Individual religious experience means individual religious fantasy; corporate religious experience means corporate religious fantasy; discuss

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Individual religious experience means individual religious fantasy; corporate religious experience means corporate religious fantasy; discuss

Religious experience means a ‘non-empirical occurrence’ and maybe alleged as supernatural ‘mental event’ undergone by an individual spontaneously or brought on by thorough training and self-discipline. Different forms of religious experience may include mystical which means that the recipient feels a sense of ‘union’ with the divine. Many experiences are classified as ‘Prayer’ that has been brought about by meditation or refection. All forms of religious experience are life changing.

Religious experience is capable of different interpretations. It can be divided in to direct and indirect. “Direct experience of the divine is a claim made by many individuals and is classically exemplified by those encounters with God described in the Bible. Indirect experience of the divine is said to be perceptible within ordinary experience and is held by some to depend on the development of a special faculty of apprehension or appreciation somewhat parallel to our capacity of appreciate art or music”. This understanding is the one we find expressed in writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s (1768-1834) an experience of absolute dependence, of the Infinite in contrast with our finitude. Religious philosophy was prominent during this Christian era of the early 1800s. He attempted to balance reason and faith with the idea of the ‘creature consciousness’ of the individual. The sense of reverence one felt when contemplating the universe revealed an indescribable reality. This ‘numinous’ experience betrayed a ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ upon a more powerful transcendent entity. Religion is not ethics but emotions. C.D. Broad (1887-1917) had the analogy, which proposes that if we imagine a race of begins in which all members were blind, but could walk about and touch things. Suppose then that eventually a few individuals of this race developed the power of sight. All that they might tell their blind friends about colour would be wholly unintelligible and unverifiable by the latter. But the sighted of this race would be able to tell their friends about the things which the blind could verify themselves. This would not prove that the unintelligible statements about colour are true, but it would show that sighted people had a source of additional information that the blind people do not have. To Broad, it would not be unreasonable for the blind people to suppose that the statements the sighted persons made about things which could not be verified by the blind people, are true, due to this source of additional information. Broad uses this analogy to demonstrate that it is reasonable to suppose that religious experiences are actual and can base an argument upon these experiences.

William James (1842-1910) believed in a right each individual has to affirm religious propositions solely upon the basis of emotional predilection, but only under certain conditions. The choice confronting the individual must be inescapable, so that not choosing is a choice. The alternatives must be living, appealing options that can be genuinely embraced; and the decision must be momentous, providing a unique opportunity that will make a significant difference in a person's life. It requires sufficient intelligible grounds for acceptance. James classified religious experiences with four points in which a true mystical experience must include the following characteristics, the e James classified religious experiences with four points in which a true mystical experience must include the following characteristics, the experience must be ineffable meaning the experience can not be described in ordinary language. For example Teresa of Avila was unable to describe what she saw during her mystical experience. The second point that the experience must be noetic meaning it must provided insights into unobtainable truths. The experience must also be transient meaning that the experience can last a lifetime for example seeing something like the Virgin Mary however the effects of this experience should last a lifetime but the actual sighting of the Virgin Mary shouldn’t. The last point James made was that the individual must feel a ‘loss of control’ to a more powerful being i.e. God. With these points William James obviously felt that both individual and corporate experiences were not fantasy and genuine to the person.

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Albert Einstein said that The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious…a knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate… it is this knowledge and his emotion that constitutes that truly religious attitude”.  What Einstein said was closer to what Otto called the numinous, “Otto describes the central 'feeling' of the Mystical experience as a kind of “creature-feeling”. The Holy or numinous experience, an experience of a wholly other which evokes boundless awe & wonder & which entrances & captivates. Numinous is the presence of awesome power”.

The relation between individual experience and the life of groups can be seen ...

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