1. Think, Pair, share
Kant said humans have fives senses and everything comes through these. God is not part of the phenomenal world of objects that come through the senses. What would he say about Religious Experiences?

2. Challenges to Religious Experience

3. Lesson Outcomes
To be able to explain the challenges to religious experiences.
To be able evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments for and against religious experiences.

4. Physiological Challenge
One argument against religious experiences suggests that they have a physiological cause.
i.e. they are the product of physical changes in the body. E.g. did Paul have epilepsy?
This could explain his experience of bright light.
It is known that damage to the brain can cause hallucinations, as can brain tumours.
Persinger’s God helmet
Counter arguments:
The weakness of this challenge is that there is no evidence that every person who has had a religious experience was suffering from an illness that can cause side effects such as hallucinations of it’s victims.
The physiological changes could actually be a result of the experience. E.g. when one becomes scared the body releases chemicals such as adrenaline.

5. Psychological Challenge
Many have argued that religious experiences are a product of human psychology.
If this is true this would explain the common occurrence of religious experiences both throughout history and across cultures.
Freud
Links religion with a neurosis caused by childhood insecurities and the desire for a father figure to protect us, like God.
Religious experiences are hallucinations that have a simple psychological explanation.
He argued that religion was an illusion by which he meant that is expresses people’s desires – what they want to believe.
Religion meets people’s psychological needs, if this is true then religion must come from these psychological needs
This makes religious experiences similar to wishful thinking
Ludwig Feuerbach
God is a human projection.
We created God in our own image.
Human beings made up God’s attributes.
Counter Arguments
Karl Jung: accepted religious experiences, which are important for our spiritual development. This development is essential to our psychological wholeness. We all have an idea of God within us.
William James: religious experiences could relate to the human subconscious, he did not believe this challenge was an argument against God’s existence.
If God is so powerful, couldn’t he use psychology to give people religious experiences?

6. Sociological Challenge
Origins of religious exps found in society. A religious exp reflects the place you grown up in.
Hence, it is no surprise that Catholics see Mary and Hindus see Shiva. The visions reflect the thought of the society in which one lives.
Creates issues = which one of these would be correct?
Hume: Conflicting claims in different religious traditions cancel each other out.
Marx: Religion is like a alienation from the true self i.e. that religion was a fake that distracts people from reality. That’s why he called religion the ‘opium of the people’. So religious experiences create alienation.
Counter arguments
Religion = more than comfort drug. Rather their faith is a relationship with God, and God is a real being and not a product of society.
Religion isn’t just a fake and a mode of controlling people, sometimes its seen as a force for change e.g. Martin Luther King Jr.
When Marxism implemented has caused more problems than solutions in countries such as Russia and China.

7. Challenges to Religious Experiences?
Research more about each thinker’s challenge. Make argument cards for each one. Add to your zig-zag from last lesson!
The key thinkers:
Freud
Feuerbach
Hume
Marx
Kant
Jung

8. The Debate
To what extent should we take seriously other people’s reports of religious experience? What would these people argue?
James
Freud
St Teresa of Avalia
Feuerbach
Swinburne
Hume
Jung
Marx
Ockham
Kant

9. Think, Pair, Share
Bertrand Russell rejected religious experiences because they would not even convince a person stood near by. They convince only the person who experiences them. Do you agree?