Religious Language Flashcards
Hick’s Parable of the Celestial city (eschatological verification)
Two men are travelling on a road – it is the only road there is, so they both must travel it
Traveller A believes the road leads to a celestial city, whereas Traveller B believes the road leads nowhere and that the journey is meaningless
As they travel along the road, they experience both “refreshment and delight” and “hardship and danger”
When they turn the last corner of the road, one of them will be proved right: If traveller A is correct and there is a celestial city, his belief will be verified.
Mitchell’s ambiguous leader of resistance (falsifiable and still believable)
You are in a war, your country has been occupied by an enemy
You meet a stranger who claims to be leader of the resistance
You trust this man
But the stranger acts ambiguously, sometimes doing things that appear to support the enemy rather than your own side
Yet you continue to believe the stranger is on your side despite this and trust that he has good reasons for these ambiguous actions
Hare’s paranoid student (bliks)
You: See, he’s fine – the university lecturer isn’t trying to kill you!
Paranoid student: But he was just pretending to be normal so as not to reveal his true plan to kill me!
Hick quotes on the journey to celestial city
“refreshment and delight”, “hardship and danger”
Mitchell quotes on types of beliefs
“vacuous formulae”
“provisional hypothesis”
“significant articles of faith”.
