(January 9, 2018 at 9:13 am)mh.brewer Wrote:(January 7, 2018 at 2:13 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Of course it does! If I lose my keys, do I just assume that a fairy took them? How do you distinguish between someone who is a functional schizophrenic from someone who has a "genuine" religious experience?
By diagnostic interview. Not all schizophrenics have religious experiences. If they do, you'll find that the schizophrenic thought process is fractured and tangential with inconsistencies and disorganization. Also the affect will often not be appropriate to the conversation.
Some schizophrenics are mostly coherent, able to hold jobs, etc. Paul could have had some sort of schziophrenia with some epileptic seizsures that led him to believe that he was having out of body experiences with divine beings. These things do happen, and given the artificial selection of religion, such would explain their genesis.
