from religious experience are never convincing.’ (35 marks) Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud present challenges to religious experiences. Marx’s challenges to religious experience arguments are sociological; he suggested that the origins of religious experience are to be found in society. He states religion is about mythological beliefs and an unreal god that distracted people from the real world‚ religion is ‘the opium of the people’‚ religious experiences create alienation and a religious experience
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‘Religious experiences are all illusions.’ Discuss. Most arguments for the existence of God are ‘a posteriori’‚ seeking to move from experiences within the world to the existence of God rather than relying on the definition of God to prove his existence. Religious experience is an interaction with God or a feeling of connection with a higher power. It is interesting to note that William James never spoke of ‘God’ but of the ‘spiritual’‚ ‘unseen order’ or ‘higher’ aspects of the world. Does a person
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title of The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Within this collection‚ one encounters a profound discussion of many multi-faceted aspects of religion. With this discussion‚ James is able to ultimately conclude that a collective religious truth does not and cannot exist‚ but that the truth of religion may be found in the individual beliefs of each man or woman. Throughout the text‚ James proposes that religion is by nature an individual experience‚ stemming from one’s personal
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Arguments from religious experience are never convincing. When people say that they have experienced God or the divine in some way; they are not saying that it ‘seemed like’ God but was something else. The issue for many philosophers is: are religious experiences veridical? By this is meant can we actually demonstrate that the religious experiences of people are what they seem to be‚ i.e. experiences of God‚ rather than delusions‚ products of the mind or of some other source such as LSD? Can
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‘Religious experience can be used as evidence for the existence of God’ A religious experience is an encounter with God when you experience transcendent reality and it you cannot will it to happen. A direct religious experience refers to events where God reveals him/herself directly to the person having the experience. The experience is not chose or willed by the person; the person experiences or observes God in some way. An indirect religious experience refers to experiences‚ thoughts or feelings
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from Religious Experience The argument from religious experience is the argument that personal religious experiences can prove God’s existence to those that have them. One can only perceive that which exists‚ and so God must exist because there are those that have experienced him. While religious experiences themselves can only constitute direct evidence of God’s existence for those fortunate enough to have them‚ the fact that there are many people who testify to having had such experiences constitutes
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Personal and/or religious experience is particularly revealing for developing a fuller understanding or ourselves and/God? (35) Examine and comment on this claim with reference to the topic you have investigated? (15) “There is no single thing that can be bottled and neatly labelled as a religious experience”-Harvey. A religious experience is an outward encounter with something divine also known as God. This experience is set apart from any other experience as it is based on religious context. It
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The mystical experience‚ an experience felt beyond the realms of ordinary consciousness that has affected many prominent figures throughout history. Mystical experiences often defy any physical description and such experiences involve ineffable awareness of time‚ space‚ and physical reality. These experiences are universal and share common characteristics no matter what religion‚ beliefs‚ or culture in which the person attends and the experiences are often spiritual rather than religious. William James
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Explain what is meant by the term ‘a religious experience’. (45 marks) In 1969 Alister Hardy set up the Religious Experience Research Unit (RERU) with the aim of examining the extent and nature of the religious experiences of people in the UK. The experiences recorded were quite different from other types of experiences that people had. According to Alister Hardy the religious experience ‘… usually induces in the person concerned a conviction that the everyday world is not the whole of reality;
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Corporate religious experiences. such as the Toronto Blessing‚ tell us nothing about God ’ discuss Corporate religious experiences are experiences seen by a body of people. They are not just experienced by one person‚ but by a collective group of people who all say they experienced some supernatural event similar to one another. However to discover what a real corporate religious experience is‚ it is important to delve into the meaning of what a religious experience itself actually is. In
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