Nature Of Religious Experience Flashcards
(17 cards)
What are the 2 different types of revelation?
Propositional: idea that God passes a set of factual knowledge to humans
Non-propositional: idea that ultimate truths are non-factual they are perspectives and point of views.
Name 3 different types of religious experience
1.Conversion: adopting different religious beliefs that differ from previously ( happens during life changing experiences)
- Mysticism: experience of direct contact /oneness with God
- Numinous: feeling as though you’re in the presence of smth greater.
What did William James do?
Made the term religious experience.
Investigated postive psychological impact of religious experiences not their validity.
What 4 terms did willian James use to describe religious experience?
Passive: experiential isn’t in control of their body during their encounter.
Ineffability: religious experiences can’t be described with words .
Noetic: experience brings knowledge and understanding of unknown.
Transient: experience is temporary but can affect direction of life
What are the different types of revelation?
Propositional: God passes set of factual knowledge to humans
Non- propositional: monistic belief. Ultimate truths are non-factual and just perspectives. Religious scripture is a human document not a given object.
How does rudolf Otto describe religious experience ?
‘Mysterium tremendum fascians’ ~ religious experience is mysterious and can’t be put into words so it fascinates us with the divine
What are rudolf ottos key beliefs
Viewed God as separate from human beings through numinous
Religious experience is ineffable
Numinous provokes fear as it is unknown and greater than us
Give a quote from rudolf otto and William James about religious experience
‘Non- rational, non sensory experience or feeling outside the self’
‘Experience of individual men in their solitude’
What are naturalistic interpretations of the religious experience (give 2)
- religious experiences are due to non-supernatural causes
Psychological- sigmund Freud God is projection of human father caused by emotional need for protection.
Physiological - result of biological processes e.g epilepsy stimulates temporal lobe creating hallucinations
What are different views on religious experience?
Objectivist : religious experiences are real. Shows existence of personal God: ultimate truths
Subjectivist : religious experiences dint necessarily have to be proof of existence. Experiences only hold meaning and truth for experience bcos they’re personal .
What are Swinburne 2 principles
Principle of credulity: Trusting religious experience is the same as trusting senses so we should believe but they can mislead us.
Principle of testimony: people usually tell the truth show we should accept their religious experience (unless they’re known to lie). We trust others testimonies abt different subjects .
What does Dawkins believe about religious experience (criticisms)
Those who are knowledgable about psychology won’t believe in them.
Naturalistic: they are as a result of psychosis ( being religious makes you more susceptible to belief of them)
Who created the ‘God helmet’ and what is it?
- Michael persinger
- created a device which stimulated the temporal lobe using electromagnetism to induce ‘religious experience’ as some reported feeling presence. E.g. monks reported similar feeling to meditation
What is the pluralistic hypothesis?
- different religions may experience the same divine reality but they subjectively perceive them as different beings (God or Nirvana)
- religious experience: ‘different human responses to one divine reality’
What are criticisms of religious experience (Vardy and Davies)
- vardy : critices Swinburne principles.Should be sceptical of religious experiences and not just take them as true, should think of other explanations as there infrequency means evidence needs to be of higher quality.
- Davies : there is no ‘uniformity of testimony’ if accounts are true there should be some similarity. We can know God exists through religious experience but we can’t know exactly what he is like.
What are strengths of religious experience as evidence for Gods existence?
- conversion of St Paul on the road of Damascus is reported in the bible (acts). ‘Suddenly a bright light from heaven shone around me and I fell to the ground’
-Cultural lens: even though cultures differ on how they view the divine, religious and mystical experiences share features such as unity, ineffability and peace as outlined by William James.
What is pragmatism?
- William James theory that we can never establish that religious experiences are true in a fixed way
It depends on if the experience works practically
