Physiological Challenges
- there could be something happening in your body to make you have a religious experience
- e.g. St Paul’s conversion / brain tumour
Counter: there is no evidence that every person who has had a religious experience was suffering from an illness
Psychological Challenges
- Freud thought that religious experiences are the product of the mind
- e.g. mental illness
- thought that religion meets people’s psychological needs, wishful thinking
- scientists today still understand very little about the relationship between the mind and body
Sociological Challenges
- construct of society (where you live/grow up)
- Karl Marx said religion is a form of “alienation” from one’s true self
- said that it is a form of control of people in society to prevent them from making their own decisions
Counter: Marx could not accept that for many people religion is more than a comfort, it is a relationship with God
Chemicals
Mind altering chemicals:
e. g. St Francis Xavier’s diet was deficient in Vitamin B - it could be argued that the ‘heavenly visions’ he had were simply hallucinations
- alcohol
Other minds
we can never truly know what someone else thinks
Sincerity
They may be sincere but mistaken
David Hume
believed that people add details when they tell their own tales, so after repetition, the teller remembers what they said rather than what they experienced - mistrust in memories
