Religious Experience Research Paper
a) Examine the distinctive features of religious experience
I will examine the distinctive features of a religious experience and how they differ from everyday experiences from the world religions of Christianity and Buddhism. I intend to use the religious experiences of mysticism, near death experiences and revelations to highlight the distinctive features. These distinctive features are what separate religious experiences from ordinary experiences, such as us not having suitable words in our vocabulary to describe religious experiences and the experience not being universal to human beings.
Firstly, I will start by providing a definition of what a “religious experience” actually is. Religious experiences can be characterized generally as …show more content…
experiences that seem to the person having them, to be of some objective reality and to have some religious influence. That reality can be an individual, a state of affairs, a fact, or even an absence, depending on the religious tradition the experience is a part of.
The first religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is mysticism. Mystical experiences tend to be experiences felt or experienced beyond the realms of ordinary consciousness, occasionally referred to as states of altered consciousness. Such states may involve ineffable awareness of time, space, and physical reality. Mystical experiences often defy physical description, and can best be only hinted at.
Such experiences are universal and share common characteristics, despite the culture or religion in which they occur. They are invariably spiritual, yet they may not be religious; that is, they are not limited to monks or priests. However, all personal religious experiences are rooted in mystical states of consciousness, and all mystical experiences are part of religions.
William James, psychologist and philosopher, identified four general characteristics of mystical experiences:
1. Ineffability: Mystical experiences are states of feelings so unlike anything else that bit is not possible to transfer them to others. No adequate account of the experience can be described using our words. Phrases such as “the dissolution of the personal ego” are empty phrases to those who have not experienced such things, making them meaningless. This sense of meaningless to people who have not experienced it would be supported by verification and falsification, as mystical experiences can neither be verified nor falsified. James uses the analogy with music and says that it is like the need to have musical ears in order to know the value of a symphony. Without a musical ear, we are likely to consider the musician absurd.
2. Noetic quality: Mystical states seem to be states of knowledge to those that experience them. They are states that allow insight into the depths of truth unobtainable by the intellect alone. They are revelations which can bear great importance and significance to the person having a mystical experience. This feeling of insight or illumination is felt on an intuitive level and has a tremendous force of certainty and reality.
3. Transiency: Mystical states seem to be states of knowledge to those that experience them. James claims that, except in rare cases, 30 minutes to 2 hours is the limit. Though these states are remembered, they are imperfectly recalled. Usually they leave the recipient with a profound sense of importance of the experience.
4. Passivity: Although a mystical state may be entered through meditation, etc., the characteristic state of consciousness is one of passivity or acceptance of openness. In such a state the mystic will feel as if he or she is taken over by a superior power.
According to James and others mystical experiences vary in intensity. In their simplest form they appear to the individual as a sudden burst of intelligence or insight; similar to the way the significance of a maximum or formula becomes clear, to a person, which causes him to express an aha! James also classed déjà vu as a simple mystical experience. Other insights have increased meaning such as the bursts of truths that are accompanied by dreamy states and reveries, and then there is the maximum state when the individual experiences the ecstasy of being in union with the Absolute, or God (see Mysticism).
An example of a mystical experience was described by John, in 1971, a graphic designer, who became paralysed from a motorcycle accident. When regaining consciousness he found himself looking at a tree in a certain way. He later became a pagan and developed a "language" with trees (sort of a divinatory system). He also founded a Druidic order (see Druidism).
In his book “Mysticism and Philosophy” W.
T. Stace suggests that there are 2 types of mystical experiences-"One may be called extrovertive mystical experience, the other introvertive mystical experience. Both are apprehensions of the One, but they reach it in different ways.” • Extrovertive experience = the mystic looks outward and through the physical senses into the eternal world. • Introvertive experience =the mystic turns inward, introspectively, and finds the One at the bottom of the self, at the bottom of human personality. • Introvertive is purest form of a mystical experience, according to Stace, as it is non-sensual and non-intellectual, where the empirical consciousness is suppressed. It is cross-cultural and that the essence of this experience is unity, though Stace sees this interpreted differently in varying cultures and religions.
In the wide sense, mystical experiences occur within the religious traditions of at least Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Indian religions, Buddhism, and primal religions. Many Buddhist traditions, however, make no claim for an experience of a supersensory reality. Some cultivate instead an experience of “unconstructed awareness,” involving an awareness of the world on an absolutely or relatively non-conceptual
level.
The second type of religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is near-death experiences (NDEs). These are out-of-the-body experiences occurring at the time of actual or threatened imminent death. What convinces many people about NDEs is the common experience or “core experience” subjects related to. Various attempts have been made to list the features of these experiences. Dr Raymond Moody, a lecturer at the University of North Carolina, published a collection of 150 accounts in his book Life after Life (1975) and coined the term “near-death experience”. In the book Moody identified nine distinctive features an NDE as a religious experience has, that make it different from ordinary experiences:
1. A Strange Sound: A buzzing, or ringing noise, while having a sense of being dead.
2. Peace and Painlessness: While people are dying, they may be in intense pain, but as soon as they leave the body the pain vanishes and they experience peace.
3. Out-of-Body Experience: The dying often have the sensation of rising up and floating above their own body while it is surrounded by a medical team, and watching it down below, while feeling comfortable. They experience the feeling of being in a spiritual body that appears to be a sort of living energy field.
4. The Tunnel Experience: The next experience is that of being drawn into darkness through a tunnel, at an extremely high speed, until reaching a realm of radiant golden-white light. Also, although they sometimes report feeling scared, they do not sense that they were on the way to hell or that they fell into it.
5. Rising Rapidly into the Heavens: Instead of a tunnel, some people report rising suddenly into the heavens and seeing the Earth and the celestial sphere as they would be seen by astronauts in space.
6. People of Light: Once on the other side of the tunnel, or after they have risen into the heavens, the dying meet people who glow with an inner light. Often they find that friends and relatives who have already died are there to greet them.
7. The Being of Light: After meeting the people of light, the dying often meet a powerful spiritual being whom some have identified as God, Jesus, or some religious figure.
8. The Life Review: The Being of Light presents the dying with a panoramic review of everything they have ever done. That is, they relive every act they have ever done to other people and come away feeling that love is the most important thing in life.
9. Reluctance to Return: The Being of Light sometimes tells the dying that they must return to life. Other times, they are given a choice of staying or returning. In either case, they are reluctant to return. The people who choose to return do so only because of loved ones they do not wish to leave behind. The similarity of the accounts by people who claimed an NDE so impressed Dr Kenneth Ring that he too carried out a detailed study, listing five “stages”: peace, body separation, entering the darkness, seeing the light and entering the light. He found that the latter stages were reached by fewer people, which seems to imply that there is an ordered set of experiences waiting to unfold.
In 1995, Fenwick detailed a study of over 300 NDEs in his book “The Truth in the Light”. He lists 12 features, admitting that the events described don’t always occur in the same order, and few people experience every event:
1) Feelings of peace
2) Out of body
3) Into the tunnel
4) Approaching the light
5) The being of light
6) The barrier
7) Another country
8) Meeting relatives
9) The life review
10) The point of decision
11) The return
12) The aftermath
When Jane Seymour was 36 years of age, she had a severe case of the flu and was given an injection of penicillin. She suffered an allergic reaction which led to a near-death experience.
"I literally left my body. I had this feeling that I could see myself on the bed, with people grouped around me. I remember them all trying to resuscitate me. I was above them, in the corner of the room looking down. I saw people putting needles in me, trying to hold me down, doing things. I remember my whole life flashing before my eyes, but the only thing I cared about was that I wanted to live because I did not want anyone else looking after my children. I was floating up there thinking, No, I don't want to die. I'm not ready to leave my kids. And that was when I said to God, If you're there, God, if you really exist and I survive, I will never take your name in vain again. Although I believe that I died for about thirty seconds, I can remember pleading with the doctor to bring me back. I was determined I wasn't going to die." Then Jane suddenly found herself back in her body.
The third type of religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is conversion. Religious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the convert's previous beliefs. It involves a new religious identity, or a change from one religious identity to another.
Roughly speaking there are three types of conversion experience:
1. Conversion from no religion to a faith 2. Conversion from one faith to another 3. Conversion from faith (believing) to faith (trusting)
There are several different ways in which a conversion experience can come about (Moojan Momen, 1999): 1. Intellectual: Here the recipient of conversion goes through a period of intensive study- finding out about Christianity with little interpersonal contact with the religion or its followers. 2. Mystical: This type of conversion occurs suddenly and dramatically. It is often accompanied by dreams or visions. 3. Experimental: Here the recipient will engage in active exploration, assessing the religion over a period of time through participation before their conversion. 4. Affectional: In these conversion experiences the recipient will have contact and bond with actual members of Christianity. The experience of being loved and nurtured will contribute to their decision to convert. 5. Coercive: Obviously not common but this type of conversion does happen, mainly in Christian sects and not so much in mainstream Christianity. Here conversion happens as a result of persuasion and thought programming.
Most conversion experiences take place over time and are not sudden as in the case of mystical conversion experiences. The recipient of the conversion experience is usually changed by their experience. There are some characteristic feelings that are common amongst recipients of conversion experiences before their conversion such as revulsion with their existing state or situation. It is also common for people to convert after a period of personal crisis. For many conversion experiences a pattern emerges of the stages a recipient goes through as part of their conversion:
1. People experiences tensions in their lives
2. People seek solutions within a religious perspective
3. Converts seek religion and something deeper
4. Converts perceive a turning point in their lives shortly before or concurrently with their encounter with the religious movement
5. The convert forms a bond with the members of the religion which makes them feel accepted and able to overcome any personal conflicts
C.S. Lewis (29 November 1898 - 22 November 1963) was a prolific writer, poet, scholar of English literature and defender of Christianity. His most famous book is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published of his Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis's conversion to Christianity was not a sudden experience. He always claimed it was logical and rational, not emotional. His influences were, as always, books and a few close friends. Inspired by his reading, Lewis's personal philosophy had been slowly approaching theism (belief in a god) under another name: he came to believe in a universal spirit without yet calling it God. He knew that his position was confused. In Surprised by Joy he likens the following process to being hunted down by God, or even being defeated by him in a game of chess. Lewis also realised that his old experiences of 'Joy' had been pointers, reminding him that he was made for another world: he now reinterpreted them as longings for heaven, for God. He felt 'Joy' again many times in his life, but no longer attached the same importance to the experiences.
b) “Religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences” Assess this view.
The statement seems to be suggesting that the religious experience is simply nothing more than an ordinary experience after all. There may be three possible responses to this question:
YES- They are simply natural experiences and can be explained with reference to the laws of nature and no need to appeal to any king of deity of other realm.
No- They can be explained partially by naturalistic explanations but there is scope for religious interpretations as well. The natural explanation may account for what has happened but not why it has happened. Or the brain may account for how God communicated with the believer.
No- they are simply religious experiences brought about by a deity, other realm or incorporeal soul. In this way naturalistic explanations are insufficient to account for the experience and cannot rule out contact with something other.
Religious experiences can be argued to be simple misinterpretations of natural experiences as the person claiming to have had a religious experience is usually a patient in hospital on medication, allowing for the chemicals in the body to be the cause of the experience. It is well know that drugs can produce visionary experiences. The “tunnel experience” many claim to have does not only occur near death, but also in epilepsy and migraine, or when falling asleep, meditating or just relaxing, or where there is pressure on both eyeballs. Another natural explanation for a religious experience is oxygen deprivation. In 1980, a neurologist named Ernst Rodin analysed his own religious experience and concluded it was a “toxic psychosis” induced by an oxygen starvation of his brain. The feeling of bliss, the mistaken belief he was dead and his sense of timelessness was all attributed to a simple lack of oxygen in the brain by Rodin.
However, one could raise the argument that religious experiences are not simply misinterpretations of natural experiences, due to the clarity and order of people’s memories of them. People are able to describe events in perfect detail when experiencing an NDE and children who have had an NDE can recall vivid events with places and knowledge beyond their years. If drugs were an adequate explanation for religious experiences, then how do we account for those who have had no medication at all yet still claim a religious experience? Surely, if only one person had a religious experience without the use of drugs then we have good reason to believe that religious experiences are not simply misinterpretations of natural experiences, yet there are many.
The philosopher Rene Descartes, in attempting to establish what he could know for certain, doubted the validity of all sense experience, but came to the conclusion that he could not doubt his own existence as a thinking being – cogito ergo sum(I think, therefore I am). When someone asks if your experience is subjective or objective, they imply that it is either:
A record of external facts, gathered through your senses and not dependent on your own feelings or attitudes(objective), or
The product of your own imagination (subjective)
But religious experience cannot either be exclusively objective or subjective. Something is experienced objectively but what is actually experienced is a matter of interpretation so is subjective. Two people could experience the same thing; for one it would be profound, moving and “religious”, for the other it could be a matter of little interest. Thereby lays the problem. This is a very strong attack as to why religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences due to their subjective nature.
However, a response to this could be highlighting the impact a religious experience has on a person’s life. Most Religious experiences are described as being incredibly happy and revelatory moments, opening up a whole new understanding of the world. Surely this justifies religious experiences being brought about by a deity, as explanations and descriptions of religious experiences are insufficient as we are unable to experience it. How can we possibly say, then, that religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences when they are so unnatural?
To conclude, I would argue that religious experiences are very much simple misinterpretations of natural experiences due to the lack of meaning we receive from talking about them. They are unverifiable and unfalsifiable experiences, meaning they cannot in any way be proved, making the question meaningless since the only kinds of experiences that there are, are natural ones. Even though they are so unnatural and have a massive impact on people’s lives, I would agree with the views of someone like Richard Dawkins, by arguing that these people may just be making it up or seeking attention.
I will examine the distinctive features of a religious experience and how they differ from everyday experiences from the world religions of Christianity and Buddhism. I intend to use the religious experiences of mysticism, near death experiences and revelations to highlight the distinctive features. These distinctive features are what separate religious experiences from ordinary experiences, such as us not having suitable words in our vocabulary to describe religious experiences and the experience not being universal to human beings.
Firstly, I will start by providing a definition of what a “religious experience” actually is. Religious experiences can be characterized generally as …show more content…
experiences that seem to the person having them, to be of some objective reality and to have some religious influence. That reality can be an individual, a state of affairs, a fact, or even an absence, depending on the religious tradition the experience is a part of.
The first religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is mysticism. Mystical experiences tend to be experiences felt or experienced beyond the realms of ordinary consciousness, occasionally referred to as states of altered consciousness. Such states may involve ineffable awareness of time, space, and physical reality. Mystical experiences often defy physical description, and can best be only hinted at.
Such experiences are universal and share common characteristics, despite the culture or religion in which they occur. They are invariably spiritual, yet they may not be religious; that is, they are not limited to monks or priests. However, all personal religious experiences are rooted in mystical states of consciousness, and all mystical experiences are part of religions.
William James, psychologist and philosopher, identified four general characteristics of mystical experiences:
1. Ineffability: Mystical experiences are states of feelings so unlike anything else that bit is not possible to transfer them to others. No adequate account of the experience can be described using our words. Phrases such as “the dissolution of the personal ego” are empty phrases to those who have not experienced such things, making them meaningless. This sense of meaningless to people who have not experienced it would be supported by verification and falsification, as mystical experiences can neither be verified nor falsified. James uses the analogy with music and says that it is like the need to have musical ears in order to know the value of a symphony. Without a musical ear, we are likely to consider the musician absurd.
2. Noetic quality: Mystical states seem to be states of knowledge to those that experience them. They are states that allow insight into the depths of truth unobtainable by the intellect alone. They are revelations which can bear great importance and significance to the person having a mystical experience. This feeling of insight or illumination is felt on an intuitive level and has a tremendous force of certainty and reality.
3. Transiency: Mystical states seem to be states of knowledge to those that experience them. James claims that, except in rare cases, 30 minutes to 2 hours is the limit. Though these states are remembered, they are imperfectly recalled. Usually they leave the recipient with a profound sense of importance of the experience.
4. Passivity: Although a mystical state may be entered through meditation, etc., the characteristic state of consciousness is one of passivity or acceptance of openness. In such a state the mystic will feel as if he or she is taken over by a superior power.
According to James and others mystical experiences vary in intensity. In their simplest form they appear to the individual as a sudden burst of intelligence or insight; similar to the way the significance of a maximum or formula becomes clear, to a person, which causes him to express an aha! James also classed déjà vu as a simple mystical experience. Other insights have increased meaning such as the bursts of truths that are accompanied by dreamy states and reveries, and then there is the maximum state when the individual experiences the ecstasy of being in union with the Absolute, or God (see Mysticism).
An example of a mystical experience was described by John, in 1971, a graphic designer, who became paralysed from a motorcycle accident. When regaining consciousness he found himself looking at a tree in a certain way. He later became a pagan and developed a "language" with trees (sort of a divinatory system). He also founded a Druidic order (see Druidism).
In his book “Mysticism and Philosophy” W.
T. Stace suggests that there are 2 types of mystical experiences-"One may be called extrovertive mystical experience, the other introvertive mystical experience. Both are apprehensions of the One, but they reach it in different ways.” • Extrovertive experience = the mystic looks outward and through the physical senses into the eternal world. • Introvertive experience =the mystic turns inward, introspectively, and finds the One at the bottom of the self, at the bottom of human personality. • Introvertive is purest form of a mystical experience, according to Stace, as it is non-sensual and non-intellectual, where the empirical consciousness is suppressed. It is cross-cultural and that the essence of this experience is unity, though Stace sees this interpreted differently in varying cultures and religions.
In the wide sense, mystical experiences occur within the religious traditions of at least Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Indian religions, Buddhism, and primal religions. Many Buddhist traditions, however, make no claim for an experience of a supersensory reality. Some cultivate instead an experience of “unconstructed awareness,” involving an awareness of the world on an absolutely or relatively non-conceptual
level.
The second type of religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is near-death experiences (NDEs). These are out-of-the-body experiences occurring at the time of actual or threatened imminent death. What convinces many people about NDEs is the common experience or “core experience” subjects related to. Various attempts have been made to list the features of these experiences. Dr Raymond Moody, a lecturer at the University of North Carolina, published a collection of 150 accounts in his book Life after Life (1975) and coined the term “near-death experience”. In the book Moody identified nine distinctive features an NDE as a religious experience has, that make it different from ordinary experiences:
1. A Strange Sound: A buzzing, or ringing noise, while having a sense of being dead.
2. Peace and Painlessness: While people are dying, they may be in intense pain, but as soon as they leave the body the pain vanishes and they experience peace.
3. Out-of-Body Experience: The dying often have the sensation of rising up and floating above their own body while it is surrounded by a medical team, and watching it down below, while feeling comfortable. They experience the feeling of being in a spiritual body that appears to be a sort of living energy field.
4. The Tunnel Experience: The next experience is that of being drawn into darkness through a tunnel, at an extremely high speed, until reaching a realm of radiant golden-white light. Also, although they sometimes report feeling scared, they do not sense that they were on the way to hell or that they fell into it.
5. Rising Rapidly into the Heavens: Instead of a tunnel, some people report rising suddenly into the heavens and seeing the Earth and the celestial sphere as they would be seen by astronauts in space.
6. People of Light: Once on the other side of the tunnel, or after they have risen into the heavens, the dying meet people who glow with an inner light. Often they find that friends and relatives who have already died are there to greet them.
7. The Being of Light: After meeting the people of light, the dying often meet a powerful spiritual being whom some have identified as God, Jesus, or some religious figure.
8. The Life Review: The Being of Light presents the dying with a panoramic review of everything they have ever done. That is, they relive every act they have ever done to other people and come away feeling that love is the most important thing in life.
9. Reluctance to Return: The Being of Light sometimes tells the dying that they must return to life. Other times, they are given a choice of staying or returning. In either case, they are reluctant to return. The people who choose to return do so only because of loved ones they do not wish to leave behind. The similarity of the accounts by people who claimed an NDE so impressed Dr Kenneth Ring that he too carried out a detailed study, listing five “stages”: peace, body separation, entering the darkness, seeing the light and entering the light. He found that the latter stages were reached by fewer people, which seems to imply that there is an ordered set of experiences waiting to unfold.
In 1995, Fenwick detailed a study of over 300 NDEs in his book “The Truth in the Light”. He lists 12 features, admitting that the events described don’t always occur in the same order, and few people experience every event:
1) Feelings of peace
2) Out of body
3) Into the tunnel
4) Approaching the light
5) The being of light
6) The barrier
7) Another country
8) Meeting relatives
9) The life review
10) The point of decision
11) The return
12) The aftermath
When Jane Seymour was 36 years of age, she had a severe case of the flu and was given an injection of penicillin. She suffered an allergic reaction which led to a near-death experience.
"I literally left my body. I had this feeling that I could see myself on the bed, with people grouped around me. I remember them all trying to resuscitate me. I was above them, in the corner of the room looking down. I saw people putting needles in me, trying to hold me down, doing things. I remember my whole life flashing before my eyes, but the only thing I cared about was that I wanted to live because I did not want anyone else looking after my children. I was floating up there thinking, No, I don't want to die. I'm not ready to leave my kids. And that was when I said to God, If you're there, God, if you really exist and I survive, I will never take your name in vain again. Although I believe that I died for about thirty seconds, I can remember pleading with the doctor to bring me back. I was determined I wasn't going to die." Then Jane suddenly found herself back in her body.
The third type of religious experience I will examine in order to highlight the distinctive features is conversion. Religious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the convert's previous beliefs. It involves a new religious identity, or a change from one religious identity to another.
Roughly speaking there are three types of conversion experience:
1. Conversion from no religion to a faith 2. Conversion from one faith to another 3. Conversion from faith (believing) to faith (trusting)
There are several different ways in which a conversion experience can come about (Moojan Momen, 1999): 1. Intellectual: Here the recipient of conversion goes through a period of intensive study- finding out about Christianity with little interpersonal contact with the religion or its followers. 2. Mystical: This type of conversion occurs suddenly and dramatically. It is often accompanied by dreams or visions. 3. Experimental: Here the recipient will engage in active exploration, assessing the religion over a period of time through participation before their conversion. 4. Affectional: In these conversion experiences the recipient will have contact and bond with actual members of Christianity. The experience of being loved and nurtured will contribute to their decision to convert. 5. Coercive: Obviously not common but this type of conversion does happen, mainly in Christian sects and not so much in mainstream Christianity. Here conversion happens as a result of persuasion and thought programming.
Most conversion experiences take place over time and are not sudden as in the case of mystical conversion experiences. The recipient of the conversion experience is usually changed by their experience. There are some characteristic feelings that are common amongst recipients of conversion experiences before their conversion such as revulsion with their existing state or situation. It is also common for people to convert after a period of personal crisis. For many conversion experiences a pattern emerges of the stages a recipient goes through as part of their conversion:
1. People experiences tensions in their lives
2. People seek solutions within a religious perspective
3. Converts seek religion and something deeper
4. Converts perceive a turning point in their lives shortly before or concurrently with their encounter with the religious movement
5. The convert forms a bond with the members of the religion which makes them feel accepted and able to overcome any personal conflicts
C.S. Lewis (29 November 1898 - 22 November 1963) was a prolific writer, poet, scholar of English literature and defender of Christianity. His most famous book is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published of his Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis's conversion to Christianity was not a sudden experience. He always claimed it was logical and rational, not emotional. His influences were, as always, books and a few close friends. Inspired by his reading, Lewis's personal philosophy had been slowly approaching theism (belief in a god) under another name: he came to believe in a universal spirit without yet calling it God. He knew that his position was confused. In Surprised by Joy he likens the following process to being hunted down by God, or even being defeated by him in a game of chess. Lewis also realised that his old experiences of 'Joy' had been pointers, reminding him that he was made for another world: he now reinterpreted them as longings for heaven, for God. He felt 'Joy' again many times in his life, but no longer attached the same importance to the experiences.
b) “Religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences” Assess this view.
The statement seems to be suggesting that the religious experience is simply nothing more than an ordinary experience after all. There may be three possible responses to this question:
YES- They are simply natural experiences and can be explained with reference to the laws of nature and no need to appeal to any king of deity of other realm.
No- They can be explained partially by naturalistic explanations but there is scope for religious interpretations as well. The natural explanation may account for what has happened but not why it has happened. Or the brain may account for how God communicated with the believer.
No- they are simply religious experiences brought about by a deity, other realm or incorporeal soul. In this way naturalistic explanations are insufficient to account for the experience and cannot rule out contact with something other.
Religious experiences can be argued to be simple misinterpretations of natural experiences as the person claiming to have had a religious experience is usually a patient in hospital on medication, allowing for the chemicals in the body to be the cause of the experience. It is well know that drugs can produce visionary experiences. The “tunnel experience” many claim to have does not only occur near death, but also in epilepsy and migraine, or when falling asleep, meditating or just relaxing, or where there is pressure on both eyeballs. Another natural explanation for a religious experience is oxygen deprivation. In 1980, a neurologist named Ernst Rodin analysed his own religious experience and concluded it was a “toxic psychosis” induced by an oxygen starvation of his brain. The feeling of bliss, the mistaken belief he was dead and his sense of timelessness was all attributed to a simple lack of oxygen in the brain by Rodin.
However, one could raise the argument that religious experiences are not simply misinterpretations of natural experiences, due to the clarity and order of people’s memories of them. People are able to describe events in perfect detail when experiencing an NDE and children who have had an NDE can recall vivid events with places and knowledge beyond their years. If drugs were an adequate explanation for religious experiences, then how do we account for those who have had no medication at all yet still claim a religious experience? Surely, if only one person had a religious experience without the use of drugs then we have good reason to believe that religious experiences are not simply misinterpretations of natural experiences, yet there are many.
The philosopher Rene Descartes, in attempting to establish what he could know for certain, doubted the validity of all sense experience, but came to the conclusion that he could not doubt his own existence as a thinking being – cogito ergo sum(I think, therefore I am). When someone asks if your experience is subjective or objective, they imply that it is either:
A record of external facts, gathered through your senses and not dependent on your own feelings or attitudes(objective), or
The product of your own imagination (subjective)
But religious experience cannot either be exclusively objective or subjective. Something is experienced objectively but what is actually experienced is a matter of interpretation so is subjective. Two people could experience the same thing; for one it would be profound, moving and “religious”, for the other it could be a matter of little interest. Thereby lays the problem. This is a very strong attack as to why religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences due to their subjective nature.
However, a response to this could be highlighting the impact a religious experience has on a person’s life. Most Religious experiences are described as being incredibly happy and revelatory moments, opening up a whole new understanding of the world. Surely this justifies religious experiences being brought about by a deity, as explanations and descriptions of religious experiences are insufficient as we are unable to experience it. How can we possibly say, then, that religious experiences are simply misinterpretations of natural experiences when they are so unnatural?
To conclude, I would argue that religious experiences are very much simple misinterpretations of natural experiences due to the lack of meaning we receive from talking about them. They are unverifiable and unfalsifiable experiences, meaning they cannot in any way be proved, making the question meaningless since the only kinds of experiences that there are, are natural ones. Even though they are so unnatural and have a massive impact on people’s lives, I would agree with the views of someone like Richard Dawkins, by arguing that these people may just be making it up or seeking attention.