Arguments for and against religious experience.

Arguments against Religious experience:

1.The reliability of testimonies - subjects of religious experiences may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and may even be lying or even ignorant in that they do not have strong enough knowledge of science to explain such an experience that they had, and so refer to God and religion when they question something. Therefore, because we cannot rely on a subject being reliable, we cannot trust their testimony of having a religious experience.

2. Pluralism - millions of people around the world claim to have had some sort of religious experience, however these experiences contradict each other because they come from very many different faiths and different Gods and religious figures are shown in such experiences. For example, the Virgin Mary might appear to a Roman Catholic within an experience whereas Krishna may appear to a Hindu. These experiences contradict each other because they show different characteristics of God, causing people to question the character of God, as some show him to be personal and others to be impersonal.

3. The message within religious experiences are subject to an individual's interpretation - "Your concepts are part of the experience, you cannot go naked into the experience" as Nicholas Lash said. This means that your experiences shape your interpretation of events such as religious experience because they come through the…