Philosophy & Ethics - Religious Experience

Unit 3: Developments

Religious Studies: Religious Experience

Beginning...

It is an Inductive argument - it has an implied conclusion but isnt 100% definite.Also Aposteriori argument - due to Religious Experiences (RE) being experiences we have in life.

The premise behind the inductive argument: If an entity is experienced, it must exist. God is the sort of being that is possible to be experienced. People claim to have experienced god directly. Therefore god exists.

Carry on of Beginning...

Need one claim of a RE to use as a reliable evidence/source."God establishes himself in the interior of his soul... wholly impossible to doubt that i have been with god and him with me" - St. Mother Teresa.(Make sure to say St. for Mother Teresa otherwise you will be talking about a different Mother Teresa and will show the examinator that you dont understand).

William James:

Looks at real life experiences and belief of their testimony. Experiences show "Absolute Authority" that god and these experiences are 100% true. It is "Direct Awareness" of god - intuitively known that the experience is true and from god.in W.James book 'Varieties of Religious Experiences' he looks at experiences and found common factors: Ineffability - cant be explained. Noetic - gain knowledge not attainable to them Transiency - feels 'timeless' when in the experience Passivity - comes onto person without being sought

Buber: why RE are proof of G thro intuition

God acts through RE & use of RE are proof to his believers that he is real.   says there are 2 relationships:'I-IT' - day relationships with objects 'I-THOU'- deeper with those you love & god.Because of this god is the eternal THOU.

but because the 'I-THOU' is hard to prove then isnt a good argument. like trying to prove deep relationships with others.says to trust your senses of the THOU relationship and intuition will lead you to know it is god as the eternal THOU. dont need other proof to this relationship than intuition.

H.P.Owen:

sees RE as geunine source of religious knowledge which can be understood by our intuition.knowledge is from intuition (like our identity) not from arguments & reason (like the ontological argument).intuition (our 'I') allows us to make sense of our experiences.

God works through intuition to show us that he is real. its not the content of the RE that is important but our intuition to understand the experience is from god."Sense of gods reality can... be produced by the beauty and order in nature" - use intuition to look at world as a proof of god (design argument).

R. Swinburne:

belief that once you have tested credibility then makes high probability of god existence."perfectly good creator will seek to interact" - logical for him to interact with his creations (us). like parents interacting with their children.

2 principles as theory:1. Principle of Credibility: likely by our experiences (pink elephants isnt credible).2. Principle of Testimony - depends on person. trustworthy? extremists are not a.k.a. terrorists."probably as they recalled" - cred & prob = RE is real & so is god.

Against - David Hume & Wittgenstein:

Hard to know validity of RE - taking someones word. if god doesnt exist then experiences would be wrong (no defo evi 4 existence).if not from god then it would be  because of something else e.g. a new mental disorder.Even if Hume was a theist he still sees RE as too subjective & open to interpretation.

They arrive at own interpretation e.g. muslims see muhammed, christians see god. either one is wrong, both or both is lying.Plato (support) as wrong with shadows in cave analogy. could be wrong that its god.R.Hare(support) they see "Bliks" - pre-conditioned idea its god. they accept this.

Against - S.Freud & A.J.Ayer:

argument is developed from "mans desire" for a god which is a "father figure" desire also. need an authority figure.Saw religion as a projective system or "Universal Neurosis" - people who went lordes said they all experienced god but couldnt explain (ineffable).

To argue to "sense the numinous" dont conclude as a result of god. cant empirically prove 2 be from god - ineffable means they dont know enough to know its from god."He cant reveal what he knows... or devise an empirical test... shows intuition is not a genuinly cognitive state".

Against: J.Mackie & M.Persinger:

RE are "disanalogies" as cant prove god. everyday experiences (analogies) dont compare to gods existence as they have different characteristics,"only verifiable experiences are the common ones in daily life" - needs to be aposteriori evidence to be intuitivly verified.

created electric helmet that induced RE. small electric signals in temporal lobes. people reported feeling "something there" and "mystical experiences". shows that your brain can trick you to feel anything. may actually be more of a bio experience than spiritual (e.g. mental disorderdefect).