RS - Religious Experiences
- Created by: queerokapi
- Created on: 27-04-19 11:40
View mindmap
- Religious Experiences
- Persinger's Helmet
- V.S. Ramachandran
- could be God's walkie-talkie
- stimulate the temporal lobes to create religious experiences
- confirmed by monks
- god blind, god partially sighted, god sighted
- Richard Dawkins is god blind
- V.S. Ramachandran
- spontaneous
- types of visions
- imaginary; seen with the mind's eye
- Jacob's ladder to Heaven
- corporeal: a figure is seen as externally present
- St Bernadette's vision of Mary
- intellectual vision: brings knowledge and understanding of God
- Julian of Norwich's revelation
- imaginary; seen with the mind's eye
- William James - the varieties of religious expereince
- 4 characteristics of religious experiences
- Noetic Quality
- brings understanding of the truth
- "and I was answered in my understanding" Julian of Norwich
- brings understanding of the truth
- Innefability
- beyond verbal description
- "i wish i could give a description [...] i find it impossible" St Theresa of Avila
- beyond verbal description
- Transiency
- short lasting but life changing
- Passivity
- loses control to a supernatural being
- "i abandoned and forgot myself" St John of the Cross
- speaking in tongues, different personalities, writing with wrong hand
- loses control to a supernatural being
- Noetic Quality
- responses to criticisms
- 4 characteristics of religious experiences
- Types of mysticism
- Soul mysticism
- finding the hidden soul allows self fullfillment
- "the chief object of man is the quest for his own self" F.C. Happold
- finding the hidden soul allows self fullfillment
- Nature Mysticism
- God is immanent. He is expressed through/united with nature
- Soul mysticism
- Sigmund Freud
- people are completely material
- to understand our psychology and biology is to understand us
- religious experiences are illusions
- kind of like metaphors- Christ on the cross represents suffering, helplessness, separation
- people are completely material
- problems of verifying religious experience
- drugs/alcohol
- often experienced individually
- useless to empirically test
- subjective experiences cannot be offered as scientific
- they often portray the being they saw differently
- doesn't make them all useless
- Psychopathological issues - mental health issues
- the mind can misjudge experiences under extreme conditions - mirages
- a finite cannot experience an infinite
- how to test religious experiences
- coherence theory - is it coherent with other proven truths within a given system of thought
- is it similar to other religous experiences
- pragmatic theory
- what is the consequence of accepting the experience?
- correspondence theory - does it correspond with something we know to be true
- coherence theory - is it coherent with other proven truths within a given system of thought
- Richard Swinburne
- cumulative approach
- "on our total evidence theism is more probable than not"
- principle of credulity
- "what one seems to percieve probably is so"
- 4 key challenges (Caroline Frank Davis)
- the circumstances (intoxication) or person (pathological liar) are unreliable
- the recipient is unable to interpret the event (children)
- we can prove what was seen wasn't there
- we can prove that what was seen wasn't involved
- principle of testimony
- we should trust generally trustworthy people
- cumulative approach
- Numinosity
- Rudolf Otto
- book - "das heilige"
- describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity
- "Mysterium tremendum et fascinans"
- fearful and fascinating mystery
- like nothing we've ever seen before
- scary
- amazing/beautiful
- fearful and fascinating mystery
- Rudolf Otto
- William Stace
- "a oneness or a One to which the senses nor reason can penetrate.’
- Persinger's Helmet
- how to test religious experiences
- coherence theory - is it coherent with other proven truths within a given system of thought
- is it similar to other religous experiences
- pragmatic theory
- what is the consequence of accepting the experience?
- correspondence theory - does it correspond with something we know to be true
- coherence theory - is it coherent with other proven truths within a given system of thought
Similar Religious Studies resources:
Teacher recommended
Comments
No comments have yet been made