responses

• religious response to Freud + wish fulfilment:

  • this is just a hypothesis + cannot be tested
  • therefore fails to prove that experiences of God must be false
• religious response to TLE + neurotheology:

  • however God chooses to communicate with someone, it has to be processed by the brain
  • so the evidence presented by neurotheology does not mean religious experiences are no more than abnormal states of the brain
• religious responses to challenges from philosophy + theology:

  • some religious experiences are group experiences e.g. Miracle of the Sun, 1917, was witnessed by thousands of people
  • people can make drastic life changes after experiences e.g. C.S. Lewis' conversion
  • ineffability is a key characteristic of mystical experiences; it is difficult to investigate them but that does not mean they are false