Evaluating Religious Experience
Strengths and Weaknesses:
Agree Disagree
● Corporate Experiences - When ● Multiples Claims Issue (Hume) -
multiple people all have the same Whatever evidence might be
religious experience together, it attributed to a religious experience,
becomes far more difficult to dismiss at least the same amount of
with a naturalistic explanation. evidence must be granted to the
Examples of Corporate Experiences religious experiences of other
occur in Acts 2:3 (apostles speaking religions meaning that any principle
in tongues), Pentecostalism, and the that identifies a religious experience
Toronto Blessing as evidence, inevitably also brings
far greater evidence against it
Counter : Mass Hypnosis
(Hanegraaf + Sergeant), There are Counter : Evidence for Pluralism
peculiar psychological dynamics to (James + Hick), James argues
crowds or groups of people such as mystical religious experience
mob mentality and mass hysteria. occurring in all religions and being
Hanegraaf argues that corporate life-changing shows that they are all
experiences are a result of mass true. Hick argues that the different
hypnosis, while Sergeant explains religions of the world are like blind
them in terms of social conditioning. men each touching a different part
of an elephant, where differences
Counter : Not Miraculous (Hume), between religions are just part of the
Miracles are when the normal laws cultural ‘lens’ through which we see
of nature are ignored, but in many of the world
these corporate religious
experiences nothing miraculous ● Obsessional Neurosis (Freud) -
occurs and it is often people acting Religion is an ‘obsessional neurosis’
in weird, but natural, ways. These that is ultimately derived from two
non-miraculous events are simply main psychological forces, a fear of
insufficient evidence for God death (combined with our
awareness of the inevitability of
● Pluralist Argument (James) - The death) and a desire to be a child
commonality of mystical religious forever with eternal innocence (by
experiences (PINT) indicates there calling God ‘father’). These forces
is some common truth behind all are so powerful they create
world religions. Mystical experiences delusions within us.
are the core of religion, whereas
teachings and practices are ‘second Counter : Unempirical Methods
hand’ religion, i.e not what religion is (Popper), Freud studied a small
really about sample size which was not
representative of society and had no
Counter : Biological Explanation, A method of experiment. Popper
naturalistic explanation to common argued that Freud’s theories were
mystical experiences could be that unfalsifiable
all human brains hallucinate
Strengths and Weaknesses:
Agree Disagree
● Corporate Experiences - When ● Multiples Claims Issue (Hume) -
multiple people all have the same Whatever evidence might be
religious experience together, it attributed to a religious experience,
becomes far more difficult to dismiss at least the same amount of
with a naturalistic explanation. evidence must be granted to the
Examples of Corporate Experiences religious experiences of other
occur in Acts 2:3 (apostles speaking religions meaning that any principle
in tongues), Pentecostalism, and the that identifies a religious experience
Toronto Blessing as evidence, inevitably also brings
far greater evidence against it
Counter : Mass Hypnosis
(Hanegraaf + Sergeant), There are Counter : Evidence for Pluralism
peculiar psychological dynamics to (James + Hick), James argues
crowds or groups of people such as mystical religious experience
mob mentality and mass hysteria. occurring in all religions and being
Hanegraaf argues that corporate life-changing shows that they are all
experiences are a result of mass true. Hick argues that the different
hypnosis, while Sergeant explains religions of the world are like blind
them in terms of social conditioning. men each touching a different part
of an elephant, where differences
Counter : Not Miraculous (Hume), between religions are just part of the
Miracles are when the normal laws cultural ‘lens’ through which we see
of nature are ignored, but in many of the world
these corporate religious
experiences nothing miraculous ● Obsessional Neurosis (Freud) -
occurs and it is often people acting Religion is an ‘obsessional neurosis’
in weird, but natural, ways. These that is ultimately derived from two
non-miraculous events are simply main psychological forces, a fear of
insufficient evidence for God death (combined with our
awareness of the inevitability of
● Pluralist Argument (James) - The death) and a desire to be a child
commonality of mystical religious forever with eternal innocence (by
experiences (PINT) indicates there calling God ‘father’). These forces
is some common truth behind all are so powerful they create
world religions. Mystical experiences delusions within us.
are the core of religion, whereas
teachings and practices are ‘second Counter : Unempirical Methods
hand’ religion, i.e not what religion is (Popper), Freud studied a small
really about sample size which was not
representative of society and had no
Counter : Biological Explanation, A method of experiment. Popper
naturalistic explanation to common argued that Freud’s theories were
mystical experiences could be that unfalsifiable
all human brains hallucinate
