism

Answer 12

Observing the beauty or vastness of nature triggers a mystical experience.

Question 13

God mysticism

Answer 13

Mediating on the attributes of God and the desire to be one with God triggers the mystical experience.

Question 14

Existential Judgement

Answer 14

A ‘primary’ question and is concerned with the nature of something- how it came into existence, what it does and what it is made of.

Question 15

Value Judgement.

Answer 15

A ‘secondary’ question and is concerned with the meaning, importance and significance of something.

Question 16

Medical Materialism

Answer 16

To try to explain mystical experiences through a medical cause such as epilepsy.

— an approach to medical science that seeks to classify everything through physical terms.

Question 17

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 17

Studies the nervous system and cognitive neuroscience is the branch of neuroscience that studies the biological foundations of mental phenomena such as religious experiences.

Question 18

Correspondence Theory

Answer 18

Tries to verify the statement (theory) by seeing if it matches ( corresponds) to the known facts.

Question 19

Coherence Theory

Answer 19

Tries to verify the statement (theory) by seeing if it agrees with other truths that have been proved already.

Question 20

Pragmatic Theory

Answer 20

Tries to verify the statement (theory) in practical terms through any benefits gained from the experience.

Question 21

Principle of Credulity

Answer 21

If a person sees something/ someone then it is usually the case that they have seen something/someone

Question 22

Principle of Testimony

Answer 22

Unless you have reliable reasons to doubt what a person says they have experienced then what is said should be accepted as true.

Question 23

Empiricism

Answer 23

Knowledge derived from experience