Category: Revision

Posted on

Sample paper for 2009 version 2007 Analyse the argument for the existence of God from religious experience

Analyse the argument for the existence of God from religious experience. [18]

The argument from experiences of God to the existence of god.

What is a religious experience?

Examples

Features

Why regarded as good argument even proof

A posteriori – evidence based

Inductive

Synthetic

On the other hand

    Evidence influenced by cultural familiarity – bliks / memes

    Evidence can be misinterpreted – alcohol, starvation, drugs, neurological… Russell… (snakes)

 

‘The argument for the existence of God will result in valid reasons to believe in God.’ Assess this claim.

 

Does it?

Yes – Swinburne – God will seek to interact…

No – there is no god so…

Yes – many testimonies can all be wrong?

Principles of C+ T – experience of x indicates the existence of God

No – not always!!

Hume – arguments against miracles … valid here!

 

 

Atheist never convinced unless happens to them

Effect on life that must convince…

Posted on

Religious experience 2005 question 4

a) Analyse the key features of religious experience and explain how these are used as an argument for the existence of God

  • what constitutes a religious experience
  • what features do they have? William James – ineffable, noetic, transient, passive others think more (see recap sheet Sept 05)
  • what makes people think they’re religious
  • what kinds of experiences do they have? Where? When?
  • Need to use religious language to describe them
  • Then
  • Why do people think these arguments show God exists?
  • Some regard these experiences as proof
  • Cumulative effect
  • They aren’t asked for
  • Don’t aggrandise the experient
  • Can be frightening
  • Therefore why would the experient lie?
  • Swinburne’s principles of credulity and testimony
  • Swinburne the fact of religious experience swings the balance in favour of God. If there was no God why would anyone claim to have these experiences?

 

b) To what extent is this a weak argument for the existence of God?

  • Alternative interpretations: delusion, interpretation within cultural mindset, ‘seeing as’, hallucination, neurological response
  • Not proof
  • Probability
  • Wittgenstein – assertion not verifiable (not synthetic or analytic) therefore meaningless
  • Flew: believers will let nothing count against God so claims are nonsense
  • Swinburne: some statements cannot be confirmed but it doesn’t necessarily make them untrue.
  • It’s an a posteriori, synthetic and inductive argument: so if we can accept the nature of the evidence then we may agree on the conclusion but we don’t have to!
  • The evidence can be interpreted to form alternative conclusions
  • Yet because they rely on evidence they can be tested to some extent
  • And they don’t rely on fixed definitions
  • Different experiences in different religions therefore bliks therefore some would argue less valid