Ethics -Investigations into Religious Experiences

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  • Religious Experiences - Investigations
    • Moses and The burning Bush
      • God asked Moses to save his people from the Egyptians
        • Nothing argues that Moses wasn't hallucinating
          • This would be argued by Atheists
    • Caroline Frank Davis
      • Categorised Religious Experiences into six categories. In her book "The evidential force of the ultimate"
        • Show interactions between humans and God
        • Interpretive
        • Quasi- Sensory
          • Seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary or hearing voices from God
        • Relevantory
          • An experience which restores a persons faith or one which converts people
        • Numious
        • Mystical
      • Swinburne like Caroline Frank Davis formulated categories - he was a theist and believed in credibility - unless there was reason to question somethings credibility e.g substance abuse the we should take to be true
        • we should take things at face value and we should assume people are telling the truth
    • Benny Hinn
      • The Toronto Blessing 1994
        • Broke the norms of most other religious experiences- it is a corporate event ( a large number of people which experience the same interactions with a divine being.
          • This works in favour of proving the existence of religious experiences
            • Atheists could claim that being in such large crowds could cause mass hysteria and adrenaline which proves to temporarily numb pain and cause fainting, weeping, crying, and shaking
        • People are placed in certain conditions which make victims appear as if they have been healed and appear as if an act of God has taken place
    • Most common form on Religious experience is tongues
    • Derren Browns " A Miracle for Sale" 2011
      • Proved communication through God can be a fraudulent business- people claim to be a vehicle used by God to spread his word
      • Aims to highlight the extent of fraud circling tv evangelists one could assume.
      • Takes a random man off the streets to become a faith healer
        • People are placed in certain conditions which make victims appear as if they have been healed and appear as if an act of God has taken place
    • Near Death Experience
      • Many claim to have been witness to outer body experiences
      • Witnesses claim to have seen a bright light - holiness and pureness of heaven
      • We gain an insight into what the afterlife is like and therefore resort to religion
      • cause by hallucinations?
    • Religious conversions
      • Nicky Cruz
        • Had troubled upbringing
        • Mother and father were satanists
        • Became a part of one of NY most notorious gangs
        • Cruz felt Gods presence and converted to Christianity and left the gang
          • Cruz now helps vulnerable teens in the same position
        • The Psychological argument is an altercation which argues whether people who have had some form of communication with the ultimate have been illusions performed by the mind due to drugs.
    • Religious Experiences show us that god is omniscient omnipotent and benevolent
      • Atheists argue that God only interacts with people who already share the same beliefs - God is bias.
        • The bible states 'There is only one God' this is hypocritical as there are miracles occurring in other religions such as islam
          • This is contradicted by the quote " there are many rooms in my fathers house"
    • Atheists can claim that Christians are more open to miracles than atheists are so are more likely to be witness to the idea of there being an intelligent designer whereas the atheists will be more critical
    • Swinburne like Caroline Frank Davis formulated categories - he was a theist and believed in credibility - unless there was reason to question somethings credibility e.g substance abuse the we should take to be true
      • we should take things at face value and we should assume people are telling the truth
  • The variety of religious experiences make it increasingly difficult to prove whether they actually exist with ultimate or fraudulent scams claiming to be doing Gods work.
    • Religious Experiences - Investigations
      • Moses and The burning Bush
        • God asked Moses to save his people from the Egyptians
          • Nothing argues that Moses wasn't hallucinating
            • This would be argued by Atheists
      • Caroline Frank Davis
        • Categorised Religious Experiences into six categories. In her book "The evidential force of the ultimate"
          • Show interactions between humans and God
          • Interpretive
          • Quasi- Sensory
            • Seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary or hearing voices from God
          • Relevantory
            • An experience which restores a persons faith or one which converts people
          • Numious
          • Mystical
      • Benny Hinn
        • The Toronto Blessing 1994
          • Broke the norms of most other religious experiences- it is a corporate event ( a large number of people which experience the same interactions with a divine being.
            • This works in favour of proving the existence of religious experiences
              • Atheists could claim that being in such large crowds could cause mass hysteria and adrenaline which proves to temporarily numb pain and cause fainting, weeping, crying, and shaking
      • Most common form on Religious experience is tongues
      • Derren Browns " A Miracle for Sale" 2011
        • Proved communication through God can be a fraudulent business- people claim to be a vehicle used by God to spread his word
        • Aims to highlight the extent of fraud circling tv evangelists one could assume.
        • Takes a random man off the streets to become a faith healer
        • Near Death Experience
          • Many claim to have been witness to outer body experiences
          • Witnesses claim to have seen a bright light - holiness and pureness of heaven
          • We gain an insight into what the afterlife is like and therefore resort to religion
          • cause by hallucinations?
        • Religious conversions
          • Nicky Cruz
            • Had troubled upbringing
            • Mother and father were satanists
            • Became a part of one of NY most notorious gangs
            • Cruz felt Gods presence and converted to Christianity and left the gang
              • Cruz now helps vulnerable teens in the same position
            • The Psychological argument is an altercation which argues whether people who have had some form of communication with the ultimate have been illusions performed by the mind due to drugs.
        • Religious Experiences show us that god is omniscient omnipotent and benevolent
          • Atheists argue that God only interacts with people who already share the same beliefs - God is bias.
            • The bible states 'There is only one God' this is hypocritical as there are miracles occurring in other religions such as islam
              • This is contradicted by the quote " there are many rooms in my fathers house"
        • Atheists can claim that Christians are more open to miracles than atheists are so are more likely to be witness to the idea of there being an intelligent designer whereas the atheists will be more critical
    • God has the ability to heal resurrect and communicate (tongues)
      • The idea of Ockhams Razor can be applied to this idea as that theory states that the simplest explanations should be applied... scientific explanations more complex than God.
        • William James said "The results of religious experience and the only reliable basis for judging whether it is a genuine experience of the divine" in his book " The varieties of Religious Experience"
          • Meaning all these factors are psychological but directed at the divine
        • James observed and concluded that religious experiences draws on the common store of emotions which are happiness fear and wonder
          • William James said "The results of religious experience and the only reliable basis for judging whether it is a genuine experience of the divine" in his book " The varieties of Religious Experience"
            • Meaning all these factors are psychological but directed at the divine
        • Wittgenstein argued that the idea of 'seeing as' which could be a random vision of lines and dots - ink blots. This explores the idea that what appears to be a religious experience is our mind being illusionistic - therefore unreliable.
          • we can actually mistake what we perceive to be religious interaction with the ultimate when in fact it has nothing to do with god.
        • It could be argues that Cruz due to being in a gang who were notorious fr drug taking experienced religious experiences with the divine due to the fact the drugs would have had a profound affect on his brain inflicting hallucinations
          • R.M Hare used the idea of a 'blik' which is an unverifiable of a persons perception on the universe. Hare uses the analogy of a university lecturer who is under the impression his  colleagues are trying to kill him, yet  even though it was proven wrong to him, he still believed his theories was correct... this is a blik

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