Is God really real or are people simply deluded?

[RobertE]

Nice to see some decent responses and debate from all concerned. I think one of the things that persuaded me to go in the other direction of being an agnostic, is simply because of a story in the bible (which book I cannot remember now) and how Jesus cures a boy who had the devil inside of him. I have been an Epileptic for a very long time and for me, the very symptoms in that story mirror those of epilepsy. This is short made me quite angry. I have heard many stories in where Catholics in Africa tried to exorcise those who had Epileptic seizures up until recently. The people from the villages used to think that these people were possessed by the devil of some sorts, and that, ladies and gentlemen is the sort of power religion has over people who may have little to no education whatsoever and will believe whatever an educated person will say. It is just one example which may go to show what might have happened when there was some sort of intelligent being who decided to do a Charles Manson and brainwash them into thinking he is the almighty. Christopher Hitchens brought it up in his debate about the Catholic church in the Intelligence Squared debate about how the catholic church took advantage of the indigenous people of South American. I guess it can be afforded to Islam too, where the only ones who really know Islam are Imams, and they know how to manipulate peoples minds. For example, how many of those who have gone over to fight for ISIS are fluent in Arabic?