Religious experience as an argument for the existence of god

Question 1

Give a three point a posteriori argument for the existence of god through religious experience

Answer 1

1. There are strong reasons for believing that claims of religious experience point to spiritual realities that exist beyond our physical understanding. 2. According to physicalism, nothing exists beyond our physical understanding. 3. According to theism, god gives us the ability to perceive religious realities through religious experience. C. Ergo, theism is more plausible then physicalism.

Question 2

Give four reasons for supporting the argument for god through religious experience

Answer 2

1. Happen to people across all times and cultures. 2. A posteriori and rely on empirical evidence. 3. Very real to the people involved and sometimes effect multiple people. 4. Have significant effects on peoples’ lives and lead to acts of self sacrifice.

Question 3

What are the first two parts of Swinburne’s five part classification?

Answer 3

1. Experiences mediated through a common public sensory object, a sunset. 2. Experiences mediated through an uncommon sensory object, the burning bush.

Question 4

What are parts 3 and 4 of Swinburne’s classification?

Answer 4

3. Experiences mediated through a private sensory object that can be described empirically, peter’s vision of the kosher foods. 4. Experiences mediated through a private sensory object that can’t be described empirically, St. Theresa’s experiences of the Holy Spirit.

Question 5

What is part 5 of Swinburne’s classification?

Answer 5

5. Experiences not mediated through any sensory object, Nicholas of Cusa experiencing god as a non bodily spirit.

Question 6

What is Swinburne’s principle of credulity?

Answer 6

Our experiences are normally reliable, so on the balance of probability, are more likely true then false. Ergo, we should trust our perceptions when we think we have had a religious experience.

Question 7

What is the principle of testimony?

Answer 7

People normally tell the truth, so if someone tells us they have had a religious experience, on the balance of probability, we should believe them.

Question 8

Give three weaknesses of Swinburne

Answer 8

1. We can’t compare statements about the empirical world to statements about non cognitive experiences as we have no means of verifying such experiences. 2. People are not trustworthy, they have good reason to lie and may have deluded themselves. 3. If atheists have equally strong convictions that god does not exist, why should we not believe them?

Question 9

What does Hume point out is the issue with religious experiences relying on witness testimony?

Answer 9

Even if we accept them as true, we can’t be sure the witness is not lying, mistaken or had deceived themselves. Even if they have no, there is still no guarantee that the experience came from god.

Question 10

What is the issue with the cumulative argument?

Answer 10

Flew- using the analogy of leaky buckets argued that adding lots of low probabilities together does not raise the overall probability. Also, Swinburne claims god wants to interact with his creation and does this through religious experiences, but has no proof of this.

Question 11

How did feuerbach challenge religious experiences on a psychological level?

Answer 11

God is a human projection, all the attributes we give him are in our own nature, we have created god in our image.

Question 12

How does Freud challenge religious experience on a psychological level?

Answer 12

Religious behavior is caused by childhood insecurity and a desire for a father figure. Religious experiences are hallucinations and are a product of out subconscious need for security and meaning.

Question 13

Give two psychologists who support religious experiences

Answer 13

1. Jung- the development of our spiritual aspect is essential for psychological wholeness, we each have an idea of god within a collective unconscious. 2. James- they have a psychological element, but are more then just psychological events.

Question 14

Give three physiological explanations for religious experiences

Answer 14

1. Brain scans on meditating Buddhist monks show a causal operator within the brain that triggers the experience. 2. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy are more likely to have strong religious sensations. 3. The limbic system of the brain has been linked to mystical feelings, it could be that religious experiences could be all down to the way the brain functions.

Question 15

What is persinger’s physiological challenge to religious experience?

Answer 15

Using a helmet to stimulate the temporal lobes, he argued that religious experiences could be caused by properly tuned magnetic fields.

Question 16

How could the physiological argument be challenged?

Answer 16

1. We don’t know if the brain produces or processes the experience. 2. God could have hardwired our brains to process religious experiences. 3. It could be the case that we have no other way of processing such experiences, using the brain does not take away from their impact.

Question 17

What is Kant’s objection?

Answer 17

We can only experience things in the empirical realm, we can’t logically prove the existence of god and as religious experiences are undermined by empirical evidence, they do not work as proofs for god.

Question 18

What is the problem of interpretation?

Answer 18

Religious experiences rely on subjective experience, not objective truth. They are described in terms of the person’s existing faith, if they really are objective truths, they ought to go beyond such distinctions.

Question 19

How can the problem of interpretation be opposed?

Answer 19

All experiences are interpretations, whatever experiences we have we describe in terms of what we already know and understand.

Question 20

How does Hick see religious experiences?

Answer 20

1. We see things in different ways depending upon how we interpret them, perception is not simply registering what is out there neutrally. 2. Wittgenstein argued that there was a distinction between seeing and seeing-as (when you identify what you’re looking at.) 3. Hick expanded this to include our experiences, when we experience the world through our senses we are ‘experiencing-as.’

Question 21

How else does hick see religious experiences?

Answer 21

4. Anything we experience is interpreted in terms of what we already understand. 5. Religious experience is a type of experiencing as, you see human life as an encounter with the divine as well as the physical world and others. 6. Religious experiences are an additional layer of experiencing as and are a perspective on life that atheists lack.

Question 22

How does hick explain his views?

Answer 22

If a believer sees a light at the end of his bed, he may take it as a sign from god. A non believer may see it as someone shining a torch in their face. They will interpret it differently and will have different emotional responses, the believer will feel at peace whilst the atheist may feel annoyed.

Question 23

What is the name of hick’s paper on religious experience?

Answer 23

Religious faith as experiencing as- 1968

Question 24

How does Dawkins see religious experiences?

Answer 24

They are a psychotic mindset, the mind is immersed in what it thinks is true, but the observer without a mental illness can clearly see the belief is untrue.

Question 25

What is the issue with Dawkins’ view?

Answer 25

Only proves that Christians and theists may be psychotic, not that they share an inter subjective psychosis.

Question 26

How does Russell oppose religious experiences?

Answer 26

‘From a scientific point of view, he can make no distinction between the man who eats too little and sees heaven and the man who drinks too much and sees snakes.’

Question 27

How can drugs explain religious experiences?

Answer 27

LCD and psilocybin are entheogens, they effect the prefrontal cortex, leading to deep religious sensations.

Question 28

How do objectivists see religious experiences?

Answer 28

They express something real, you come into context with something outside of yourself which really exists.

Question 29

How do subjectivists view religious experiences?

Answer 29

They are personal, not factual and don’t count as proof for anything. Belief in god is just a metaphor for a certain attitude to life like Santa.

Question 30

What is the problem with the objectivist and subjectivist views?

Answer 30

O- religious experiences can’t be tested scientifically, so how can we be sure the divine causes them? S- leads to a slippery slope, when you say some experiences are subjective, you end up giving up all claims to an objective reality.