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Religious Experiences - Coggle Diagram
Religious Experiences
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Conversion
A mystical experience is an experience of something beyond normal awareness, sometimes described as super- sense or sub- sense.
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The conversion of St Paul- Saul of Tarsus travelled to Damascus and he was blinded by Jesus and had his sight restored by a Christian.
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William James said that experience of the divine was at the heart of religion and come before rituals and practices. He argued that mystical experiences have common features:
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Transient- the experience lasts a short amount of time, but has a significant or longer lasting effect.
Passive- there is a sense of feeling powerless in the experience, they are not in control.
The term ‘religious experience’ can conjure up a wide and diverse series of images. We might assume that it can mean anything from saying a prayer, to attending a service at a place of worship, to ‘hearing the voice of God’.
A religious experiment in a non- empirical occurrence, and may be perceived as a supernatural, mental event.
Such an experience can be spontaneous or it may be brought about as a result of intensive training and self-discipline.
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Principle of Credulity- Richard Swinburne’s principle that people should be believed unless we have a good reason to disbelieve them.
Principle of Testimony- Swinburne’s principle that people are generally truthful; there need not to be good reasons to doubt their honesty.
Therefore, we should believe people when they say they have had a religious experience.