Eduqas Alevel RS Theme 3: C Challenges to the objectivity and authority of religious experiences

what are some issues with religious experiences

- explanation isn't alway God (mental illness or science)

- bias - people can convince themselves that it was religious, hear what they want to hear

- individual are hard to verity

- may not have been the God that they think is

-circumstances, weak moment

- have to accept that God exist, insufficient evidence

what does objectivity mean

used as a contrast to subjectivity. Something is viewed objectively if it is viewed without any bias, and if the fire has no personal interest in it. (how can a re be authentic as almost everyone that has one will be religious ) It is very difficult to be objective in religion as people will have a view if God exists or not so they will already have an underlying bias in one direction.

how does objectivity challenge the authenticity of religious experiences

It is very difficult to be objective in religion as people will have a view if God exists or not so they will already have an underlying bias in one direction. A group of philosophers said that if a claim cannot be tested using empirical evidence (using any of the 5 senses) to see if it is true or false then it has no value to the claim it is making. There is no way of testing that what someone heard was God's voice, it cannot be tested so we can't claim it to be true, or false.

what is authenticity

the quality of being real, genuine or true. Religious experiences are sometimes challenged on the grounds that we have no way of knowing whether a claim of an encounter with God is real or not

what challenges do the authenticity of religious experiences present

critics object saying that we have no way of knowing whether the object of someone's religious experience is actually God or it just seemed like God to that person. A lot of people dream about flying in the air but the reality Is that it will Never happen and Never could happen. How would anyone recognise God enough to know that it was Him speaking, did they really have an experience or is it made up?

what are the natural explanations for religious experiences

- some people sue RE as an inductive argument for the existence for God, saying that of a person believes they have experienced God, the best explanation is that there is a God. Others however say that the Re is more plausible in naturalistic terms that is without any reference to the super natural.

- claims can be proved fake based in understanding. Someone might think that they have had a religious experience but in reality it is a factor of the causes not God. They have misunderstood their own perceptions.

- It could be because many REs happened at a time when medicine was not well discovered and there could have been a physical cause for what was happening. Such as Saul, the bright light and voices could have been epilepsy rather than God.

- It could be that they are delusional, the person is not experiencing God but just a byproduct of a mental health issue. Voices and hallucinations could just be down to mental health disorders such as schizophrenia

- some have fantasy like accounts where it just seems too unlikely to remotely have any truth in the account. Such as teresa of avila said that whilst praying nuns had to hold her down from floating away

what did Persinger do

the helmet experiment. he tried to artificially create a religious experience, using a helmet that sent small waves into the brain. A significant amount of participants experienced things that are widely reported to happen during a RE. This lead to him concluding that the effects of REs are not the effects of God but merely caused my magnetism. Some say that this was not reliable information as the participants knew that they might feel like this sou subconsciously might have pushed them to feel like that.

what is Swinburne's defence for religious experience

He puts forward the argument that a RE should be given the same kind of treatment as any other non religious experience. If we think we heard our phone ringing then it probably did ring. We could have been mistaken it might have been a phone on the television or the phone of something walking past, but usually we can and we should trust the evidence of our senses. if our senses are saying that we spoke to God then we most likely did, we have no definitive evidence to prove that God does not exist, it is also likely that God would want to communicate with us. He proposes the use of two principles:

1. Principle of credulity = we should believe the evidence of our senses unless we have good reason to believe that it is mistaken. Experience is normally reliable so we should trust in them. If we think and trust that the experience is coming from God then we should believe in it.

2. principle of testimony = other peoples reports, we should be prepared to believe that they are genuinely experienced God. of course they could be lying but If they are usually trustworthy then we should believe them.

who is Caroline franks Davies

Explored the authenticity of REs in her book "the evidential force of religious experiences" She looks in detail at the question of whether REs can be counted as evidence towards God and under what circumstances should the person reporting the experience be believed. She identifies three challenges: Description related, Subject related and object related.

what are the description related challenges presented by Caroline Franks Davies

- There is something in their description that just doesn't add up, making us less inclined to believe them. For example If there were logical inconsistencies un the report we would not believe it straight away. Franks Davies gives the example of someone saying they saw a square circe.

- the account could also conflict with our background knowledge and does not fit with what we already know such as someone saying that they saw a dodo outside when we know they have been extinct for years.

- the persons behaviour was not consistent and their actions conflict with what they say. Such as someone saying there is a cobra in their room without fear or a desire to remove it. You would be less inclined to believe this.

- Ambiguous terms are used such as the accident happened on the pavement, an American might nit understand the differences in the English language.

Franks davies says that it is not often that there are inconsistencies within the account meaning they do not often need to be not believed. Sometimes we need to doubt what they say based on our own knowledge and language for example if someone says that God told them to do something evil we might know that it isn't true if they wanted to do it anyway and it would conflict what we know about God already meaning that we would most likely reject it.

what are the subject related challenges presented by Caroline Franks Davies

Challenges we might make about the person giving the report, are they really trustworthy or do we know that they lie. Such as If someone says that the flowers are orange but we know them to be colour blind we might be more inclined to not believe their claim.. Someone could not have had the training necessary to recognise what they perceive such as someone saying that they know the song is out of tune despite never hearing the original song.

She also raises the issue of a large amount of people that have conflicting claims that don't match up. Such as we fell/ we were pushed or we jumped. This casts doubt and often we don't know who to believe so we go with the most likely one or we choose not to believe. A final issue could be that the subject may not be perceiving or telling the truth due to an additional factor being involved such as drugs or illness causing hallucinations. The thing is that most of this is subjective based on what you think is a factor that affects or doesn't affect perception of the REs

what are the object related challenges presented by Caroline Franks Davies

whatever is meant to have been perceived is called into question meaning we need to ask if the thing that they experienced is likely or unlikely to exist. It could be that it is impossible for the object of the experience to exist or it could be improbable that the object was present at the time of the experience. Such as I claimed to see Henry the VIII this morning, you would doubt my report not because my description of him was wrong but logically he cannot exist as he died many years ago.

what is franks Davis conclusion

that although some reports of religious experience may be doubtful, on balance the challenge against it fails. Although some do present more scepticism than others such as mental illness or misperception there have been many great people in history that have had REs and ha positive overwhelming effects from them.

what are some other challenges against religious experiences

- some people reject them because it is almost impossible to prove it either true or fake as there can be no independent witness to an internal experience.

- claims related to substance misuse. the experience could have been triggered or happened because of drugs making the claim unreliable. Such as a sick or dying person on drugs might hallucinate.

what can be said in defence of religious experiences

- we might marry someone or buy a house just because it feels right, an internal experience that cannot be tested yet we know it to be true. Why does this not extend to RE's

- one off experiences can still be valid even if they are never repeated. Prima Facie - first impression assumed correct until proven otherwise. One might not be able to recreate the experience to prove that God did communicate with them so there is therefore no evidence to prove that God was not there in the present moment

what is the impact of religious experiences upon religious belief and practice

impact greatly:

- all religions feature a key figure who's RE founded the religion

- religious people rely on Re's for their own faith

- James observed RE recipients will always identify with faith

- we can observe the impact of religious experince by the resulting behaviour

no impact:

- the RE's of key figures cannot be shared or felt by other believers

- people are too sceptical of RE's to let them affect what they believe

- AJ Ayer had a near death experience that he later rejected as evidence for an alternative reality

- religious people do not have monopoly on moral behaviour

some impact:

- the RE is not a stimulus for faith but does not cause the development of the doctrine

- RE will affect faith only if individuals have an experience themselves

- belief is what precipitates a religious experience, not the other way around

- a experience does not require a person to begin to behave religiously

what is whether different types of religious experience can be accepted as equally valid in communicating religious teaching and beliefs

more valid than others:

- conversion is the most valid because we can see the evidence for its authority

- mysticism is the most valid as it is the first hand experience of the divine

- prayer is the most valid because it is direct communication between human and God

- visions are the most valid because they require use of sensory evidence

equally valid:

- all types of RE are life changing for the individual recipient

- these experiences cannot be divided into exclusive types eg a vision may convert

- regardless of faith perspective, all RE's share similar qualities and features

- All RE's communicate something beyond the material world

Not valid at all:

- RE's cannot be trusted as they are so diverse in nature

- musical experiences often communicate completely contradictory ideas

- nothing makes one experience better than the other. They are equally untrustworthy.

- RE's do not use commonly understood language to communicate

what is the adequacy of Jame's four characteristics in defining mystical experience

fundamental in the definition:

- all lists from other scholars are based upon the work of James

- His four characteristics retain the flexibility to describe mysticism in any faith

-ineffability preserves the supreme sense of mystery within mystical experience

- they give a comprehensive account of religious experience that can be understood by all

adequate only:

- scholars have not definitely rejected James' list over the last 100 years

- James accommodated a very broad definition of religion and religion experiences

- Ineffability simply shows that the event must be described metaphorically not literally

- James takes a psychological rather than areligious approach to describing the events

insufficient for definition:

- scholars such as miller have suggested other additional important features that James has not included

- The central feature of mysticism seems to be unity and yet James leaves it out

- no account can be adequate if we cannot describe it in ordinary language

- James' characteristics only describe a hallucination, not a real event.

what is the adequacy of Otto's definition of numinous

fundamental:

- the numinous expresses the ambiguous relationship between the divine and humanity

- his definition gets to grips with the fundamental sense of experiences the divine

- he is more effective than James in demonstrating the unique nature of the source

- Otto's definition does not limit RE's to one type of event

adequate:

- http has inspired writers such as CS lewis to exemplify the numinous in their books

- Otto accounts for a believer's experience but not an objective source

- Otto is consistent with biblical experiences of God that are fearful as well as ecstatic

- Otto is consistent with biblical experiences of God that are fearful as well as ecstatic

- Otto reflects that we can relate more to a recipients feelings more than to such an event

insufficient:

- Otto merely reworks James' fining and adds nothing new to the analysis

- He interprets religious experience according to his prior framework of belief

- Otto is too vague to be understandable by those who have had no first hand experience

- He is too reductionist in focusing on feelings rather than the divine itself

what is the extent to which religious experiences are valid

valid:

- many other testable explanations which are more believable

- no one can experience the 'wholly other' experience is only in the empirical world

- there is so much more diversity of experience that is impossible to trust these accounts

- there is too much variety in interpretation of these experiences

not valid:

- you cannot test experience of the divine by sane criteria as experience of the empirical

- inspiration has led to the scientific discoveries such as the benzene ring

- it is unreasonable to assume all religious experiences are retold by lairs

- it is impossible to train to reliably interpret such experiences

have some validity:

- verification is the only way of producing any kind of certainty about truth

- inspiration must then be rigorously tested to become a scientific theory/ discovery

- RE's are so unusual that we should at least question integrity

- We cannot claim to have knowledge, only belief, even if the experience is genuine

what is the persuasiveness of Franks Davis' different challenges

very persuasive:

- Even if the claimant has integrity there will be too many problems with their claim

- our senses aren't often fooled, RE's are likely to be real

- There are three different ways we can challenge any account leaving no room for belief

- we automatically have reason to doubt someone's claim as it is not universal or even unusual

not persuasive:

- she lists the challenges as inadequate against RE's

- the principle of credulity shows that if something seems to have happened it probably did

- the first hand experience of many outweighs the abstract theorising about what is possible

- the principle of testimony says that we should not be sceptical and we should believe with the sole goal of believing not proving wrong

have some persuasive features:

- the volume of challenges that are presented give reason for doubt

- there is already a good reason to doubt the event happened because claims of the divine are made.

- gathering multiple doubtful accounts does not mean we now have sufficient evidence

- if someone claims to see something that we don't know yet to be real then we will enter with doubt