If the "religious experience" is the same no matter the religion, what makes any one unique & "true"?

Question

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Neurologists have created "religious experience" by stimulating the brain both chemically and electrically. The participants report feeling close to God. Additionally, those who have temporal lobe epilepsy often have "religious" internal experiences.

What makes the religious experience, then, anything more than a common biological experience brought on by stress or forms of epilepsy (and thereby not supernatural in origin)?

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http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:It7J86q3QgIJ:www.teol.uu.se/staff/annerunehov/Esssat.pdf+Neurology+of+religious+experience&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=33&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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Answer 1

As a Christian, I have very serious doubts that something called "religious experience" actually exists. William James offers a classic explanation of "religious experience" in his influential Varieties of Religious Experience. He argues that all normal persons have religious experience and, since experience is the final arbiter of truth, then God — as the object of religious experiences — must be accepted as factually true. James further observes that the religious experiences in question tend to have a profound effect on the lives of people and even whole societies, implying that such effects cannot reasonably be attributed to hallucinations. Instead, it is much more reasonable to believe that a real God is responsible for religious experiences than to attribute the profound effects of those experiences to a mere imaginary being.

The first problem I see is in James’ assertion that “all normal people” have “religious experiences.” It is uncertain what exactly he means by this, but it is a much easier assertion to make than to support. If he means experiences of the supernatural — gods, angels, etc. — then he is wrong. If he means something much more vague, like that everyone has experienced awe when contemplating the universe, then he might be right but he isn’t supporting his claim.

The second problem is in the variety of religious experiences: if there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of religious experiences? Indeed, they are mutually incompatible. They can’t all be true, so at least some must be false. How do we differentiate? What reasons can the religious believer give to accept her reports over the reports made by others?

There are no independent criteria we can use to separate the genuine experiences from false or flawed experiences — not only in the reports of others, but in ourselves. The only criteria which might exist rely upon the validity of some religious system. For example, some argue that a religious experience which does not agree with the Bible is flawed or false — but since this ultimately assumes the truth of what is supposed to be proven, such criteria are unacceptable.

The third problem is in the idea that the profound effects these experiences have is any indicator of the truth. We can grant that people have some sort of experience and we can certainly grant that the experiences have a profound effect; but does this mean we must accept the reported content of these experiences — that they were of a supernatural nature? No.

Real experiences that have a profound impact on a person can have completely natural sources without any divine connections. Mystical experiences can be reproduced in anyone, both with chemical substances and mechanical equipment. With this being the case, what reason is there to think that other reports actually stem from a supernatural, rather than a natural, cause? If at least some of the alleged religious experiences are wholly natural, how do we separate them from the “truly” supernatural ones? Even if an experience changes the course of a society, that does not testify that the experiences had supernatural origins. At most, it might point to the persuasiveness of the believers or the appeal of the claims.

Some, like Richard Swineburne, argue that the degree to which it seems to a person that something has happened should translate into the probability that something has happened. It is true that when people say that it seems to them that a chair is in a room that, therefore, we tend to accept that a chair is in the room. It is not true, however, that every time someone genuinely and seriously believes something, we also accept that whatever they believe is probably true.

We only accept this when it comes to more mundane things which we all have experiences of. When someone says that it seems to them very strongly that an elf is in the room, we do not accept that there is probably an elf in the room, do we? Even if we accept Swineburne’s argument, we must also accept that when people try to have an experience of a god and fail, that this is good reason to believe that a god probably does not exist. After all, it would be prejudiced to dismiss the experiences of nonbelievers but privilege the experiences of those who already believe.

As I said, I do not see how one can argue for the existence of "religious experience."

HTH

Charles

Answer 2

I think what makes a religious experience genuine is that it was caused by something supernatural. But I think the question you mean to ask is how we can KNOW whether a religious experience is genuine or not. That, I'm not sure. I suppose if the religious experience imparted some kind of knowledge that you couldn't have known otherwise, and it turned out to be accurate, that's a good reason for supposing that it was probably genuine. But if a "religious experience" is just some kind of emotion, I don't think there's any way to tell. Lots of things can cause us to have emotional experiences.

Answer 3

Hmm.

Just because someone describes a totally UNKNOWN or UNFAMILIAR feeling or experience as "feeling close to God" does NOT make it a "religious experience". Period.

It ONLY means that they don't have any prior feeling or experience to connect the feeling/thought to.

Further, what makes you think that artificial stimulation of the brain makes all religions the same? The two are NOT connected.

Please, take propaganda ("pop" psychology) with a very large grain of salt. And, be careful how you try to feed it to other people.

Answer 4

If all experience is nothing more than a biological function of the brain and we have them what does that tell you about our design?

If it is just that, does that change anything at all?

Can you explain how chemical/electrical impulses firing across neural networks produces the sense of self, love, joy, ecstasy, enjoyment, time, family, memory, sight, sound, taste, mathematics, science, history?

Answer 5

Well first off I would have to say none of them are "true" in anyway other than from a perspective of a mythological history of a given nation/peoples.

I have been listening to a lot of comparative religion lately and I have to say that there is almost nothing unique about any religion. They all spill over into each other and borrow heavily from each other. What isn't borrowed is written in to refute others mythology, to say "look my god is greater than your god".

The ultimate non-unique religion is really christianity. almost every concept of it is borrowed from other older faiths. The easiest way to get someone to convert is to incorporate their beliefs, this is something christianity leaned early. If you were to take all of the pagan and judaic (who borrowed most of their mythology from earlier cultures) mythology from christianity what would you be left with?

Answer 6

Relationship, experience paired with the reality of your faith makes the religion unique and true. Varies with the indivdual and according to his/her faith or belief.

Answer 7

Or maybe a religious eperience brings on the epilepsy! You never know, do you.

Answer 8

Hmmm.

It certainly seems like you've got a point. I guess there just isn't an honest to goodness real God. I'll bet the whole idea was just a big fat lie, huh?

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Answer 9

You must test all spiritual experinces to the scriptures which are 1000's of years old.