Religious Experience (AO1 + AO3)

Philosophy of Religion Paper: Religious experiences - examples, scholars, essay plans

Davey Falcus - Modern Example

• Before: he was locked up for theft, fighting etc. - empty inside + drug addict - he wanted out of it/desperate

• His wife was pregnant

• Voice kept challenging him - left and changed his lifestyle

• Picked up the bible - prayed on the floor and said 'Jesus if you are god and can help me, I'm yours'

• After: - feeling of wellbeing + peace - bright light

• Saw Jesus standing there and he said 'Son your sins are forgiven, go on now and sin no more' - his 15 year drug addiction was broken instantly + alcohol addiction 20 years broken instantly

• No matter what your problems are, Jesus can help you

Joseph Smith - Modern Example

• 'pearl of great price' 1832

• He was confused on his present state - whether he was doing right or wrong

• Kneeled down and began to offer himself up to God - cried for mercy

• Prayed vocally - immediately he was seized upon by a power which overtook him immediately

• Saw a bright light - God calling out his name - message

• His sins are forgiven

Nicky Cruz - Modern Example

• Nicky Cruz was the notorious gang leader of the Mau Maus (named after a bloodthirsty African tribe)​

• Not long after becoming leader of this vicious gang, Nicky met David Wilkerson, a Christian preacher.​

• The preacher told Cruz that Jesus loved him and would never stop loving him.​

• A shocked Cruz responded by slapping Wilkerson and threatening to kill him. • Wilkerson looked Cruz in the face and said that he could cut him into a thousand pieces, but every piece would still say Jesus loves him.​

• That afternoon the preacher showed up at the Mau Mau's headquarters to repeat his message, and was slapped again by Cruz.​

• Wilkerson just smiled, and then prayed for Nicky. ​

• Two weeks later Cruz attended a meeting led by Wilkerson intent on teaching the preacher a lesson.​

• Instead, Cruz felt overwhelmed by guilt and collected money for Wilkerson.​

• Wilkerson prayed with Cruz, and Cruz asked for God’s forgiveness.​

• Cruz began to study the Bible and became a preacher himself.

St. Paul -  Example

• St Paul heard the voice of Jesus – ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’​

• This is followed by a declaration that the speaker is ‘The risen Christ’.​

• After this vision on the road to Damascus, Paul converted to Christianity.​

• Paul spent the rest of his life spreading the Christian message and is believed, according to Christian tradition, to have died a martyr’s death in Rome.​

• The name change from Saul to Paul is significant to show the conversion of Saul/Paul to Christianity.

Ellen White - Example

temporal lobe epilepsy

• At age 9 she suffered with a serious head injury - semi-conscious for weeks and ended her formal education

• After this experience she began to see powerful religious visions

• She founded seventh day Adventists

Ludwig Feuerbach - Scholar

• Naturalistic explanation

• RE’s origins in the human mind, rather than a God

• The Essence of Christianity (1841)​

• When people are worshipping God or experiencing the presence of God, they are in fact worshipping only their own human nature.​

• People take the best and admirable aspects of humanity – creativity, hope for the future, heroism, compassion and so on and project these aspects outside themselves – and hold them up for something to worship.​

• They imagine themselves to be standing in relation to these ideals, which they call ‘God’, but there is no real objective G-d existing beyond human nature.

Sigmund Freud - Scholar

• Founder of modern psychology.​

• Influenced by Feuerbach.

• A naturalistic approach to religious experience.​

• People who feel themselves in the presence of God are deluding themselves

• He recognised how the human ‘psyche’, or mind works on more than one level

• People have an unconscious as well as a conscious mental process to their minds

• This is still valued by psychologists today. There are thoughts in our minds that we are aware of as we get on each day and some, deeper levels of thought that affect who we are. Freud thought that the psyche is made up three layers.

Donald Winnicott

• A paediatrician and psychoanalyst.​

• Extended these ideas of Freud’s in his highly influential studies of childhood.​

• Winnicott was interested in the importance of the bond between a child and its mother in early life and the transitions that needed to be made in order for that child to become a mentally healthy adult.​

• He observed children playing and noticed that many had a ‘transitional object’ such as a teddy bear or a blanket, which the child had a very strong emotional attachment.​

• The child uses it for comfort.​

• This transitional object belongs in a stage between imagination and reality, where the child clings on to the comfort this object brings, imagining that it provides security and taking that illusion seriously, while at the same time knowing that it is just a toy or a blanket.​

• Parents often recognise the importance of these objects and will interact with them.​

• This is important for children who are transitioning from dependence on their parents to dependence on their object.

Toronto Blessing - Example

• In the 1990s, this phenomenon began at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and subsequently spread worldwide

• The most widely reported part of this was uncontrolled 'holy laughter' as well as crying, shrieking, falling on the floor and barking like a dog

• Christians claim they were acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit

Medjugorge - Example

• In 1981, 3 children experienced visions of the Virgin Mary over the period of several days

• The children claim to have received secrets and have had repeated visions in the years since

Fatima, Portugal - Example

• 3 peasant children - experienced the apparition of Mary and supposedly gave the children 3 secrets

• First secret - a vision of hell showing the suffering of sinners in a sea of fire under the earth (close to when World War I started)

• Second secret - end of world war I but also the beginning of another war (WWII) and includes the request for the consecration of Russia to Mary's immaculate heart as a way to bring peace

• Third secret - persecution of Christians - 'a Bishop dressed in white' - was interpreted as a prophecy of the Pope John Paul II who had an attempted assassination on him but he believed that the divine had saved him

Martin Buber - Scholar

• Humans have two different types of relationship:

• I-it: impersonal, what is encountered is seen in a detached, objective, functional and scientific manner

• I-thou: personal, involves emotion as if meeting a close friend

Rudolph Otto - Scholar

• Feels that religious experience is about the encounter with something awesome

• He realises how difficult the task of finding names to describe the 'holy'/'numinous'

• Otto's idea of 'schematization' is important for understanding the limitations of the philosophy of religion