Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The religious point of view
- 'Seeing'
- a star - i see a silvery
speck no bigger than
a 5p piece
- We record what is actually
being observed, bring little
knowledge to the observation
- 'Seeing as'
- a star - i see a
distant star which
has an extension
greater than that of
the earth
- What we perceived is identified
and classified in terms of our
knowledge of stars - informed
by our understanding
- From this Austen concludes that raw
data supplied by senses can be seen
in many different ways, and so there is
no one right way of saying what is seen
- For example one person may see a
motion picture while another may see
a series of carefully drawn stills, run in
quick succession
- Hick said that religious
differs from non religious
experience, as a different
way of experiencing the
same world
- Events can be experienced as
having a purely natural
significance are experienced
by the religious mind as
mediating the presence and
activity of God
- Descartes hats, cloaks and umbrellas
- judge to be humans from
appearances; mind organises data
according to expectations an concepts
that we have already gained from
experience
- Perceptual experiencing as:
Hick develops analogy
between perception and
experience of god.
- Perception is not
registering what is out there
neutrally
- E.g. necker cube- one set of
lines can be seen in two ways
or see patterns in neutral
objects such as clouds
- Can argue that all seeing involves
seeing aas e.g. see a book as a
book, someone from different culture
wont have this concept and maybe
see it as a clump of paper.
- Perception on this account involves
recognition - never neutral and our
concepts are always involved
- Hick therefore argues that
religious experience is a kind
of experiencing as
- A religious person experiences life as an
encounter with god as well as
experiencing other people and physical
world. Different layer of experiencing as -
a perspective on life and the world that
non religious person does not have
- But are they really analogous?
Is religious experience not
simply a subjective projection of
religious meaning onto natural
events
- Hick admits there are disanalogies: e.g.
religious experience isnt sensory
perception and we arent perceiving types
of objects but the significance of events
- However there is an
important continuity
- 1) perception involves making sense of what we
see -how we respond to it e.g. when i see an
object as a fork - involves an appropriate
response to how we are disposed to act in
relation to it. know a fork is an everyday mundane
object used to eat with- contrast to bear
- Shouldnt think therefore that we
can contrast religious experience as
a projection with neutral perceptual
experience - no experience is
neutral
- 2) we dont recognise objects we
recognise situations; shown by
immediate responses e.g. having a
sense of god when observing the
beauty of the world involves a change
in the how we're disposed to act
- E.g. seeing someone hanging off cliff
instigates moral response to help them -
situation of moral significance
- Religious experience is a matter of recognising the
religious significance of events or situations - how we
respond to them e.g. having sense of god when
observing beauty of natural world. Religious response
not optional extra - same for religious person to
experience the world this way as it is for someone to
experience a fork
- Can still say analogy doesnt work - we do
not need to accept that all recognition is
similar to perceptual recognition. if we
recognising religious significance of an
event was similar to recognising a fork,
when we can ask hat sense do we use when
we detect apparent religious significance
- Religious hypothesis
- A hypothesis is 'a proposal
that needs to be tested by
experience',
- Religious hypothesis
'God exists'
- Can it be tested empirically? For it to
be a hypothesis would have to
imagine conditions under which we
could say it was not a fact
- E.g. theory of evolution would be
given up if aliens came to earth and
shown us they planted the fossils
they made
- Hick argues not a hypothesis
because we experience god
directly - human life is an
encounter with god, no more a
hypothesis than 'this is a fork'
- Say argument still applies, can
imagine situations that would lead
us to say 'this is not a fork' e.g if
fork were hologram or illusion
- By same logic what would lead us to say that
human life isnt an encounter with god? -
nothing present that means one has to
withdraw ones claim about encountering god in
life. - suggests that 'god exists' is not
something we can directly know from
experience
- This argument assumes that for 'god
exists' to state a fact, we have to know
how to test whether true or false against
experience. Or could argue that meaning
of 'god exists' related to very process of
making sense of facts - not scientific
hypothesis but still hypothesis. Or just
subjective opinion because from how
people experience human life
- Religious belief mirrors attitudes mirrors
attitudes rather than feelings
- All arguments so far understood 'god exists' as statement of
fact - but cannot be tested against empirical evidence +
religious belief is not purely intellectual - no truth to work out
to know 'god exists' - so how can be a statement of fact?
- When someone converts to religion
their will, not intellectual beliefs,
changes or values. Person does not
suddenly change views on science
and what they KNOW to be true - just
has a different scale of importance
- Therefore argue that religious belief isnt
form of belief
- Religion is about how someone lives their life;
therefore say that religious beliefs are expressions
of attitudes and commitments of ones religion in
order to mature spiritually. Are a whole set of
beliefs - indicate a way of life
- more than just commitment
to way of life in religious
beliefs - does it matter what
they beleive?
- Religious beliefs relate to specific
stories or myths - makes it about
facts but stories do not need to be
believed to be true - need to get
moral message from them