Do religious experiences prove God’s existence?
YES → james fruits, principle of creduilty and testimony, conversion, corporate and mystical, examples of religious
NO → freud, starbuck + plinker all point to such experiences not being from the divine
OVERALL → such experiences will solidify to the believer that God exists, yet will never ultimately be enough for someone outside of christian circles to fully change their mind, there will always be an alternative explanation (john wisdoms parable of the gardner). we should focus on what these experience give us and how they make us as individuals feel rather than trying to create a communial abosulist view on such occurances
PARA 1 → conversion experiences are one of the strongest way for religious experience to prove gods existance
this is because they have the most emprically obsersvable fruits, often those who have such experiences end up becoming entierly new people with different drives
jame highlights st pauls conversion in the bible where he took on an entierly new outlook on life
HOWEVER → freud places a large pyschological challange to such arguments, giving an altenative explanation for conversion experiences
he empathsises the role of human fear within triggering haullincations, religion is ultimately a neuroisis, for example st paul could have been experiencing pyschological fears and guilt which caused him to have such an experience…
BUT → supported further through swinburnes principle of testimony, since if someone has a life changing experience and tells us so, unless there is a reason why we shouldnt such as drugs and alchol, but we do not have a reason not to believe what happened to st paul wasnt real. particuarly as the effects/ fruits were so large. His counter argument shows the individual approach that should be taken towards religious experinece rather than an external commentation and perspective
OVERALL → conversion experiences ultimately give us a more emprical and pragamatic look at the nature of religious experince and how they can prove the existance of God, but there will always be counter perspectives from differing beliefs which will try and create the alternative explanation. What we should rather focus on, as james and swinburne both highlight is our own personal feelings towards the experience and how this changes us rather than attempting to pressent a final view towards the existance of God
PARA 2 → mystical experiences
one of the main strengths of religious experiences which help point them towards coming from the same origin are the effects in which we get from them
for example the passivtitiy and ineffiablitly of such experiences are common, such as st teresa of avilila and her experience, davis highlights how this argument can tip the scales into God definately existing as it gives the final evdience
HOWEVER → there seems to be an alternate explaantion to these similar experiencies being from the work of God. this is bought forward by persinger and his God helemet, which made similar feelings of ineffiabilty and passivitiy occur
he therefore highlights a naturalistic explanation as to why such experinces may occur, not dimishing the argument for God since it could be defended as God himself actually interacting with our brains, yet it seems more simplistic to suggest a scinecetifific answer as opposed to a divine one
could also be physociological, for example vitinmin b deffiencies often lead to similar feelings - b russel - man who eats little and sees God
OVERALL → seems to be two juxtopostional perpseptives occuring from how we evaluate religous experieneces, but we should not from this then dimish from an external perspective the feelings and change within a person which comes from such experineces as hick highlights
PARA 3 → corportate experiences
whilst the other parts of religious experiences may be countered through pyschological and physociological claims from inidivdiaulsitic perspectives, coproate expeirecnes aviod these and give more support
for example the children of mejorgoerige
swinburnes principle of creduilitly may help to support, since if there is no other concept to believe then we should believe what people have to say
HOWEVER → it can be explained through a more sociological perspective known as mass hesteria where group delsusion can be seen as possible
on a more individualistic level for those involved within the experience itself, starbucks analysis and conclusion that such experinces are normative function of growing up may help to explain the pheneonomen at mejorgoerige because those involved in the experinece were young people
OVERALL → seems ulimtately to be two ways of externally looking at corportate religious experiences, but both of these do not seem to grasp the individualsitic nature, the fruits of religious experience