verifying religious experiences

Question 1

frued religious experiences

Answer 1

He is an Austrian neurologist and physiologist who argued that religion is wish-fulfilment by the unconscious mind. The idea of God helps us to control fear of the unknown of death, but such fears, according to Freud are infantile and neurotic. Where people claim to have religious visions and mystical experiences, these are simply hallucinations caused by our need to have some kind of control over our helpless state.

Question 2

frued response

Answer 2

Freuds idea of wish-fulfilment is just a hypothesis and cannot be tested, so it remains just a hypothesis. It may of course be true that people wish to have experiences of God, and that these provide comfort, but that does not prove that experiences of God must be false

Question 3

TLE

Answer 3

People who suffer from TLE are sometimes prone to have religious visions and mystical experiences. This suggests that religious experiences are nothing more than abnormal states of the brain. Those with TLE can experience strong visions and there have been many suggestions that some of the great religious figures of the past suffered from the condition.

Question 4

An example of someone in the past who had suffered from TLE

Answer 4

E.G St Paul who talks about living with a condition called ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Corinthians). When he converted from Judaism he talks about his conversion being accompanied by seeing light, having visions, hearing voices, suddenly falling to the floor and temporary blindness - all of which can be associated with TLE. Irrespective of whether or not St Paul suffered from TLE, there is significant evidence that suggests that the condition can result in brain states that produce religious experiences, and this might suggest that such experiences are not sent from God - they are self-generated

Question 5

neuroscience support to TLE

Answer 5

The findings on TLE are supported by the science of neurotheology, which suggests that religious experiences are produced by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobes in the brain. Neuroscience is the scientific study of the structure and function of the nervous system. Neurotheology attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms.

Question 6

neuroscience evidence - The god helmet

Answer 6

The God Helmet is an updated version of a device produced by the cognitive neuroscience researcher Persinger. It uses magnetic coils placed on either side of the head to stimulate a subjects temporal lobes. The results include the experience of mystical states, visions of God, and sensing the presence of spiritual beings. The implications are that if neuroscience can duplicate several aspects of religious experiences, then this suggests that religious experiences are specific states of the brain, and are not experiences of God or from God.

Question 7

religious experiences explained in terms of drugs

Answer 7

The effects of religious experiences are often describes in similar terms to the effects of ‘hallucinogenic’ drugs such as LSD. These drugs are called ‘entheogens’ meaning generating/ becoming divine from within. This is because people who take them can have intense spiritual and religious experiences. Some of the main effects of entheogens are processed by the prefrontal cortex (the grey matter in the frontal lobe behind your forehead)

Question 8

Pahnke experiment with 20 theology students

Answer 8

1962 Pahnke conducted a study of 20 theology students at Harvard Divinity School, known as the ‘Good Friday Experiment’. Ten were given the drug psilocybin while the others given a placebo. Those who took the drug experiences feelings very similar to those induced by the ‘God Helmet’, which provides further evidence that religious experience is produced by a particular state of the brain. From a scientific point of view, then, we might conclude that TLE, neurotheology and the study of entheogens show that when certain parts of the brain are stimulated, particularly the temporal and frontal lobes, people access higher levels of consciousness and can have full-blown mystical experiences. They can be convinced that they have experienced God, whereas in reality these experiences have been generated by the brain itself.

Question 9

response to science

Answer 9

If God wants to give people religious experiences, these have to be processed by the brain, because the brain is our only way of processing anything.
· So there has to be an area, or several areas of the brain responsible for processing them.
· We know that many such experiences are processed by the temporal lobes and frontal lobes. These are the structures of the brain, therefore through which God can bring about religious experiences.

Question 10

William James on religious experiences and relating to God

Answer 10

· God is personal, he relates to people in many ways, through prayer, through the incarnation of Jesus etc.
· Christians therefore, do not have to sit and wait for God to reveal something to them; they can reach out to God. Those who experience God through nature see something of God’s power, glory, majesty and love in nature itself.

Question 11

James on the universe not based on dead matter

Answer 11

James says ‘the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living presence’ humans can reach out to this presence.
· Equally, James says it makes no difference how the experience is arrived at. It could happen through drugs or TLE, the experiencer needs to take away what they need from the experience.

Question 12

who is richard swinburne

Answer 12

[British philosopher] For Swinburne, though the existence of God cannot be proved by logical arguments (such as the Ontological Argument), nevertheless our experiences of the world suggest that God probably exists, and religious experiences are a part of this probability argument.

Question 13

Quote from swinburne

Answer 13

WE OUGHT TO BELIEVE THAT THINGS ARE AS THEY SEEM TO BE, UNTIL WE HAVE EVIDENCE THAT WE ARE MISTAKEN - RICHARD SWINBURNE

Question 14

expansion on the Quote

Answer 14

s a basic epistemological principle, the principle of credulity, that — in absence of counter-evidence — we should believe that things are as they seem to be. The only kind of counter-evidence which would tend to show a religious experience not to be veridical would be any evidence tending to show that there is no God. In the absence of any such evidence, any religious experience is evidence for the subject (and via his testimony, for others) of the existence of God

Question 15

What is the principle of credulity

Answer 15

Swinburne begins by talking about our ordinary sense experiences, and then moves from these to religious experiences. ‘I suggest that it is a principle of rationality that (in the absence of special considerations) if it seems…to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present; what one seems to perceive is probably so.’
Further: ‘How things seem to be is good grounds for a belief about how things are.’
Moreover: ‘From this is would follow that, in the absence of special considerations, all religious experiences ought to be taken by their subjects as genuine, and hence as substantial grounds for belie in the existence of their apparent object.
So, Swinburne makes a very simple claim through the Principle of Credulity- the way things seem to be is the way things really are. it is worth noting that he does add a proviso: ‘in the absence of special considerations.’ He goes on to discuss four of these special considerations.

Question 16

What are the four special considerations

Answer 16

the first consideration concerns the reliability of the claim. If someone describes to you a religious experience, and it turns out that he has been known to tell lies in the past, then you have good grounds for doubting what he says about his religious experience.

2. the second concerns the truth of the claim. For example, if somebody makes unlikely perceptual claims, such as being able to read text of this size you are reading now at a distance of 100 yards, hen his claims about a religious experience are not likely to be true.
3. the third is the difficulty of showing that God was present in the experience.
4. the fourth is the possibility that what is claimed can be accounted for in other ways. To use an example from what we have said about scientific challenges to religious experiences, someone who claims to have had a religious experience may be suffering from TLE.

Question 17

swinburne rejection of the four special considerations

Answer 17

.Swinburne rejcts all four of these special considerations:

1. It cannot be shown that all such claims are unreliable. Just because someone has lied in the past, this does not mean that they are lying now about having a religious experience.
2. It cannot be shown that all such claims are untrue. Again, someone making one claim that is false does not mean that any other particular claim to a religious experience is likely to be untrue.
3. God is presumably everywhere, so rather that the onus being on the experiencer to show that God was present, the onus is on the doubter to show that he was not.
4. As the Creator, God underpins all processes, including those that go on in the brain, so if God causes…

Question 18

Arguments in favour of swinburne - peoples life style changes after religious experiences

Answer 18

1. In terms of the Principle of Credulity, Swinburne seems to be on stronger ground where he says that if someone really believes that he has had an experience of God, then this will make measurable differences to his lifestyle. His approach to prayer, worship and self-sacrifice might change radically as might his treatment of others. Since we do often see this chance in lifestyle then this is strong evidence for the reliability of claims about religious experience.

Question 19

support of religious experiences from the testimony of others

Answer 19

2. This conclusion is supported by the testimony of others who claim to have had similar experiences of God, and in whom we can see similar changes of lifestyle.

Question 20

The cumulative argument in support of religious experiences

Answer 20

Swinburne uses the ‘cumulative argument’. This suggests that if we consider all of the arguments for the existence of God, these arguments are stronger when taken together, so the argument that religious experiences show the existence of God strengthens those arguments and is strengthened by then.

Question 21

argument against swinburne - he takes a leap from normal ordinary experiences being reliable to religious experiences

Answer 21

Swinburne seems to be saying that since normal sense experience are reliable, religious experiences are reliable evidence for the existence of God. That seems a very dubious claim. Can we really move from being convinced about the reliability of what people claim to have observed through their senses to the reliability of mystical visionary claims about God?

2. To explain this further, accounts of ordinary sense experiences are third-person public. Meaning that somebody else can confirm your claims as to what you see and hear, whereas religious experiences are first-person private. How do you get ‘inside’ someone’s head to confirm they have seen a vision?
3. Even if every single person who has had a religious experiences believed completely that it was an experience of God, it would not prove that ‘God’ is the right explanation for such experiences

Question 22

Value for faith - foundational and responsible for the founding of many faiths

Answer 22

1 Religious experiences can be foundational.
By this we mean that religious experiences have been the direct cause of
the founding of several religions, so they are the basis for faith and for
organised religion.

Question 23

evidence to support genesis saul to paul

Answer 23

In Christianity, Saul the Pharisee has a foundational experience of God
while travelling to Damascus to persecute the Christian community
there. Saul is portrayed in the Book of Acts as implacably opposed to the
Christian sect. He breathes ‘murderous threats’ against Jesus’ disciples
(Acts 9:1), and is instrumental in the imprisonment and execution of
Christians. Yet Saul receives a foundational religious experience (Acts
9:1-22; also 22:4-16; 26:9-18) which transforms him into the Apostle
Paul, who became the real architect of the Christian faith.
Saul did not change his name: ‘Saul’ is his Hebrew name, but as a Roman
citizen he also had a Latin name, Paul’. Since he became the apostle to
the Gentiles (people who are not Jewish), it was more appropriate to use
his Latin name, since most Gentiles would be familiar with that name. in
any event, the point is that Saul is portrayed as the very worst kind of
material that God could have used for his purposes, yet his religious
experience was so powerful that those purposes were still achieved.

Question 24

Religious experiences confirming faith

Answer 24

Perhaps the most distinctive thing you can say here is that it confirms faith . If you read various accounts for example of AR terrsa of Avila who was asked how she knew it was Christ to which she replied she did not know how she knew it but she could not help knowing that Christ was close beside her .
The only certainty we can ever have is that which comes from faith and that certainty is based on religious experience where god is encountered personally
Whereas religious experience will confirm Christianity to a Christian experiencer the same is true for experiences of those who belong to other religious traditions .This is a problem for those who believe their religion holds the truth . For William James the truth of religious experiences is much wider then concerns on any one religion