Religious Experience Flashcards
Corporate Experience (x2)
When more than one person experiences the same experience at the same time
The events of Pentecost, recorded in Acts, puts that ‘They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages’
The 1994 Toronto Blessing is an example of a corporate experience as over 300 claimed to experience religious ecstasy
The Veracity of Religious Experiences
Richard Swinburne’s Principle of Credulity says ‘we ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, until we are mistaken’
Swinburne’s Principle of Testimony says that ‘in the absence of special considerations, the experiences of others are, probably, as they report them’
Friedrich Schleiermacher put that religious experiences were ‘self-authenticating’
Support for Religious Experiences and God’s Existence (x3)
Corporate experiences such as the Toronto Blessing 1994 or Pentecost, contain lots of people citing the SAME experience
Long-term lifestyle changes e.g. Saul in Acts, appear to suggest that religious experience are genuine
Noetic knowledge, such as Colton Burpo revealed after a burst appendix cannot be explained
Arguments Against Religious Experiences (x5)
Michael Persinger’s ‘Koren Helmet’ used magnetic fields to induce religious experiences on people
C Stephen Evans stated ‘religious people will always interpret things in religious ways’
Carl Sagan stated ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’
Freud thought that religious experiences were wish fulfilment and infantile neurosis.
Ludwig Feuerbach saw God as a projection of the best aspects of humanity
Flaws of Corporate Experiences (x2)
Laughter is infectious and mass hysteria is a well recognised phenomenon
Shared environment so a gas leak or magnetic fields, such as Michael Persinger suggests from his ‘Koren Helmet’ experiment
Famous Religious Experiences (x3)
Conversion of Saul into St Paul in Acts. Saul prmarily persecuted Christians, so his conversion is significant. In Acts it states ‘He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him ‘Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
Teresa of Avila claimed that she experienced an angel stabbing her. Teresa believed that if experiences fitted with Christian teaching, then they were real
In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have seen a ‘beautiful lady’ 18 times who stated ‘QUE SOY ERA IMMACULADO CONCEPTION’
Religious Experience (x3)
When a person comes into contact with the Divine
Corporate, mystical, conversion experiences
William James made a distinction between the REAL experiences and GENUINE experiences (when a individual thinks they connected with the Divine)
4 Fruits of Religious Experiences
William James
Awareness, Elation, Self-surrender and Change (Saul into St Paul in Acts)
4 Qualities of Religious Experience
William James
Ineffable (indescribable)
Noetic (gives them knowledge they would not have otherwise, e.g. Colton Burpo)
Transient (temporary)
Passive (happens TO you, cannot be induced)
Visions (x2)
In Exodus, Moses sees a burning bush. It states ‘There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flames of a fire from within a bush’
In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have seen a ‘beautiful lady’ 18 times who stated ‘QUE SOY ERA IMMACULADO CONCEPTION’
Voices (x2)
St Francis of Assisi heard Jesus state ‘Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins’
Peter Sutcliffe stated that ‘what I believed then and believe now to have been the voice God’ told him to kill 13 women
Rudolf Otto
Rudolf Otto thought that religious experiences were numinous, and ‘Mysterium, tremendum et fascinans’
