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RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES (Psychological explanation (Hallusination as a…
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
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Scientific explanation
Many people report having such experiences affect periods of criticism and say that the experiences brought relief. However what these people think in a religious experience may be a result of the brain overcoming extreme anxiety.
Mental illness, scitsophrienia. People experiencing mental illness after you report hearing voices and seeing visions. Medically these would be described as a delusional state.
Most mystical conversion experiences are explained/ experienced by people in their mid 40's. They often experience essential crises anxiety brought about by the human condition. -meaningless of life. - inevitability of death
Visions
Corporeal: Has a visual componant which is registered by the human eye, and can leave evidence of its physical affect.
Imaginative: A vision that cannot be be pecived the process of sight, it is all in the imagination and mind. Mainly occuring during the sleep and dreams
Intellectual: An intellectual experience has no image, but a perception of presence/feeling. Like St Teresa of avila - not seen with the eyes of the body/soul
Freud
Freud thinks a hope for an afterlife is 'wishful fulfillment' However just because having a belief brings comfort doesn't mean that it is false.
It is just true that experience is processed by the brain, a genuine religious experience would have to produce some kind of mental state.
If there is some area of the brain responsible for these experiences it could be the area responsible for the awareness of God. eg temple lobe
Freud said: If God wants to give people religious expereinces it must be processed by the brain first. therefore there has to be areas of the brain responsible for processing them. God brings about religious experiences through structures of the braIn that wants to process them
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William James
American philosopher who wrote "the varieties of religious experience" it contains his analysis of mystical experiences. A book about psychology of religion.
*James does not see god as necessarily being omnipotent so God is more likely to be finate than infante. However James also believes that there can be multiple 'Gods'. God does not know the future so he is not all knowing.
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