nature and influence of religious experience

conversion

adopting a new belief that differs from a previously held belief.

conscious voluntary experience

freely chosen gradual experience

involuntary and unconscious experience

visions and miracles

prayer

conversation with God that helps the believer come to a greater understanding of God and his purpose for their lives

meditation

gain knowledge about the impersonal God. hindus believe it helps them connect to the divine

mysticism

experience of direct contact or oneness with God

numinous

feeling of being in the presence of something greater with ultimate power

propositional revelation

idea of receiving knowledge from God

weakness of propositional revelation

person could be hallucinating, on drugs, misinterpreting what God is saying

non-propositional revelation

the ultimate truth is non-factual, there are perspectives and point of views. religious scripture is this and should not be blindly followed.

weakness of non-propositional revelation

reflections on encounters may be wrong

people may not feel the same way about their encounter

William Jame’s

founded pragmatism, suggesting religious experiences are true in practical terms and also in the way that they help us improve and make sense of our lives.

what is pint

• passive - not in control

• ineffable - not describable

• noetic - brings knowledge and understanding

• transient - temporary

Otto quote on numinous

“non-rational experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self”

objectivist

religious experiences are something real where the experiment comes into contact with something outside themselves. religious experience is proof of Gods existence

subjectivist

not necessary to think of the experience as proof of a universal truth, but a personal one that effects the experiment.

Swinburne’s argument for existence of God

defines religious experience as public or private, either perceiving a perfectly normal phenomenon religiously or a feeling of forgiveness that invites the idea that god has been experienced in some way

principle of credulity

trusting a religious experience is the same as trusting your everyday senses. we must trust them as we trust our instincts

principle of testimony

people usually tell the truth and we believe what we are told, so we should trust what we are told about RE

what do the principle of C&T argue

we should treat reports of religious experience in the same way we treat reports of non-religious experience, unless we have good reason to be suspicious

hick

pluralistic hypothesis - ‘the real’ is the ultimate source of all religious experience. each religious tradition presents the real as they see it. this is why diverse cultures shape their experiences

Swinburne quote

“an experience of god or some other supernatural thing”

hick quote

“different human responses to one divine reality`’

Dawkins - naturalistic interpretations

compares RE with psychosis and mental illness. our brains trick our perceptions of the world

dawkins - models

dreams, imagination and hallucinations - these are deceptive experiences

dawkins own experience

“if I had been both impressionable and religiously brought up, I wonder what the wind might have spoken” - when he was a child thought he heard a man speaking but it was the wind.

persinger

helmet with coils that produce a magnetic field. if our temporal lobes stop communicating then the right side invades our conscience, creating a feeling of a presence in our mind. the helmet mimics what happens naturally due to the earths magnetic field. over 900 people claimed to experience mysitical experiences and altered state.

counter evidence

re-test in the Netherlands did not show the same results so the participants knew what was being studied and showed demand characteristics.