Religious experience

Question 1

Stylites

Answer 1

• Pillar saints
• Stood on pillars preaching, fasting and praying
• One stood on a pillars for 37 years
• Believed mortification of their bodies would help salvation of their souls

Question 2

Schleiermacher

Answer 2

• Religious experience is “self authenticating”
• They’re central to religion

Question 3

JL Mackie

Answer 3

People unintentionally mislead or exaggerate accounts

Question 4

Feuerbach

Answer 4

• Religion is an illusion
• It comes from the fact that humans feel alienated from their own lives so project their wishes onto God

Question 5

Alston

Answer 5

• Sense experience is generally reliable
• So why do we suddenly reject senses if it’s unusual?
• We trust our senses all the time except for when they’re paranormal

Question 6

Richard Swinburne

Answer 6

• Public ordinary
• Public extraordinary
• Private describable
• Private non-describable
• Non-specific

Question 7

Donald Winnicott

Answer 7

• Importance between mother and child bond
• Many small children form an attachment to a “transitional object” for a security blanket
• Religious experience is an illusion
• People who can’t distinguish between illusion vs reality enter into “the hallmarks of madness”

Question 8

Thomas Hobbes

Answer 8

What’s the difference between a man saying God spoke to him in a dream and a man dreaming that God spoke to him?

Question 9

Wittgenstein

Answer 9

• “seeing-as” — I might see someone is public and think they’re an old friend, but when I call out they turn and are actually a stranger

Question 10

Bertrand Russell

Answer 10

Some drink too much and see things, others fast too much and think they see God

Question 11

Fanaticism

Answer 11

• Common in religious experiences
• People begin wholeheartedly believing that what they experienced is undeniably true and must be accepted, despite the fact that they chose to interpret the event religiously

Question 12

William Vecera

Answer 12

• Served in Afghanistan
• Began talking to God in prayer, then experienced gradual conversion w/o any sudden single moment, jut lots of little moments

Question 13

St Ignatius of Loyola

Answer 13

Change in personality from wanting to glorify himself to wanting to glorify God

Question 14

CS Lewis quote

Answer 14

“The most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”

Question 15

Hume

Answer 15

• Humans are naturally drawn to the bizarre
• People love hearing crazy stories that, once they’re passed down, become even crazier