Religious Experience Flashcards
(35 cards)
Define numen
Something that is ‘wholly other’ than the natural world
Define conversion
The changing from one set of beliefs to another
Define prayer
Inward communication with the divine
Define objective
External to the mind, actually existing
Define subjective
Having its source within the mind
What is a religious experience?
A religious experience is an encounter of the divine. It is a non-empirical occurrence that brings with it an awareness of something beyond ourselves.
What is an awareness experience?
Seeing the work of God when looking at the natural world
What is a quasi-sensory experience?
Having a vision or other inner experience of God
What is a numinous experience?
Encountering the holiness of God
What is a regenerative experience?
A conversion experience
What is an interpretive experience?
Having prayers answered
What is a mystical experience?
A sense of the ultimate reality
What is a revelatory experience?
Recieving enlightenment and knowledge, perhaps through a revelation from God
What is a corporate experience?
When a large number of people share the same experience
What did Ninian Smart say about religious experience?
‘A religious experience involves some kind of ‘perception’ of the invisible world, or a perception that some visible person or thing is a manifestation of the invisible world’
What does Paul Tillich believe?
That a religious experience is a feeling of ‘ultimate concern’, a feeling that demands a decisive decision from the one receiving it. He describes it as an encounter followed by a special understanding of its religious experience.
What did William James say about Religious Experience?
“God was present, though invisible; he fell under not one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him”
What common emotions did William James observe that were directed at the divine?
Notably happiness, fear and wonder
What does mysticism mean?
The experience of having apprehended an ultimate reality
What does Richard Dawkins believe?
He believes that religious experiences are merely expressions of a person’s psychological needs.
“The argument from personal experience is the one that is the most convincing to those who claim to have had one. But it is the least convincing to anyone else, especially anyone knowledgeable about psychology”
What are the types of religious experience?
- The dramatic or conversion event
- Responses to life and the world
- Revelatory experiences
- Near-death experiences
- Mystical experiences
- Corporate experiences
What is a propositional revelation?
God communicates his divine message to a human being, for example Moses receiving the Ten Commandments or Muhammed receiving the Qur’an
What is a non-propositional revelation?
It is through religious experience, a person comes to a moment of ‘realisation’ of divine, for instance when the Buddha gained enlightenment
What is a mystical experience?
It is an experience in which a person experiences the ultimate reality, which brings with it a sense of unity with the divine, separateness from the divine and dependence on the divine.
