(January 9, 2018 at 10:09 am)Jehanne Wrote:(January 9, 2018 at 9:13 am)mh.brewer Wrote: 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.
And he could also have eaten some moldy bread, been sleep deprived, dehydrated, ......... Or it could have all been made up for attention/manipulation. Who knows. The fact the people seemed to believe him indicates that he was probably not schizophrenic. Look at all of the others things people believed back then, (some even now) that we now know is crap.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
