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Religious Experiences (The different types of religious experiences…

- - - - Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1876) saw the 'Immaculate Conception', accompanied by the appearance of spring water at Lourdes. :potable_water: This was a private, Corporeal vision as her sister and friends who where with her claimed to see nothing.
      - The bodily appearance of a spiritual being from heaven (angels).
    - - Joseph Matthew 2:13 -15. In Joseph's dream an angel instructs to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt, away from the evil King Herod. Joseph arises instantly, showing that the dream was dramatic.
    - - St Teresa of Avila claimed to have a vision of Jesus in 1567;'I saw nothing with the eyes of the body' and 'I had the most distinct feeling... of his near 'presence'. She experienced Christ, not as a vision, but as presence.
  - - - Philosopher John Macquarrie (1919-2007) summarised what a person who is experience a numinous experience might feel. On the one hand, the experience will have 'the feeling of nothingness of finite being' and on the other hand they will have 'the feeling of the nothingness of the finite being', in the presence of an amazing being or deity.
  - - - pint IN The Pub
        Passvity: The experience is beyond control, even if a person has invited it.
        Ineffability: cannot be described in words, and this same feeling cannot be understood by a person who has not had this mystical experience.
        Noetic quality: The experience gives rise to knew knowledge, which the experiancer feels to be true.
        Transciency: mystical experiences are short, and after time it becomes difficult to reproduce the experience in memory.
    - - British philosopher, Walter Terrace Stace (1886 - 1967) presented these ideas, not to prove the existence of God, but to prove that mysticism made logical sense.
        
        Stace states that mystical experiences involve experiencing a oneness in a non-sensuous way. So mystical experiences are not parapsychologist phenomena (eg telekenisis), visions, voices or anything to do with an occult or a mystic, as these are sensous.
        
        Stace maintains that mystical experiences 'entirely transcend our-sensory, intellectual consciousness'.
        
        Stace believes that mystical experainces aee non-sensous (non involving the physical senses) and non-intellectual (no 'I' experiences it, but rather a 'pure conciseness') union with the Divine. There are 2 types of mystical experiences...
        
        Extrovertive mystical experience: the non -sensuous unity is allowed to shine through physical objects :evergreen_tree:. The mystic will have unifying vision and notice that all things become one, which is representative as the inner life between all things,
        
        Introvertive mystic :baby::skin-tone-2:: where mystic's senses are totally suppressed, and their ordinary consciousness is replaced with a mystical, pure consciousness. The mystic will have a sense of blessedness and divine.
        
        According to Hindu Mandukya, 'It is the Supreme God'.
- - - - The religious response is that not all RE are subjective and may happen in groups (Toronto blessing Jan 1994). In addition, experiences do not need to be explained verbally, but instead, can be evident through the life changing affect it has on the subject. Ineffability is a major characteristic of religious experiences, which although makes it difficult to investigate, doe not disprove them. An experience can be considered religious if it conforms to a definition of a religious experience.
  - - - Freud's views are just hypothesis.Freud suggests that people may wish to have experiences with God, but there are many cases where string atheists have had religious experiences (C.S Lewis).
    - - The religious response is that the only way that religious experiences given by God must be processed by the brain, as this is how humans process anything.
- - - - Is the claim from a reliable source, like a liar?
        This does not necessarily mean that a liar in the past is lying now.
        
        How truthful is the claim?
        
        How does the experiencer show that God was present throughout the experience?
        4.Could the claim be caused by another problem? like intoxication?
        God could have caused these.
    - - According the Principle of Credulity, if someone claims they have seen God, there is good reasoning to believe that it was God.
        
        The testimony of other who report similar experiences supports such a claim.
        
        The testimony creates a greater probability of God existing.
    - - Swinburn is wrong in assuming that since normal sense experiences are reliable, religious experiences must also be reliable. This is highly improbable. Furthermore, with normal experiences, there are people who can validate your claim, but this is not the case with RE.
      - If the person who had a religious experience believed they had experienced God, this does not mean that God is behind these religious experience.
        
        Swinburn suggests that if someone strongly believes that they have experienced God, then this would have a significant affect on their lifestyle (eg take up prayer), and the person might significantly change. This provides strong evidence on the reliability of the claim.
        
        This is supported by the testimonies of those who claimed to have been significantly changed after having a religious experienced. Such as John Pridmore's conversion experience (from Gangster to God).
      - Swinburn uses the 'cumulative argument' to suggest that all the arguments to prove God's existence are stringer when put all together.