The Argument From Religious Experience

1. Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for the existence of God based on religious experience. (18) 2. ‘The argument merely indicates the probability of God and this is of little value to a religious believer.’ Discuss. (12)

In Kelly James Clark’s Article “Without Evidence or Argument”, Clark argues that belief in God, does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational. Clark’s argument is against W.K. Clifford’s article “The Ethics of Belief”, in which Clifford claims that everything must be believed only on the basis of sufficient evidence (139). Throughout Kelly Clark’s article he states many things that support his conclusion of belief without evidence or argument, however, my paper will only discuss what Clark says on p.139 starting with the paragraph “The first problem with Clifford’s…” and the following paragraph, ending with the words “...to see why.”

In the near future I would like to work in primary education. I originally wanted to go into secondary education with a qualification in Religion and Theology, however over the course of my first year in A Levels I realised that I had chosen the wrong subjects and this could be seen in the results that I got. I still wanted to work with children so I decided to go into Primary education. I had thought about two different ways into how I could approach my future ambitions, they are as the following, the first route was to complete my education go to university and complete a degree in Primary education, and my second route was to quite education and go into an apprenticeships,

tells me God has spoken to him in a dream… it is no more than to say

In William James’ 1902 book “The Varieties of Religious Experience” he opens with depicting the approach of his review. He clarifies that it would be of little advantage to construct the examination with respect to regular people who have bound religious encounters and emulate customs which have been passed on to them. Rather, he centers the review around 'religious virtuosos '. In addition, as he clarifies in his second address, the attention must be on individual religious experience instead of corporate, in light of the fact that it is more central. Actually, it is out of the extreme encounters of a little few that most religious developments (or "factions" as he terms them) have created. Part 3 builds up that individuals appear to have the ability to encounter the concealed furthermore an inclination to see it as being more genuine than things seen, listened, touched or tasted.

In “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Feldman discusses the role of intolerance and relativism in argumentation in regards to how epistemic peers who have a share of the same evidence reasonably maintain their own belief, all the while, maintaining that the other party of the disagreement is reasonable in their belief as well. This essay will concentrate on the benefits of Feldman’s observation and the benefits of critical thinking in argumentation as well as elaborate on the main reason as to why people so desperately agree to disagree in relation to media coverage.

In my eyes, God’s existence was as true as the existence of the brain. I have never seen it in real life, but I have seen proof of what it can accomplish. It got me thinking about my friend who was Jehovah’s Witness. She was raised differently compared to me. The difference between my Jehovah Witness friend and my atheist friend was that I was able to relate more with the one who believed in our God. I began to think deeper than just the exterior difference between us. I started thinking about how he pictured my religion. In his eyes, I believed in someone who did not exist. I believed in someone who, in many people’s eyes, had no legitimate proof of existence. The following day, I went to apologize. I told him that he had the same right as me to believe in what he felt was

As thought by Mr. Quail before entering Rekal, “an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least objectively. but subjectively — quite the opposite entirely” (Dick, 306). Mr. Quail acts as the author’s counterpoint, the argument of critical analysis and skepticism for such a reality. Physically experiencing an event, and only believing you did are obviously entirely different things. Sure, a person would believe they “have been and have done” (308) but the authentic experience of seeing it and experiencing it for themselves is all but

The problem of evil (the problem of suffering) is an argument against the existence of God

The belief in Gods has always existed throughout human’s recored history. Whether it be the Greek Gods: Apollo, and Zeus, or the Judeo-Christian God, believed by Christians in modern day society. The belief of God has always existed among humans, however, assuming God does not exist, what explains the cultural evolution of such a false belief, namely religion? I shall argue that the reason this false belief is successful is because it manipulates human nature better than any other belief by these three points: an avoidance of death (the soul), a sense of worth (knowledge), and a sense, or need of belief (faith).

What is Christian Science? Who is Mary Baker Eddy? Where does Christian Science come from? Is Christian Science like Scientology? What are Christian Science beliefs? Why are we here and where do we go when we die? These question may be raised when you hear Christian Science. Christian Science is unique in its own way, it may not seem all that amazing like other religions but Christian Science is truly amazing over all. Some people refer to Christian Science as non-Christian or an a cult, but that’s not true. Christian Science is a religion that formed more slowly than other religions but is still a good religion.

Whether god exists or not has been in discussion for thousands of years, and an important discussion. Whether it is rational to believe in god or not is another story, like believing in god itself, this topic has brought many discussions. It is one thing to discuss whether god is real or not and it is a complete other to discuss whether it is rational to believe in god or not. I believe that while there may not be any convincing evidence or arguments that God does exist, I do still believe that it is still rational to believe that god does exist. I think this because, believing in God is not simply just believing that he exists, but believing that it can bring good to our lives, we otherwise would not have. It teaches us to have a moral

The philosophical arguments presented in this document are not of religious text, nor scientific observation or established fact. Rather the premise of this God proof is bring together and share the various theories on which other God proofs have established foundations. I have heard it quoted that “Philosophy goes where hard science can 't, or won 't. Philosophers have a license to.” Therefore, with this in mind, I attest that it is more than problematic to construct an argument authenticating the unequivocal proof of the existence God. If nothing else this may be food for thought.

The Dynamics of Faith is an in-depth look at what faith is from a theological perspective. Tillich seems to be replying to all of the writers we have read thus far and placing their arguments within the context of faith. Nowhere is this more apparent than on page 24, in his discussion of community. He rightly acknowledges that faith is usually seen in its sociologic setting. He then proceeds to sort out the different claims, saying that

The question of God's existence has been debated in philosophy to great lengths. E.K. Daniel has listed all common philosophical arguments for the existence of God in his essay "A Defense of Theism", consisting of The Ontological Argument, The First-Cause Argument, The Argument of Contingency, The Design Argument, The Moral Argument, The Argument from Religious Experience, and The Natural Law Argument (p. 260). These arguments are familiar to any basic student of philosophy, along with the critiques that have been raised by philosophers such as Ernest Nagel in his essay "The Case for Atheism" (p. 274-283). These arguments have almost reached a virtual impasse, since there seems to be as much rational proof against the existence of God as there is fervor to believe in God. K.D. Ellis states this by saying "They may offer some support for the plausibility of the belief in a god, but they are not sufficiently strong enough to compel our assent to the conclusion that a god exists" (p. 297). This difference of perspective results in theism, atheism and agnosticism.