religious experience sample essay

1 (a) (i) Examine the evidence and reasons to support either belief in God based on religious experience or an atheistic belief. Belief in God due to religious experience has often been questioned by scientists and logical thinkers due to what they see as ‘insufficient’ (K .Nielsen) evidence and reasons to support this. M Argyle argues that “religious experiences … are ultimately social in their sources and consequences”, this would suggest that it is people and society which are the cause of religious experiences, and that the repercussions of them are purely earthly. However, many would still see cause for belief in God based on religious experience, although the effects of such experience may be seen as beneficial to civilisation, this does not take away from their profound effects in individuals lives. W P Alston sums up the main problem surrounding religious experience; it’s a “purely subjective phenomenon.” Arguments on the topic of religious experience are inductive in that they cannot prove their own conclusions, furthermore, the language used will be synthetic and non-cognitive in that assertions made will not always be strictly factual. Richard Swinburne, a British philosopher and influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God concluded that; “on our total evidence theism is more probable than not.” Swinburne would argue that many people are more likely to believe in something if it has been experienced, and that religious experiences of God are the best evidence and proof that we have for his existence. Swinburne identified the types of religious experiences people had and acknowledged that there were differences between them, he saw all religious experiences which fell inside his categories (e.g. within the public and private realms) as valid and legitimate proof towards God’s existence, believing that we should accept what a person experiences unless we can prove otherwise. However, the credibility of these experiences could be taken away by ‘four key challenges’, one of which he identifies is that we should not accept experiences if the circumstances in which the experience occurred generally produce unreliable results such as intoxication from drugs or alcohol, or the recipient of the experience themselves is unreliable. Yet, this could be seen as contradictory, in the case of Davey Falcus who had a religious experience which led him to belief in God as he was known to be a drug addict and alcoholic, Swinburne would question the credibility of Falcus’ experience despite the profound change the experience had on his life, regardless of other factors being involved. Overall though, Swinburne’s ideas seem to provide reason to believe in God based on the evidence provided by religious experience, and through the principle of testimony states that we should accept people’s religious experiences as true unless positive grounds have been demonstrated which show it to be mistaken. Rather than develop a set of rules by which to categorise religious experience, F.C Happold developed a way in which people could think about their experiences and discuss them with others. He divided mysticism, (the belief that the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender) , into two types; the mysticism of love and union and the mysticism of knowledge and understanding. The mysticism of love and union is the inherent human desire to escape loneliness combined with our natural desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves; despite our wanting to be individuals we are always trying to find a way to God, such as through religious experience; “he (mankind) feels himself to be a pilgrim of eternity, a creature in time but a citizen of a timeless world.” (Happold) The mysticism of knowledge and understanding is another urge which is ingrained in all people to discover the ‘secret of the universe’. We search for answers to this ultimate question through experiential knowledge of God which isn’t logical but rather gained through intuition. These explanations of mysticism provided by Happold offer the reasons behind our need for religious experience and why the conclusion of these experiences is often belief in God. Yet, it could be argued that the religious person interprets experience according to a religious framework of life, whilst atheists are more likely to dismiss/interpret experiences as purely natural events because we only construe experiences in ways which we ourselves understand. William James is, arguably, the most famous commentator on religious experience, although he was not a theologian he had a deep interest in philosophy. In his book; ‘the varieties of religious experience’ he offers four characteristics which he claims will enable people to identify mystical experiences further. James identified that some religious experiences are Noetic in that the person receives knowledge of the divine which is not otherwise available to them, this can be seen as evidence towards belief in God based upon religious experience because this experience therefore must be a direct revelation from God, showing his existence in itself. James also argues that all people have religious experiences to some extent, and that since experience is the ultimate authority in truth, then God as the object of religious experiences, must be accepted as factually true. He further observes that mystical experiences tend to have profound and long lasting effects on the lives of people and even whole societies; “it is inadmissible that systems of ideas like religions, which have held so considerable a place in history, and to which, in all times, men have come to receive the energy which they must have to live, should be made up of a tissue of illusions” (E.Durkheim) and therefore cannot be attributed to hallucinations. In his later work James considers many testimonies of people who have claimed to have had religious experiences, the sheer certainty and quantity of these testimonies suggests that a belief in God is justified through religious experience as proof, there is too much evidence to dismiss experience as delusion. Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud would be quick to dismiss belief in God based on religious experience as he saw them as essentially, illusions and stated that they were simply projections of ideas that people had. Freud ultimately referred to religion and religious experience as mass delusion or paranoid wish fulfillment, suggesting that believers are turning away from reality and putting wishful images in its place. English author, Richard Dawkins would agree, calling religious believers “delusional” and religious experiences “memetic viruses”. (ii) Discuss the view that the evidence and reasons are not conclusive to support the belief selected in (i). Many would argue that the evidence and reasons aren’t conclusive enough to support belief in God based on religious experience as religious experience is very much like emotion in that it is a personal response meaning that it cannot be tested empirically in order to be verified. British philosopher A.J Ayer would see religious experience as inconclusive evidence to support belief in God as they are subjective in that no criteria can be applied to them to judge their merit or authenticity. In this respect they cannot be offered as ‘scientific’ evidence as they aren’t empirical or intellectual proof. Belief in God based on religious experience faces many challenges from science; V S Ramachandran is a neurologist who carried out extensive research related to temporal lobe epilepsy from which he has concluded that there is important evidence linking temporal lobes to religious experience, stating that people with the condition are “more prone to religious belief.” Although some in the scientific community would see this as evidence to suggest that religious experiences are not works of God but simply caused by the human brain itself, Ramachandran is willing to accept that it may be that God exists and has placed the temporal lobe within the brain as a means of communicating with humans, it is simply part of his design for us. Cognitive neuroscience researcher M Persinger agreed that temporal lobes have a significant role in religious experiences, but argues that the religious experiences are no more than the brain responding to external stimuli. Persinger claimed that by stimulating the temporal lobes with a unique machine he can artificially induce in almost anyone a moment that feels just like a genuine religious experience. When Persinger performed this experiment on Tibetan Monks and Franciscan nuns, they all reported that the experiment was identical to what they experienced in their own meditative practices. Studies such as these could render the evidence and reasons for belief in God based on religious experience inconclusive as this provides an explanation for experiences other than God which can be analytically proven. Freud also offers a credible psychological challenge to belief in God based on religious experience, he was able to link religion with neurosis because he noticed that many patients he treated who suffered from mental illnesses displayed obsessive behaviour. These patterns of behaviour were remarkably similar to some religious practices such as formal prayer and worship. For Freud, religious experience is an illusion which derives from people’s psychological needs - in some ways this makes religious experiences very similar to wishful thinking; “religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.” To conclude, scientific challenges such as these are successful in that they can make evidence from previous arguments of reasons for belief in God based on experience inconclusive by offering a far more reliable and realistic explanation for the unusual events and rest on scientific facts and medical proof. However, it can be argued that experience is the strongest form of evidence and if a person has a vision of a religious figure or hears the voice of God then they will firmly believe that they have had that experience, so no challenge from philosophy or science will make them change their mind.