Religious Experience Essay - 862 Words

Religious Experience There are various interpretations of the definite meaning of a religious experience, where each are unique and different. There have been many, many stores put forward by certain individuals who have claimed to have such an experience. Various people have studied them, and have come to the conclusion that in most cases, very similar subjects are brought up in them. Some say that a religious experience involves having some sort of contact with God. For example, it has come to our awareness that people over the years have ‘heard the voice of God’. It is usually described as a ‘mental event’ which is undergone by someone, and to which they are conscience about it all.†¦show more content†¦One could dream about something in a few minutes, when realistically it would take hours, or the other way round. However, unlike dreams, religious experiences are remembered by individuals for the rest of their lives due to the impact and effects of them. This process is called transciency. A variety of famous scholars have come to the conclusion that whilst going through an experience of religions importance, the person involved is most likely to lose complete control over themselves because of the bigger force around then, called God. The effects could be a personality disorder, where the characteristics of an individual are completely wiped out and changed due to the astounding effects of the religious experience that the person went through. As stated previously, there are different forms of religious experiences. Firstly, most experiences are said to have been ‘mystical’. By this I mean that the individual feels closer and more united with the Divine as a result. The Divine means a absolute perfect being that has phenomenal power and cannot be compared to anything - God. Mysticism involves ‘the spiritual recognition of truths beyond normal understanding’, and is it is also said that it is the closest a human come actually come to meeting the Divine. William James, a famous religious commentator, suggested that the term mystical had several contexts,Show MoreRelatedPersonal Reflection On Religious Experience1006 Words   |  5 PagesReligious experience varies from someone to another. We all experience the numinous at some point in our life even we know It or not. Sometimes it feels like an overwhelming feeling that no human being can handle. It could be an experience of a feeling and wonder in the presence of the beyond God. The numinous is the awareness of human nothingness when faced with the holy. According to Otto, the numinous is an experience of being acted upon by something outside of ourselves, a wholly other. It makesRead MoreReligious Experiences are all Illusions3185 Words   |  13 Pages‘Religious experiences are all illusions.’ Discuss. 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