The Truth Of Religious Experiences

After the rationalism that dominated most of the 19th century, epistemology moved in several directions. Some returned to 18th century empiricism, with movements such as post-Newtonian physics (e.g; Einstein), and logical positivism. Others adopted beliefs from the Romantic Movement, and proposed an epistemological system based on emotion and intuition ('I feel therefore I am'). However, with the decline of rationalism and German Idealism at the end of the 19th century, came a rediscovery of spirituality and mysticism. This, combined with a new surge of liberal and individualistic religious practice, led to a greater emphasis placed on the individual religious experience. The concept of divine revelation once more became prevalent alongside the rapid rise of religious and ideological fundamentalism, conventional drug use and the integration of Eastern spirituality within Western Society. This raised the debate over the nature of religious experiences. Since epistemology had been scattered, no theory of truth truly had dominion over others. Mysticism and divine revelation started to be taken more seriously by the pragmatists, who found that the veracity of religious experiences was more easily accepted than denied However, the question still remains; how can we truly be sure that claims of religious experiences are true? What constitutes religious experience? Even whether or not a religious experience is truly experiential seems to be in question. Above all, we must examine the nature of religious experiences, the veracity of such assertions, and the possible challenges to the concept of religious experiences. In the end, due to a conflict of claims, a confusion of definitions, and a multitude of physiological, psychological and sociological refutations, it shall be concluded that the if someone says that they have had a religious experience, they probably haven't.

Defining a religious experience has always been difficult. Rudolph Otto claimed that it had something to do with 'an apprehension of the wholly other,' as a result of an encounter with 'the numinous.' These experiences were usually ineffable and left the mystic with a feeling of insignificance in wake of a more powerful being. Moreover, they cannot be interpreted through a rational epistemological framework, and thus rely on some sort of divine medium. This rather abstract definition was tightened up by William James with his four criteria for a religious experience. According to him, a religious experience is one which is: ineffable (beyond human descri ption), noetic (one that gives insight, enlightenment or revelation), transient (it passes quickly, even if the mystic's sense of time is altered during the experience) and passive (the mystic cannot control what is happening). James was a pragmatist, and thus believed that the epistemological system that 'worked,' was best. Thus, James claimed that since there are a seemingly endless number of accounts of religious experience, of which most share these four qualities, it is more pragmatic to accept the experiences as true, than to try and rationally explain each and every case. Richard Swinburne categorised religious experience into five different classes, and split them into private experiences and public experiences.

Private experiences, which happen to an individual, are notoriously difficult to verify or falsify. Philosophers such as Karl Popper or the logical positivists would claim that this renders the claim meaningless. For example, A.J Ayer was a famous logical positivist, who claimed that a statement is only meaningful on the basis of the possibility of its verification. If a statement cannot be verified by empirical means, then it is meaningless, and should not be discussed. Since these experiences are often outside the realm of normal 'sense data,' they would be considered meaningless.

Another convincing argument against the veracity of claims to religious experience is the fact that most people who claim to have had a religious experience are already religious. This may suggest that the experience was propositional, in that the person's experience occurred as a result of his/her belief rather than the other way round. Swinburne retorts by pointing out that just as a person who had never seen a telephone before could not correctly identify a telephone; a person who is not religious would not easily be able to identify a strange experience as divine revelation. There are also several cases of atheists or agnostics experiencing something mystical and converting as a result of their experience.

Richard Swinburne defends most cases of religious experience on two grounds. Firstly, he postulates his Principle of Credulity. This states that things should be believed as they seem to be unless direct contradictory evidence proves otherwise. In a sense, this is similar to Ockham's razor, which states that we should believe the simpler, easier-to-explain statement. So if a person claims, for example, to have heard the voice of God, and they were not hallucinating, nor was there direct evidence to show that they were mistaken (they might have been deceived by someone), then we should believe their claim. His other principle, the Principle of Testimony essentially states that the person is 'innocent until proven guilty,' and that we should believe them, unless we have suspicion to distrust them (for example, if they are a compulsive liar).

Some people dismiss the notion of religious experiences due to a lack of evidence to suggest that it is even possible to have such an experience. For example, scientists have not found anything in the brain which would suggest something such as this is possible. However, Wittgenstein, the famous analytic philosopher of the 20th century, argued that the concept of scientific evidence in relation to religious experience is meaningless and cannot be discussed. For Wittgenstein, when discussing the divine, we are playing a different 'language game.' Essentially, this means that conventional descri ption through ordinary and scientific language is insufficient to describe something such as divine revelation, which is outside our normal realm of understanding. For Wittgenstein, this reduces all talk of religious experience to scepticism, and claims that metaphysical questions on God are cannot be discussed.

Nevertheless, there are still far too many convincing challenges to the veracity of religious experience for the majority of such claims to be trusted. For one, there is a confliction of claims over religious experience. There is never a standard format for 'the religious experience.' Whilst there are many who have claimed to have had a religious experience, the nature of these experiences range from 'seeing God's design in a beautiful landscape,' to 'seeing a living, breathing Jesus Christ in front of their eyes.' Essentially, these claims seem to be far too irregular and subjective to be trusted.

Secondly, there are several sociological critiques of religious experience. Firstly, the experience nearly always reflects the person's societal upbringing. Catholics experience the Virgin Mary whilst Hindus experience Shiva. In a sense, there is a high chance that most of these experiences are simply wish fulfilment. Karl Marx claimed that "religion is the opium of the people." Thus, religion is like a drug which confuses and alters the reality of ordinary people. Their spiritually experiences are therefore not to be trusted.

There are several psychological and physiological challenges to religious experience as well. Many visions can be explained by physiological defects, such as epilepsy, brain damage, brain tumours, illnesses, fevers and allergic reactions which cause hallucinations and skew the person's perception of reality. Freud examined the psychology of the mentally ill. He observed that many of them behaved in a way that was ceremonial and religious. He claimed that religion is an illusion that expresses a child-like desire for a 'greater' being which looks after and protects them, much like a father. This leads to them 'seeing' divine provenance in everyday events and misinterpreting them as religious experiences.

Consequently, due to unconvincing evidence, a poor epistemological system that does not hold up to scrutiny, and a multitude of debilitating challenges that severely attack the veracity of mystical assertions, we must conclude that the majority of claims about having a religious experience must be false. There is too much scope for misinterpretation to truly believe these claims. The fact that a person might see extremely non-specific events, such as 'fate' causing two people to meet and fall in love, leads us to conclude that a disproportionate amount of these 'mystics' are simply seeing divinity in events that are actually mundane. Lastly, the far simpler, rational explanations for religious experience lead me to assume that if someone says they have had a religious experience, they probably haven't.