What Is A Religious Experience Essays

Ultimately, he advocated that the study of religious experience may be beneficial as giving greater strength to the effects that it may have on people on a tangible level, but he didn’t suggest that through analysis of religious experience one could derive an argument for the existence of God.The majority of religious believers hold the view that religious experience is genuinely an encounter with God or the Holy Spirit.So in this respect, James’ position on the worth of analysing religious experience is mixed, as he believes not in the worth of the cause or the root of the experience (suggesting that he may see it as worthless), yet devised a way of categorising religious experience so as to make them more analysable.However there is th...

Alston’s argument is not evidence for religious experience, but suggest it’s not fair to simply reject religious experience as illogical or irrational.Claiming, the experiences derivation in psychology is evidence that religious experience is ‘natural’ and coordinated by God.He thought that through analysis we could determine if an experience qualifies as a religious experience, or has any legitimacy.Swinburne even says, only religious people would recognise a religious experience for what it is, and the objectors are ignorant.The psychological, sociological and physiological views are the main objections to religious experience.

James makes it rather clear in his book ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ that religious experience is central to religious belief.A religious experience is an encounter with God when you experience transcendent reality and it you cannot will it to happen.Swinburne suggests that it is the already religious people who are more likely to have a religious experience just because they have a better chance of recognising a religious experience by using their beliefs.Religious experiences can be experienced in many forms such as visions, voices, numinous experiences, conversion experiences, or corporate religious experiences.An ordinary experience comes under public and is an experience where a person interprets a natural event as having a r...

In the book ‘the varieties of religious experience’, James concluded that religious experience testifies that “we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace”.Many scholars claim that in addition to the difficulties with the arguments put forward in favour of religious experience there are alternative and more acceptable explanations of religious experience, for example, it could be the result of extreme emotional trauma e.g.Richard Swinburne also argues that we should accept reports of religious experience because of two important principles.In conclusion, although James is supported by others, it is clear that his position is open to severe criticism and that there are a variety o...

Davies says that people who claim to have had a religious experience may be unreliable, and on the basis that they may be either lying or were hallucinating due to drugs or alcohol.Richard Swinburne summarises religious experience for many by saying, ‘…experience of God or some other supernatural thing’.However it is defined, the topic of religious experience has been under scrutiny for centuries, with records of experiences dating back to before ‘Christ’; for example the burning bush in the Bible.The two main types of religious experience are special revelation and general revelation.One of the top issues is that there so many different religious around the world, each of which claims to have religious experiences of their particular de...

Finally the sceptic would note that a religious experience is not an ordinary experience, one see’s trees everyday but experiencing God is quite different.Personally I feel this is fine, why should the recipient of a religious experiences have to prove themselves, however I do feel some of Swinburne’s and Davies arguments to defend religious experience are not sufficient.Visions of God and miracles are empirically verifiable religious experiences, Hume and Ayer cannot dismiss these as that would be contradictory to their well established beliefs, thus empirically verified religious experiences can be used a sufficient justification for God’s existence.These are also used as religious experiences if you heard the voice of Jesus it would o...

Ultimately, whether an experience is emotionally or psychologically motivated, a form of wish fulfilment or a genuine religious experience, it is self authenticating, real and objective to the person who has experienced it.A major issue within the religious experience debate is corporate experience.Another key aspect of religious experience is the after effects, the idea that as a result of such an experience one’s life is changed.If we add this to the fact that religious experience is of the divine and the transcendent it becomes apparent that by its very nature it is extremely difficult to assess or comment on anything viewed as a ‘religious experience’.It is common for a genuine life change to happen after somebody has claimed to have...

When people claim to have had a religious experience, it can usually .experience: that religious experiences are completely different from .a religious experience; religious experience cannot usually be checked .experiences and religious experiences.experience relies on the assumption that the experience itself can .

On the other hand many feel that Otto’s description of religious experience leaves little room for the personal relationship which many religious believers feel they have.CAROLINE FRANKS DAVIES’ attempt to define religious experience as “something akin to a sensory experience… an intellectual intuition which is analogous to our intuition of other human persons… a roughly datable mental event which the subject is to some extent aware of”1 may help illustrate the immense difficulty in providing a definition that does not appear hopelessly vague.Although this does not nullify the ‘truth’ of all religious experience, the very nature of such an experience in resisting corroboration by independent evidence makes it virtually impossible to dist...

The neural substrates of religious experience.Just as someone may feel joy, love, fear, or awe in regards to any ordinary object, in a religious experience all these same feelings are there, they are just superimposed towards a religious object.In 2001, researchers conducted a study to see if religious experience was in fact due to attribution as Saver and Rabin suggested or if these experiences were pre-conceptual.This becomes especially important when religious experience is understood as logical cognitive process.They also concluded that religious experience did not elicit the same emotional experience or arousal as compared to non-religious subjects in a happy state, furthering the evidence for the theory of attribution.

Another main aspect I feel that strengthenes the argument put forward by Swinburne, is the fact if we were to prove that the recipient did not undergo the religious experience it is incredibly hard or even impossible.If there is strong evidence that X did not exist, for example if there is strong evidence for anyone to have a religious experience is impossible as religious experiences do not exist and the last challenge developed by Swinburne is if X can be accounted for in other ways.It is a recognized fact that people may claim to have undergone a religious experience, or some form of experience which reveals God to them.However, if Marx and Freud could prove that the recipient did not have a religious experience and it was rather, the...

” William James wrote that there are four qualities that make up religious experience.To quote Joseph Barbera, “I’m anything but immune to the power and the majesty of the religious experience.Overall, religious experience is central to any religion and has been the basis of the establishing of many major religions, such as Christianity and Islam.One of the least understood aspects of religious experience is mysticism.The scholar Rudolf Otto wrote about numinosity in religious experience.

Since most of what is known from religions is what is written and it is written in religious language, only those within that culture, religion and tradition, sincerely understand it.According to Smart, there are different types of religious experience.It is difficult for religious scholars to try to identify and describe world religions without faith in them since they will only try to use reason where it is not always an option.The experiential dimension is the religious experience.These religious scholars are influenced by faith and they learn about God in their own religion mainly through revealed theology while learning about other religions they might experience natural theology.

These are miraculous conversions and could lead to evidence of real religious experiences due to the amazing transformation both these people had, and in both cases the experience had a positive effect on there lives.There are four main forms of religious experience which can be considered when assessing this question that religious experiences are nothing more than fantasy.The next form of religious experience would be Conversion experiences.Visions are also a type of religious experience.William James was a philosopher who approached the idea of religious experiences he wrote a book called the varieties of religious experiences and came up with the idea that there are four main qualities that an experience should have for us to justify...

God revealing himself to human thereby connecting with believers, it is logical for him to want to seek out with believers The profound effect of religious experience proves that there was an experience in the first place which in terms prove God’s existence.The Principle of Credulity adds strengths to the argument as it successfully counters one of the main skepticism of religious experience thereby forcing us to have a serious philosophical debate on this matter.Religious experiences often “draw people into” having a deeper connection with the Divine and can have a profound impact on one’s life.This is perhaps best articulated by Otto who coins the phrase numinous in describing such an experience.To debate whether religious experiences...

After the experience Paul could be found in the company of the disciples that were in Damascus, which shows a very large turn around in his ideals, because before the experience he would have arrested and persecuted those men.Finally the experience should be transient, this means that the actual experience should not take very long at all, perhaps a few hours, but afterwards it has a very long, if not lifelong impact on the person who had the experience.It is hard to tell whether or not the experience was transient, as while the levitation took place over just a few minutes, we cannot know how deep an impact it had on Theresa, as she was already deeply religious, we cannot easily see how she changed as a person.Now we move onto conversio...

Therefore, religious language has restricted meaning in various forms but as Wittgenstein suggested this meaning can convey understanding of what theists mean to atheists but does not encourage belief.Even though myth is a powerful way of explaining religious significance it has a tendency to give God anthropomorphic qualities which can often be see as denying his transcendence.One of the key things about religious language is even though it is based on experience it is always going to be equivocal as it is very difficult to understand God.Myths can often be said to bring about religious truth regardless of factual credibility.This is why it is important to look past the facts of myth and into the real meaning – which is not often done, ...

Does what you’ve learned about this religious group help you understand it?Religious group: How does your selected religious group differ from other religious groups (such as in their beliefs, worship practices, or values)?How are the prejudice and discrimination experienced by your selected religious group and racial/ethnic group similar?What has been your selected group’s experience with other groups?What has been the experience of your selected religious group with others that do not share its beliefs or practices?

William James set out specific criteria for a religious experience.Only one religion can be wholly true as they make incompatible claims; and so we must dismiss most religious experiences as fantasy.In this way we cannot know whether each and every religious experience is fantasy; a conclusion reached by Bertrand Russell who reasoned that the fundamental truth that we cannot get inside someone else’s head and verify the experience deems this argument irresolvable.God we can experience in short, transient bursts but cannot experience the sum of him; this is not logically impossible.Kant objected to the term religious experience; calling it a contradiction.

Religious experience can be split into three types; mysticism, conversion and prayer.Swinburne also says that when someone explains about a religious experience they are only reporting how it appeared to them.Logical positivists would argue that there may not be a God so therefore they mare not be any religious experience occurring.He argues that we can acquire knowledge from experiences and that we can acquire knowledge of God by religious experience.Following these strengths of the argument the religious experience argument for the existence of God seams to be very strong.

V fleck analysed that true religious devotion was more common in epileptic patients than in the population as a whole.* M Persinger-mystical or religious experiences occur at the same time as micro-seizures in the temporal lobes of the brain.Research has shown links between the temporal lobes and interest in things religious.For me I think that this argument does have value, I think that religious experiences can just be reactions within the brain.The participant’s reactions were ones of euphoria, anxiety, a trance like state, and distortions of time and body perceptions; there experiences were reported as pleasurable and sometimes religious in content, especially in terms of the feeling of unity.

Thus if applied to religious belief falsification raises a question about the nature of the claims that religious people make.If the principle of verification is applied to religious claims, the claims can appear meaningless because they cannot be supported by observations from sense experience that go with what is probable.Ayer rejected accounts of religious experience, other researchers have suggested that there is clear evidence that such experience that such experiences happen and that a God causing the experience cannot be ruled out.In conclusion the principles of verification and falsification both present strong challenges to religious belief.However, they are not the only ways in which to assess religious language, and for many b...

Brunner, Christian Dr, 2011, The Function and Dysfunction .Whether our parents are religious, our own religious views, or others who try and convert you to a religion, we have all come in contact with a religion.We all have some experience with religion....ichard T, 2009, Sociology A Brief Introduction, pgs 14, 323-337 .Some countries have an ecclesia, or a national religion, while others have just denominations which are division within a religion that also is not part of a government (Schaefer, Richard T, 2009, pg 331).

The term ‘mystical’ is used to classify many religious experiences, and involves the ‘spiritual recognition of truths beyond normal understanding.A religious experience can be defined in a number of ways.While anyone can have a mystical experience it seems that the effects of the experience can be linked to alcohol or drugs.William James belief the categorizing of a religious experience was too ambiguous and so he set down a number of characteristics a true religious experience should have.For instance, a strong religious believer is more likely to undergo a mystical experience than someone who is not looking for one.

So if someone says they have had a religious experience, how can they prove that their experience is genuine, and also that it is better (or more genuine) than those of people in other faiths?religious experience he claimed to have had?The argument from religious experience is the argument that personal religious experiences can prove God’s existence to those that have them.We will return to the problems associated with religious experience later on in more depth.Argument of God’s existence based on people’s religious experiences and revelations, are not to be considered evidence by any standard for anything, and of course of no relevance for anyone else.

•In what ways has the religious group you selected contributed to American culture?•Does what you’ve learned about this religious group help you understand it?•What has been the experience of your selected religious group with others that do not share its beliefs or practices?Answer the following questions in 150 to 250 words each about the religious group you selected: .•What has been your selected ethnic group’s experience with other ethnic groups?

•What has been your selected ethnic group’s experience with other ethnic groups?•Provide specific examples of prejudice or discrimination your selected religious group has experienced.•How are they different?•What has been the experience of your selected religious group with others that do not share its beliefs or practices?•Does what you’ve learned about this ethnic group help you understand it?

Also, Ayers views may cause some conflicts for theists because it may give them doubts in their faith if they have never had any form of empirically verifiable situations, such as a religious experience.I don’t agree with Ayers view because I do feel that religious statements do hold meaning.Ayer may be correct in saying that religious claims hold no meaning to him, but they do to numerous amounts of other people.Therefore, is the religious language we use is separate to other forms of language, then it cannot be judged in the same sense, therefore it cannot be labelled as meaningless, unintelligible or nonsensical.Ayer claims that all religious language is unintelligible, but is it possible to use our limited language to talk of a perfe...

Consequently, Kant received a religious education that placed Latin above science and mathematics.The empiricists are wrong in thinking that we cannot go beyond experience and the dogmatists are wrong because they think that we can go beyond experience using only theoretical reason.While some of the theories of Religious philosophy have been debunked or lost popularity, they are still studied to give a common ground foundation for understanding the world’s diverse religious cultures.(Rossi, 2004)Even more importantly, from this; Kant concluded that time is not a thing in itself determined from experience, objects, motion, and change, but rather an unavoidable framework of the human mind that preconditions possible experience.History reco...

This suggests the idea that the religious experience of Buddhists in general is strongly tied to a personal level as its most basic foundation.As the life of Mohammed and his religious endeavors are clearly written in the many parts of the sacred scripture of Islam, his significant status in the Muslim world and his “religious” actions are indispensable—and emulated by Muslims.The religious experience of Siddhartha began after his encounter with a sick man, a poor man, a beggar and a corpse that revealed unto him the idea that humanity is filled with sorrow brought about by the sufferings in life .Thus, it can be argued that the religious experience of Mohammed, or at least the part in which he waged battles in his religious life, is dis...