Religious Experiences
- Created by: AroojTahir
- Created on: 20-04-19 18:54
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- William James
- Religion and the mind
- James accept they have psychologicalor physiological explanation to religious experience.
- Argues that there isn't a whole explanation
- May be a natural cause of the experience-supernatural one.
- Judge experiences not based on what causes them but the effects.
- "Be ready now to judge the religious life by it's results exclusively" James
- The characteristics of religious experience
- 1) Ineffable: experience beyond proper description.
- 2) Religious experiences have a noetic quality. Gain deep and direct knowledge of God.
- 3) Experience is transient: passes with time.
- 3) A sense of passivity in the experience: expect something is acting upon then, not contribute to the experience.
- James' key principle on religious experience
- 1) Pragmatism: understanding truth. Truth isn't fixed but true for values on us. Effect of religious experience concludes we are true.
- 2) Empiricism: can't empirically verify the experience, result of experience is empirical data.
- 3) Pluralism: experiences determined by truths in our faiths.
- What might religious experiences show?
- Waking consciousness type of consciousness through religious experiences.
- James analogy with drunkness- another state due to alcohol.
- 1) World we see part of spiritual universe from it gains significance.
- 2) Uniting higher universe is our purpose.
- 3) Prayer helps with spiritual energy and produces psychological and material effects.
- 4) Religion provides people with new vest for life and love in relationships.
- Religion and the mind
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