Jan 25th REL 304 Notes Religious Experience St.

t. John of the Cross catholic saint author Therese of Lisieux daughter of the church saint author o Religious experiences Such experiences are used as religious truth

Religious Experience subjective physical, mental and emotional phenomena unique to religious thought and activity - Shotty definition. o Religious experience is to difficult to describe. - Why religious experience is different from ordinary experience: (to be a religious experience) o Believed to deviate from ordinary experience or accepted definitions of reality o Usually equated with a direct connection to the divine When studying the psychology of religion: (& religious experiences) - Must include all religious forms most scholars dont do this. - Must include all religious peoples mystics and ordinary people most scholars dont do this. - Must include all forms of experience (all features of religion) -= extraordinary and ordinary Centrality of Religious Experience - Experience is the core of human life - Experience is the core of religion o Without experience, there would be no religion (attempts for explanation via experience) o Religion continues because of religious experience - Experience is the only data for study o Psychologists study human experience Problems with Religious Experience - It is an amorphous phenomenon o Ambiguous interpretations too hard to describe - It is wholly subjective, widely variable and cant easily be quantified or qualified o Common explanations of religious experience: Ineffability: they cant be expressed in words Transiency: they last a short time Passivity: there is a sense of being controlled - Overlap with ordinary experiences and triggers o religious experiences can be had within ordinary experiences Impetration of an event