Posted on by Mrs Scales

The Argument from Religious Experience and Verification and Falsification: Revision.

  1. List the ways in which these so-called experiences are believed to be religious
  2. What is the difference between the worlds of the numenon and the phenomenon?
  3. List three ways in which the experiences can come.
  4. Use a famous example to describe a religious experience.
  5. What are the main objections to the validity of these experiences?
  6. List some of the conclusions that have been reached regarding them.
  7. What are the features of conversion experiences?
  8. What objections can be raised against these?
  9. Specify at least two philosophers and their viewpoints in favour of the argument. (Not Swinburne!)
  10. What kind of proof do scientists seek?
  11. Why can’t these experiences be proven? What would be lost if they could?
  12. In what ways, however, can they count?
  13. What is a blik and whose idea is it?
  14. How can you use it on one side or other of the argument?
  15. Write a paragraph using Swinburne to sum up the defence.
  16. Do you think religious experience is a good argument for the existence of God?
  17. What did the logical positivists demand about true knowledge?
  18. Summarise the idea of the verification principle.
  19. What is the difference between synthetic and analytic statements.
  20. Name two philosophers particularly associated with these ideas.
  21. What objection did the logical positivists put forward against the Parable of the Gardener?
  22. In what way did Wittgenstein change his mind?
  23. What are the logical problems with the verification principle?
  24. How did Antony Flew use the Parable of the Gardener to illustrate his belief that religious statements are so over-protected to avoid falsification that they are reduced to nonsense?
  25. In his opinion what is the ‘fall-back’ answer religious believers will always end up giving even in the face of ‘undeniable proof’ that what they believe is wrong?

2003

    1. Analyse the key concepts of religious experience as an argument for the existence of God. [12]
    2. Evaluate the view that this argument supports the probability of the existence of God. [8]

 

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