True Epistemic Value of Religious Experiences
For many years, the idea of what it means to have a “religious experience” has been greatly debated. Philosophers and great thinkers alike have grappled with many questions, such as what constituted a “religious experience” and the difference between that and a mystical experience. Part of this great debate involves two philosophers from a similar time period, William James and C.D Broad, who each saw these experiences, despite some similarities, as having different epistemic values. Broad offers that these religious experiences can provide strong validation of a higher existence, while James take more of a perennialist view, in which all of the religious traditions of the world have on common belief about the world; therefore, his idea of mystical experiences don’t truly support the idea of a supreme being. I believe that neither James nor Broad are completely correct and rather the epistemic value of religious experiences lies somewhere in between their views.
C.D. Broad approach to the idea of religious experience is not far off from the views of others, where he believes that when a person goes through such an event, they feel the presence of the higher power such as G-d, or Jesus or Muhammad or whatever that higher being may be. Broad does state, however, that there is some degree skepticism is required when talking to other people about religious experiences, especially those who have never had the experience before. Broad says “when persons without religious experience regard themselves as being on the ground superior to those who have it, their attitude must be treated merely silly and offensive (Broad 121)”. This in combination with his point on these experiences leading to...
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Throughout this essay I will demonstrate how religion has played a role in the lives of humans as well as explicate the reasoning behind the true nature of the creation of religion by a psychopath.
For William James, his perspective on religious experience was skeptical. He divided religion between institutional religion and personal religion. For institutional religion he made reference to the religious group or organization that plays a critical part in the culture of a society. Personal religion he defined as when an individual has a mystical experience which can occur regardless of the culture. James was more focused on the personal religious experience, “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (Varieties, 31), and had a sort of distain for organized and institutional religion.
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According to the traditional Christian theistic tradition, God exists and is an omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent being that desires to be in an intimate relationship with his creation. One way that God chooses to connect and communicate with his creation is through religious experiences. There are accounts throughout history of people such as Paul, or Saul (Acts 9), Joan of Arc and Teresa of Avila (P&R 220) being privy to these types of experience. Over time these religious experiences have been used as evidence for the argument for the existence of God. In this paper I will address this argument originally defined by C.D. Broad as well as the objections raised against it showing that these religious experiences are indeed sufficient
Mysticism as defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is: “a religious practice based on the belief that knowledge of spiritual truth can be gained by praying or thinking deeply.” Among the People of the Book, mysticism is a prevalent theme; albeit in various arrangements in the past. Rabbi Nehunia ben haKana that is attributed authorship of the Sefer ha-Bahir, otherwise known as The Book of Illumination, and Julian of Norwich’s (c. 1342-c. 1413) Revelations of Divine Love are two texts that each falls in line with this definition of mysticism.