Temporal lobe epilepsy & religious experience.

[Angrboda]

I think you misunderstand the objection.  If one replaces real causes with an epiphenomenal god, then all one is doing is engaging in pointless metaphysics.  Yes this fit of epilepsy could be caused by god, and gravity could be the effect of an omnipotent machine projecting force throughout the universe, but why would you?  If you replace one cause with God then you can replace them all.  The principle of insufficient reason will cut down all such moves.   If you can replace them all, then "God" just becomes a new name for nature, and your attempt to explain the original phenomenon turns out to be nothing more than bullshit semantics.  It's the same problem with Berkeley's argument for God; all you're doing is insisting on calling nature God for Reasons[TM].

No. I was not suggesting that epilesy was a means by which any god communes. I am saying that one experience can be authentic and another inauthentic depending on the chain of events that brought* it into being. By way of analogy, the perfect forgery of a Vermeer painting can never be an authentic Vermeer.

*Interesting how it seems so intuitive to use teleological language!

Fair enough. I presumed you were responding to Nudger and my talk of an extraneous god. I don't know how your response relates and it seems unrelated. You haven't dealt with the objection in play.

(And feel free to provide argument or evidence for authentic communing with a god.)