Religious experience

Deductive argument

Uses logic to arrive to a conclusion e.g. Ontological argument - no experience required

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A priori/analytic argument

deductive argument

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Inductive argument

Sense experience required to verify e.g. teleological argument

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a posteriori/synthetic argument

inductive argument

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Direct awareness argument

Based on intuition

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Define RE

"an encounter with the divine that leaves one without any doubt that a higher spiritual force exists beyond ourselves"

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Four types of RE's

Visions Conversion Numinosity Mystical Experience

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Kant and Aquinas

God is beyond our experience

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Aquinas Maimonides

our ability to merely discuss God is strictly limited

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Aquinas

In life- it's impossible to have direct acquaintance with God- transcendent in nature

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Aquinas #2

we can only become acquainted with the products of God's existence

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General revelation

experiencing the products of God's work existence e.g. TA

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Davies

if we believe in God's existence- reasonable to accept he can be experienced

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Huxley

discussed profound experiences when taking hallucinogen mescaline- drugs responsable for RE

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Swinburne

Principal of credulity and testimony

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Principal of credulity

we should accept what appears to be the case unless we have clear evidence to the contrary-accepting

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Principal of testimony

unless we have positive evidence that they are misremembering/untrustworthy- believe their testimony of RE

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Saul

converted by Jesus- went blind for3 days then followed the word of the Lord

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James

'the divided self and the process of its unification'

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James #2-type of conversions

volitional and self-surrender

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volitional

person attempts to make spiritual change e..g. start studying the Bible

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self-surrender

giving oneself up to the Lord-just happens spontaneously

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Teresa of Avila

Famous Christian mystic

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James #3- mystical experience

Ineffability, noetic, transiency and passivity.

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Photism

receiving visions

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Photism

receiving visions

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locutions

hearing voices

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Teresa of Avila #2

'when my soul reached this state where God granted it great mercy, my troubled ceased'

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Toronto Blessing

Corporate experience- gift of tongues, holy laughter, spasms

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Glossolalia

speaking in tongues

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James #4

'healthy minded' vs 'sick soul'

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'healthy minded'

Life's optimists, solve life crisis

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'sick soul'

Neurotic, divided self, low self esteem, depressive

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Jung

Life goal is unification of a divided self

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Frankl

find own personal meaning to life to overcome unhappiness

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Zaehner (took psychoactive drugs)

theistic/non theistic mysticism

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theistic mystiism

returns to God as answer

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non theistic mysticism

uniting with self

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Pahnke

psilocybin experiment- felt unity with universe

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Maslow

spiritual experiences are merely fact of the mind

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'Peak experiences'

relative to culture- feeling of transcending the universe, flooded with feelings of awe- all generated by the mind and interpreted spiritually from person/society

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Teresa of Avila, James and Mackie

RE verifiable via how it has affected experiencer's life

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Peter Sutcliffe

Yorkshire ripper- claimed to have been spoken by God

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Alston

unless one can prove otherwise, experiences are generally accurate

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prima facie

until proven otherwise

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Greeley- coherence theory of truth

if an experience fits in with other things we believe to be true, it's more likely to be true

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Mackie

people that claim God to be cause of RE are mistaken about cause

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Mackie #2

we interpet experiences in the light of 'cultural conditioning' - conflicting claims argument

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Swinburne- proof of God

Experience of X indicates reality of X. Ex. of God- reality of God. Possible to Experience God- God exists

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Otto-RE

'key understanding of religions'- 'there's no religion which it doesn't live as the inner most core'

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Cumulative argument

Mitchel- amount of empirical evidence to support RE's strengthens argument

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Flew

leaky buckets- '10 leaky buckets is no greater than one'

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Davis- opposes Flew

may be possible to arrange the buckets inside each other so that the holes do not overlap.

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Explain Davis point

while individual arguments regarding religious experience may be flawed, it is possible to take elements from each and to end up with a fairly powerful argument for God’s existence.

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Vardy

People can be mistaken in what they see e.g. the lock ness monster

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Wainwright

Event is questionable & verifiable- correlates with church teachings/renewed goodness

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Ayer

'condition of his mind' mystic is neurotic?

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James-order

realist challenge- RE- HB-LD- final understanding God

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Lash- challenge

anti-realist challenge- only religious people have RE

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Oppose of Lash

Saul

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Freud

RE's are illusions created by the mind- projection of subconscious- e.g. seeing suffering of Jesus

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Persinger

God helmet- RE created by temporal lobe- psychological

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Falcus

contemporary conversion- criminal to Christian

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James' conclusions

pluralism, pragmatism and empiricism

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pluralism

RE's are similar snd those having the experiences may experience the same realty

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pragmatism

the truth isn't fixed- what's true down to what has great value for us- effects of RE- truth found in religion

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empiricism

case studies provide clues as to the reality beyond what we see and hear

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Buber

I-You vs I-thou; RE's are analogous to intimate personal relationships

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Starbuck

conversion natural process of finding oneself in adolescence-majority-15-25- psych.

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Russell

Conversion- just because RE makes one bah more morally- doesn't make it genuine

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Kant

Phenomena vs noumena; we can only experience things in the phenomenal realm- RE thus impossible

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Donovan

we can't gain knowledge of God from RE- intuitive knowledge isn't genuine knowledge- not empirically verifiable

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Vicious circle challenge

RE's generated from existing faith- supports Lash

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Get Revising

Religious experience

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