Types of Experience Flashcards
What are conversion experiences?
Conversion experiences are religious experiences that lead individuals to adopt a new religion or significantly alter their religious beliefs. They can be individual or corporate and vary in intensity.
What is an example of a famous conversion experience?
The conversion of Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus, where a profound religious experience led him to convert from persecuting Christians to becoming a leading Apostle.
What are corporate religious experiences?
Corporate religious experiences involve multiple people having the same religious experience together, such as the Pentecost event described in the book of Acts or the Toronto Blessing.
How might psychological group dynamics explain corporate religious experiences?
Group phenomena like mob mentality, mass hysteria, and social compliance can lead to shared delusions, which might explain corporate religious experiences without invoking the supernatural.
What is the multiple claims issue regarding religious experiences?
The issue arises because different religions have conflicting religious experiences, which suggests that not all of them can be true, thus questioning the reliability of such experiences as evidence for any one religion.
How does pluralism respond to the multiple claims issue?
Pluralism, as advocated by thinkers like William James and John Hick, posits that all religions are true in some sense and that their differences are due to cultural lenses, thus harmonizing conflicting religious experiences.
