Religious experiences AO2

Arguments against religious experience

Arguments in favour of religious experience

Object-related - The cause of the experience

Subject-related - The subject of the experience and their reliability.

Description-related - The reliability of the subject’s description of the experience

Principle of credulity - We should believe the evidence of our senses, unless we have good reason to think we might be mistaken.

Principle of testimony - We should believe what other people tell us about their experiences, if they are usually trustworthy

Just because people have lied in the past doesn’t mean they are always lying
Otto - The Wholly Other - Don’t have to understand it for it to be real
William James - religious experiences are real based on their pragmatic effects and their immediate psychological authority for the individual
He did not claim they prove supernatural entities but asserted that, because they produce genuine, verifiable transformations in human lives, their experiential reality cannot be denied.

William James:

William James - religious experiences are real based on their pragmatic effects and their immediate psychological authority for the individual
He did not claim they prove supernatural entities but asserted that, because they produce genuine, verifiable transformations in human lives, their experiential reality cannot be denied.

Pragmatism - James argued that the truth and validity of an idea are found in its practical outcomes.
Psychological Authority for the experiencer - He established that for the person undergoing a mystical experience, the event feels just as real, object and authoritative as everyday physical sense perception.
Empirical observation - In his book, James used extensive qualitative data
Shared mystical characteristics - He identified universal commonalities (PINT) and argued that this cross-cultural consistency points to an underlying engagement with a reality beyond normal, day-to-day consciousness