Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Philosophy AS > Religious Experience > Flashcards

Religious Experience Flashcards

1
Q

What are the types of religious experience?

A
  • Mystical- recipient feels a sense of union with the divine
  • Prayer Experience- this refers to experiences brought about by prayer and meditation
  • Visions- seeing or hearing evidence of the supernatural
  • conversion experiences- the effects of religious experiences are often permanent and life changing
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Saul’s Conversion

A
  • Roman soldier
  • he threatened the disciples and took followers of Jesus as prisoners
  • he was on the road to Damascus and a flash of light suddenly appeared from heaven- ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me…I am Jesus…now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do’ ‘he opened his eyes but could not see’ ‘For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink’.
  • a disciple named Ananias cured his blindness when instructed by Jesus, he said ‘Jesus has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ ‘He got up and was baptised’
  • Saul spent several days in Damascus with the disciples and at once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the son of God. He later became known as Paul.
  • conversion experience
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Examples of visions

A
  • Jacob’s ladder to heaven, dream of a stairway to heaven and angels and god were ‘descending and ascending on it’.
  • Joseph’s dreams in Matthew’s gospel- Mary’s conception, Herod warnings
  • St Bernadette’s visions at Lourdes- Mary gave her instructions that the spring water was holy and to build a church on the site
  • St Theresa of Avila- saw an angel holding a long spear at the end of which was fire, it seemed to pierce her heart several times and when it was withdrawn ‘left her completely afire with love for God’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What is religious experience?

A

Supernatural
Non-empirical
Mental event undergone by an individual
Spontaneous or brought about through intense training and self discipline
Draws the person into deeper knowledge or awareness of God
Unique

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Types of Vision

A

Individual- seen by one e.g. dreams
Group
Corporeal- object to external reality but is only visible to certain people
Imaginative- the image is produced in the person’s imagination and has no external existence to the person

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Sufi Meditation

A

Maraquaba is the Sufi word for meditation. It implies that with meditation a person takes care of his spiritual heart and learns about it, it’s surroundings and it’s creator. The person has a mystical experience, losing themselves in sacrifice to become one with and closer to God. It is self-annihilation. The main objections are ‘extinction of the self in God’ to have a union with God via the annihilation of the self.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Similarities and differences of Sufi and Saul

A

Both religious experiences
Profound impact on lives
Both experience the divine

Saul doesn’t choose while Sufi is induced religious experience
(Involuntary and voluntary)
Sufi is gradual, Saul’s is instantaneous

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What is a vision?

A

Something other than an ordinary sight- supernatural or prophetic sight, sometimes in the form of a dream, especially one which conveys a revelation
A religious vision occurs when an individual believes that they have seen something supernatural

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What is conversion?

A

Means ‘to change direction’
When effects of a religious experience are life changing and alter one’s view do the world and one’s personal place in it
Process that leads to the adoption of a religious attitude or way of life

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Types of conversion experience

A
  • VOLITIONAL- conscious and voluntary, a gradual change
  • SELF-SURRENDERING- an involuntary and unconscious experience ‘out of the blue’
  • PASSIVE- happens unexpectantly without being deliberately sought
  • ACTIVE- a result of specifically seeking a religious experience
  • gradual or sudden
  • TRANSFORMING- causes a great change in a person and their beliefs
  • Conversions can be INTELLECTUAL, MORAL or SOCIAL
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Gradual vs Sudden Conversion

A 
Gradual:
More enduring
Usually intellectual
Steadily deciding to agree with new faith
Look at possible objections

Sudden:
Have most dramatic effects (ie a non believer can suddenly change their whole belief system)
May know very little- could come across flaws and disagreements or objections to the new faith

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Define Mystical Experience

A

Recipient feels a sense of union with the divine and a deep understanding of spiritual truths. Usually involves a sense of freedom from limitations of time, space and human ego, and a sense of profound well being.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

F.C Happold

A

1893-1971
Mysticism: a study and an anthology
Said there were two types of mysticism:
-Love and union- longing to escape from loneliness and separateness. A union with God or nature and a loss of self
-Mysticism- people have an urge to find out the meaning of life, the secret of the universe. The way that we can look for answers is through experiential knowledge of God.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Three aspects of mystical experience

A
  • soul mysticism- idea of finding the soul and therefore complete self fulfilment e.g. Hindu concept of Brahman
  • nature mysticism- God is immanent and can be united within many aspect of nature. Observing the beauty of vastness of nature triggers a mystical experience eg. Wordsworth and Shelley
  • God mysticism- the souls of humankind desire to return to their ‘immortal and infinite ground, which is God’. Mystical union with God e.g. Sufi Muslims
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

4 characteristics of religious experience

A

(Theory of William James)- PINT

  • Passivity- ‘experience of losing control to a higher power’
  • Ineffability- ‘unutterable, unable to be described’
  • Noetic- ‘knowledge that comes from intuition rather than intellect’
  • Transiency- ‘short lived in time but not in significance’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Who was William James?

A
  • studied at Harvard Uni to be a doctor
  • studied religious experience from a scientific perspective
  • came from highly popular Gifford lectures
  • believed religious experience can tell us something about the existence of God
  • looked at the criticisms of the validity of religious experience and defending religious religious experiences as valuable and useful when considering the existence of God
17
Q

General criticisms of religious experience

A

-they are the product of a ‘faulty mind’
-they are often induced by drugs or alcohol
-they seem to take place across all religions
-they are too much like an emotion
-they are personal and cannot be empirically tested
William James answered these in his ‘ The Varieties of Religious Experience

18
Q

4 characteristics of religious experience

A

Passivity
Ineffability
Noetic
Transciency

19
Q

William James’ counter to the objection of ‘faulty mind’

A

Accepted that people believed it but that ‘religion and neurosis’ were perfectly compatible and to a degree necessary partners’
Also an ‘incomplete mind may be a more suitable instrument’ for religious experience to occur.

20
Q

William James’ counter to the objection of induced by drugs and alcohol

A

‘The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger existence’

21
Q

William James’ counter to the objection of seeming to take place across all religions

A

He completely rejects this. Maybe God has no culture or religion or all cultures are all paths to God. ‘No two of us have the same difficulties nor should be expected to work out identical solutions’.

22
Q

William James’ counter to the objection of them seeming too much like an emotion.

A

James says it is only the theories of religion which differentiate them because feelings and conduct inspired by them are very similar.

23
Q

William James’ counter to the objection of they are personal so cannot be empirically tested.

A

Regardless of which religion we could always find - a certain uneasiness about ourselves and the solution to this (becoming conscious of a higher being). The higher being can be thought of in psychological terms as our subconscious self

24
Q

Conclusions of William James

A
  • sheer certainty of people who had religious experience were found to be compelling- ‘god surrounds me like the physical atmosphere’
  • he claimed that the effects religious experience had on people’s lives were real and there is no doubt of those then the experience itself must also be real. If that cause is believed to be God then he exists. Does not prove the God of classical theism, just God in the sense of the source of religious experience
  • if something is real and true it improves a person’s life, false things are more likely to damage of restrict a person’s life and confuse them
  • people who say they’ve had them tend to be more fulfilled and purposeful
25
Q

Challenges to religious experience: Freud

A

People are completely material
If we can understand the physical side of life, we can fully understand human beings
Ignores possibility of ‘the soul’
Religion is a psychological obsession
Freud believed religious experiences to be projections of e.g. Helplessness, suffering, separation, hope and desire to be reunited with a parent
Completely rejected the idea of a creator

26
Q

Challenges to religious experience: Ramachandran

A

Neurologist known for work on behavioural neurology
Linked temporal lobe epilepsy with religious experience
Measured patients’ skin resistance changes and how much they sweated when they looked at different types of imagery- temporal lobe patients had a dramatic change when they saw religious imagery
Suggest St Paul had the condition
Willing to accept God exists and put the temporal lobes there to communicate with us- ‘
‘Our brain has developed specific structures that help us to believe in God’

27
Q

Challenges to religious experience: Michael Persinger

A

Cognitive neuroscience researcher
Agrees with Ramachandran but believes that religious experience is no more than the brain responding to external stimuli
Argued that he could use his god helmet to artificially induce a religious experience in someone
The brain is deprived from self stimulation and sensory input required for it to to define itself as different from the rest of the world
Brain defaults to a sense of infinity and one experiemces becoming ‘one with the universe’
Two researchers have produced images of the brains of Tibetan Buddhists and a catholic to determine what centres were active and which were not
In both cases the superior parietal lobe is suppressed and almost totally quiet. And not feeling ‘in the world’ leads to an ‘other worldly experience’, unsurprising that those who have this experience describe it as being in the spiritual realm
Persinger could reproduce this using his helmet by electrically suppressing activity in this part of the brain. The practice tests on the two subjects showed experience was identical to their own meditative practice results.

28
Q

Who was Ellen White?

A

Case study to support Ramachandran
Head injury at 9
Had visions, used as structure of 7th day Adventist Church-Protestant Christian denomination, emphasis on second coming of Jesus
‘While praying the power of God came upon me’. ‘I was wrapt up in a vision of God’s glory’

29
Q

Outline Richard Swinburne’s theory in general

A

Oxford University professor of philosophy
‘Our total evidence theism is more probable than not’
Cumulative approach- considers a number of arguments other than just those based on religious experience e.g. design, cosmological, moral arguments

30
Q

Swinburne’s Principle of Credulity

A

‘If it seems that subject X is present then it probably is’
Many who reject religious experience do so on grounds of scepticism, 21st century demands empirical proof for everything

Challenges:
Circumstances leading to unreliable reports
The recipient of the experience could not interpret the experience correctly
It is possible to shoe that was was supposedly experienced was not there
If it is possible to show that what was supposedly experienced was there but did not cause the experience
Counters:
1st two can be countered by William James, 2nd two- if we can show God was not present, or present but uninvolved
We cannot simply check if God was there or not

31
Q

Swinburne’s Principle of Testimony

A

We should generally accept other people’s testimonies
People usually tell the truth
‘We usually believe to have occurred what other people tell us they perceived occurring’
Accepts that there will be ‘special considerations’ e.g. The existence of positive grounds for rejecting what we are being told

32
Q

Criticisms of Swinburne

A

Caroline Franks Davis suggest that these can be put into three categories:
Description based challenges- If the description of the experience is suspicious, we should reject the experience all together
Subject related challenges- if the person making the claim is suspicious e.g. A known liar we should eject their testimony
Object related challenges- it is obviously impossible to verify of falsify the claims made about being experienced in the context of these experiences. Makes it difficult to accept testimonies of them

33
Q

Advantages of Swinburne

A

Accessible and understandable- relates it people directly
The elements have a far greater cumulative worth- even though the individual arguments cannot be perfect alone, Caroline Franks Davis said that if holes overlap in Flew’s bucket, they will not leak

34
Q

Disadvantages of Swinburne

A

Too close to emotion, no empirical or verifiable scientific evidence
Atheist philosopher Anthony Flew said that ‘if one leaky bucket will not hold water that is no reason to think that 10 can’

Philosophy AS (3 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions