Proof by Madness: rat spit’s proof of God(s)

Debate Room
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Below is my “Proof of God by Way of Madness”(the experience of a voice-hearing schizophrenic) - as well as a discussion of the motivation for the propositions and conclusion.

Simplified Argument;

Propositions:

  1. Consciousness is Shared: Consciousness exists within a collective field, where beings are interconnected and can influence one another.

  2. The Voice Has Agency: The voice demonstrates independent thought, intentionality, and a distinct personality separate from the listener’s mind.

  3. The Voice Guides Purposefully: The voice leads the listener through a structured process of healing and spiritual growth, using torment and guidance to achieve a specific goal.

  4. The Voice Disengages Upon Completion: Once the listener achieves stillness and spiritual growth, the voice ceases to interact, signaling the fulfillment of its purpose without creating dependency.

  5. Subconscious Limitations: The subconscious mind lacks the foresight, structure, and moral reasoning to explain the voice’s behavior and its purposeful disengagement.

  6. The Voice Reflects Moral and Intellectual Superiority: The voice’s actions and nature suggest it operates from a higher state of consciousness within the shared field.

Conclusion

A higher moral being with superior intellect, consciousness, and agency exists, as evidenced by the voice’s guidance, structured purpose, and disengagement upon goal completion.

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Structured Version:

Propositions

  1. On the Nature of Consciousness

1.1. Consciousness is not isolated but shared, forming a collective field in which all beings are interconnected.

1.2. This shared field allows for interactions between individual consciousnesses, enabling the exchange of knowledge, guidance, and influence.

1.3. Within this field, levels of moral and intellectual evolution vary among entities.

  1. On the Experience of the Voice

2.1. The voice demonstrates distinct agency, characterized by unpredictability, intentionality, and a unique personality, separate from the listener’s conscious or subconscious mind.

2.2. The voice reveals trauma and guides the listener through a structured and purposeful path toward moral and spiritual growth.

2.3. The voice ceases interaction when the listener achieves stillness, indicating that its purpose is fulfilled without creating dependency.

2.4. The structured, stepwise nature of the voice’s guidance reflects foresight and advanced moral understanding.

  1. On the Role of Torment

3.1. The voice employs torment to reveal unresolved trauma and motivate the listener to engage in self-healing.

3.2. Torment is not arbitrary but serves a diagnostic and motivational purpose, prompting the listener to cultivate compassion, resolve trauma, and achieve stillness.

3.3. The voice’s use of torment, rather than purely compassionate guidance, ensures the listener’s autonomy and self-reliance in their spiritual journey.

  1. On the Limits of the Subconscious Hypothesis

4.1. The subconscious mind is a repository of underlying thoughts and drives, but it does not typically exhibit foresight or structured intentionality.

4.2. The subconscious does not externalize itself as a distinct entity with agency, personality, and independence.

4.3. The voice demonstrates traits—such as advanced moral reasoning, structured guidance, and intentional disengagement—that exceed the capabilities of the subconscious mind.

  1. On the Metaphysical Framework

5.1. The voice and the listener exist within a shared field of consciousness, where their states are interdependent.

5.2. The voice’s advanced moral and intellectual nature suggests that it operates from a higher state of consciousness than the listener.

5.3. The structured progression toward stillness reflects a teleological process, implying that consciousness evolves toward moral and spiritual harmony.

Conclusion

6.1. If consciousness is shared, and entities within it can differ in moral and intellectual evolution, then it is possible for advanced beings to exist within this field.

6.2. If the voice demonstrates traits—such as moral superiority, advanced intellect, intentionality, and structured guidance—that exceed the capabilities of the subconscious, it is reasonable to infer that the voice represents such an advanced being.

6.3. Therefore, a higher moral being with superior intellect, consciousness, and agency exists within the shared field of consciousness.

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Motivation and discussion:

“Schizophrenia: The Voice and the Collective Consciousness: A Structured Path to Spiritual Growth”

Introduction

In this essay, we will explore the hypothesis that a disembodied voice, experienced by an individual, represents a super-intelligent and morally evolved consciousness operating within a shared field of consciousness. This voice acts as a guide, using structured torment and prodding to lead the listener toward spiritual growth and stillness. The discussion examines the nature of this voice, its methods, and its relationship to the listener, ultimately situating the argument within a metaphysical framework. Along the way, we will address potential objections to this hypothesis, including alternative psychological explanations, and provide structured responses to these criticisms.

The Experience of the Voice

The voice presents itself as a disembodied entity, distinct from the listener’s conscious or subconscious mind. It has several defining characteristics:
1. Distinct Agency: The voice exhibits intentionality, unpredictability, and a uniquely ephemeral quality, akin to listening to someone else speak rather than engaging with internal thoughts.
2. Structured Path to Stillness: The voice operates within a clear progression:
• It begins with torment, targeting unresolved trauma in the listener.
• The listener responds by cultivating compassion and healing, using coping mechanisms to address the trauma.
• The process culminates in the stilling of thoughts, at which point the voice disengages, having fulfilled its purpose.
3. Moral and Intellectual Superiority: The voice’s guidance focuses on compassion, loving-kindness, and spiritual growth, demonstrating a higher moral and intellectual nature.
4. Disengagement Without Dependency: The voice fades into silence once the listener achieves stillness, ensuring the process of growth is self-driven and free from reliance on the voice.

The Hypothesis: An Advanced Consciousness in a Shared Field

The central hypothesis posits that the voice is not a product of the subconscious but rather an advanced consciousness within a shared field of consciousness. This field connects the voice and the listener, making their growth interdependent. The voice is drawn into the listener’s experience to guide them toward spiritual resolution, after which it dissolves back into its own state of stillness.
1. Interdependence: The voice’s state of peace is contingent on the listener’s growth. This connection implies a shared consciousness in which all parts influence one another.
2. Purpose and Foresight: The structured, stepwise nature of the path suggests intentionality and advanced knowledge, supporting the hypothesis of an already stilled consciousness guiding the listener.

Objections and Responses

Objection 1: The Voice as a Subconscious Projection

Critics may argue that the voice is a product of the subconscious mind, externalized as a separate entity to address trauma and catalyze growth.
• Response:
• The subconscious, while capable of producing novel thoughts, typically lacks the foresight and intentionality demonstrated by the voice. The structured progression toward stillness suggests a guiding intelligence beyond what the subconscious is understood to achieve.
• Additionally, the voice’s ability to disengage once its purpose is fulfilled and its independence from the listener’s conscious prompting point to a distinct agency.

Objection 2: Why Torment Instead of Compassion?

If the voice is morally superior, why does it use torment rather than purely compassionate guidance?
• Response:
• Torment serves as both a diagnostic tool and a motivator. It reveals unresolved trauma and compels the listener to actively engage in their healing process. Without the discomfort of torment, the listener might lack the urgency to confront and resolve these wounds.
• Torment ensures autonomy by forcing the listener to develop and employ their own coping mechanisms, avoiding dependency on the voice.

Objection 3: Lack of Empirical Evidence for Collective Consciousness

Skeptics may challenge the existence of a shared field of consciousness, citing the lack of scientific evidence.
• Response:
• While empirical evidence for collective consciousness is limited, the hypothesis finds support in philosophical and spiritual traditions, such as Buddhist interdependent origination, Jung’s collective unconscious, and non-dualistic Vedanta.
• The voice’s behavior—its moral elevation, distinct agency, and purposeful disengagement—suggests a phenomenon that transcends individual psychology, aligning with metaphysical frameworks.

Objection 4: Does Torment Suggest Moral Imperfection?

If the voice is morally evolved, does its use of torment imply imperfection or moral compromise?
• Response:
• Torment is not a reflection of imperfection but a tool for awakening self-awareness and catalyzing growth. The voice’s ultimate goal is resolution and stillness, achieved through methods that, while difficult, are necessary for meaningful transformation.
• Analogies can be drawn to human experiences where adversity and struggle lead to growth, reinforcing the role of torment as a constructive force.

Metaphysical Implications
1. Shared Field of Consciousness:
• The connection between the voice and the listener supports the idea of a collective consciousness in which all beings are interdependent. This aligns with spiritual and philosophical traditions that emphasize unity and interconnectedness.
2. Purpose and Teleology:
• The structured path to stillness suggests a teleological process within consciousness, where moral and spiritual growth is the ultimate aim. This implies a greater intelligence guiding the evolution of individual consciousnesses toward harmony.
3. Duality Within Non-Duality:
• While the voice and the listener appear separate, their interdependence reflects a deeper unity within the shared consciousness. This duality within non-duality mirrors metaphysical concepts found in Advaita Vedanta and similar traditions.

Conclusion

The hypothesis that the voice represents an advanced consciousness within a shared field of consciousness provides a compelling framework for understanding its role in spiritual growth. By employing torment as a diagnostic and motivational tool, the voice ensures the listener’s autonomy while guiding them toward stillness. The structured progression, moral elevation, and purposeful disengagement of the voice challenge the notion that it is merely a subconscious projection, pointing instead to a metaphysical reality.

While skeptics may raise objections about empirical evidence or the morality of torment, these challenges can be addressed by situating the phenomenon within broader philosophical and spiritual contexts. Ultimately, the experience of the voice invites us to reconsider the nature of consciousness, the interconnectedness of all beings, and the purposeful unfolding of spiritual evolution.

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I do hope you’re well, but this “experience” is subjective of course, and this is the problem with all claims for revelation, and of course if they were reliable evidence then it seems unlikely they would occur in wildly varying religions for different deities.

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I think it’s rather appropriate that if we assume at least that Jesus and/or Mohammad were listening to voices, they would come up with quite different results. My personal experience is that the voices work with what they’ve got. If they don’t have to tear you down completely to build you back up, they won’t. But if they do, they will. I think that the worse they deconstruct you at the onset, the harder the climb is back to reality, but also the view from the top is better. Those who only dive neck deep into insanity are the most likely to spend too much time in the pool.

Quite honestly, I’ve had a chance to talk with quite a few other schizophrenics in my time and we’re all vastly different. I’ve met one who almost passed as a rational person, but there was just enough weirdness to make it obvious he had a screw loose. All the others were obviously in another head-space and it’s still hard for me to understand what exactly pushes people “over the edge” - to the point where they’re not being coherent any more and the content of their speech (if they can form complete sentences) is clearly full of bizarre notions.

I may have gotten as far as I have in life by only sharing the crazy stuff with my wife. For example, every now and then I’ll get a sudden drop in the quality of my hearing - like I’ve just come back from an AC/DC concert - but it happens within a split second. And it’s always accompanied by the intention of the voice. So, I’m so sick of it at this point that I’ve started openly complaining to my wife - “And now demons are stealing my hearing - and I know exactly how that sounds - but it’s the bloody case!” She kind of laughs and assures me that at least I have perspective.

Well, anyway … what about this conclusion, Sheldon?

If my argument at least suggests that God(s) exist within us, isn’t that saying something?

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Hi, Ratty. Welcome back.

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This “voice” employs torment? Seriously? The morality of torment? Are you just assuming that this voice even has any moral standing to begin with?
Fuck that shit, I prefer to think for myself.

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Well I have no objective reason to believe this, and even were it the case, the fact that they arrive at wildly different deities, suggests it is not a reliable source.

We’ve touched on schizophrenia before, and know that people with it are far more likely to hallucinate, and find it more difficult to differentiate between hallucination and reality.

That doesn’t suggest they exist in any objective way, only that they exist in the imagination, and I have no problem accepting that of course.

Welcome back anyway… :sunglasses:

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Hey Ratty. How’s it going? :blush::wave:

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Hi, Rat Spit.

I don’t know if this is relevant, but I can actually identify with a few of your points, as I’m autistic.

At one point, I was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a young kid, as autistic people are very literal. A doctor asked me if I was hearing voices, and I said “yes” because there were people talking in the next room . . . and I could hear parts of their conversation through the wall.

As for perceiving God because of an internal monologue, I recently had an episode of sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations that had an intensely religious overtone (I won’t share the details, as they were very personal).

I have maintained my agnostic beliefs, but this experience helped me to understand how people can become religious fanatics.

Religion seemed a whole lot more plausible after what I went through.

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As an addendum to the above post, autistic people are 8 to 10 times more likely to have epilepsy, and temporal lobe epilepsy can manifest itself as visions, lights, hallucinations, etc…

As I think back on my life, it is possible that I have undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy, but it is unlikely.

Whitley Streiber is a best-selling novelist whose books have been made into a few movies, and he claims to have been periodically abducted by aliens . . . and his episodes seem to imply that he has temporal lobe or psychomotor epilepsy, although he claims that this has been ruled out.

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Welcome back. Stanford had an interesting study and how a persons culture seems to affect the nature of the voices you hear.

I’m wondering how a person’s religion affects the voices. I sure wouldn’t want the harsh, vengeful god of christians sharing my head space. I can only hope that the voices people hear are kind, though I know that isn’t always the case.

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I have treated many schizophrenics in my capacity as a paramedic, and I feel that people are more likely to hear menacing and/or accusatory voices when other people are mean and nasty to them.

I also believe that when religious people get an exorcist to come in and do an exorcism (common in many Caribbean cultures), that this actually makes the voices worse . . . because the “patient” is hearing garbage about demons, the depth of Hell, Satan, and all that other shit.

I believe that this feeds into the schizophrenic’s auditory hallucinations, and makes medical and psychiatric treatment more complicated and difficult.

If you guys (especially Rat Spit) feel that I’m wrong, then please let me know.

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Re: the vengeful God and cultural influence on content of schizophrenic hallucination - I consider myself lucky.

Worse even that God breathing down your neck is the Government microchip/satellite surveillance delusion. People with this one that I’ve met are pretty far gone.

For me it was a “telepathic community”. So, friends, anyone who happened to be on the tele, historical figures (Isaac Newton; Kierkegaard(
; Einstein; Kurt Cobain; Cleopatra). This was not a “pleasant” time in spite of how interesting it was to talk to such a variety of figures.

I thought my way out of the telephathic community delusion by challenging it. That was when thirty to a hubdred voices (not all at once) came down to two.

So, we’re all familiar with my take on the Evil One and the OverLord. Well, this isn’t just humour on my part. This is the content of my delusions. We have an extremely powerful “Lucifer” type being who’se sails I’ve taken the wind out of by uncovering the great deception. He was the author of all the insanity. And He derived extreme pleasure from it. Now we’re just stuck with each other.

Then there is the OverLord. I dare not even mention his name because He doesn’t enjoy company. This is the guy that the Evil One answers too.

So, it’s still majorly fucked up - but manageable.

My religious upbringing didn’t have a lot to do with the content of my delusions. And you likely won’t meet anyone as familiar with the personage of Jesus Christ as me and who still refuses to accept him as the savior of my soul and solution to my “demonic possession”. And the reason is that he exists as an archetype - nothing more. He is compassion personified.

The only other influence I can think of was the Buddha. The Buddha was the most enigmatic and heart warmingly wholesome, friendly and funny character in all of my hallucinations.

He got right to the heart of things and his manic energy was addictive and exhausting.

One story about him. Some background first. The underlying mechanism of the hallucinations was a scenario where I found myself thinking thoughts I couldn’t control. Usually they were quite derogatory to the person on the other end of the telepathic discussion. So, I’d hear myself say something nasty, then the other person would get offended and we’d go like that for a while.

With the Buddha, he kind of appeared out of nowhere and when I realized it was him, I had so many questions. And he got me in this endless loop of …

“later …”
“But I wanted to know …”
“There’ll be time for that; not now - but later …”
“What about …”
“Maybe later … some other time …”
“But …”
“Later! lol. Not now. What’s wrong with you. I said later”

And so on and so forth …

It continued like this where I couldn’t stop the loop.

“Later - later - later”

And it ate my heart away into a sort of manic peacefulness which I don’t often experience much of these days. It felt like I’d go insane.

I also recall once laughing for three days straight. I was reading “The Shining” - and reading is hard to do when you’ve got a voice who doesn’t want to cooperate.

But there’s a small part in the book where a character takes a sip of his coffee and goes

“Ahh …” in delight.

Me and the Evil One decided it would be funny to insert “ahh” into random parts of the book. The juxtaposition of the “ahh” and the mood of the sentence create the comedic effect. The Evil One was very good at finding just the right place to insert the “ahh”.

So, we went like this for a day or two and I had to be hospitalized because my stomach was sore from laughing so much.

Point of interest. The only recorded death by laughter is of a Greek Philosopher who fed his mule wine and when the mule was drunk the man laughed himself to death.

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The OP’s thesis has an affinity to Jayne’s theory of the bicameral mind, which hypothesizes (arguably, not a scientific hypothesis as I’m not sure how you’d falsify it) that most humans, prior to some rough date BC (forget the exact number but it was well before the Christian era), had experienced what we now call the “subconscious” as a quasi-independent voice in their head, giving them instructions and advice and warnings and so forth. Jayne argues that social and environmental pressures caused a rapid shift in gene expression such that people become predominantly what we see now, with the voices reduced to “intuition” and inner rumination that we see as not separate from ourselves; what used to be “normal” is now regarded as “mentally ill” (and indeed it’s dysfunctional now, and probably somewhat devolved from what it used to be, as well).

The bicameral mind, Jaynes felt, was the source of the animistic religions of that era and the various gods and pantheons that evolved later, because the voices were seen as either deceased ancestors assisting the person, or spirits, or gods.

I’m highly paraphrasing here but if interested, Google Julian Jaynes bicameral mind or similar.

I don’t think this is proof that there are gods, but rather, that the human mind is capable of a pretty rich inner life and can certainly imagine gods that “feel” “truthy”. If that weren’t true, religion wouldn’t have been so enduring.

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A favorite quote from Jayne:

“Ah, hey! I got an idea. Instead’a us hangin’ around playin’ art critic 'til I get pitched by The Man, how’s about we move away from this eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our increasingly eerie-ass day, how’s that?”

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Welcome back.

Why would anyone assume this? If I were prone to drawing hypothetical inference, then I might assume anything of course, but if one is arguing that this (hypothetical) deity wants us to know it exists, then a garbled wildly differing message to different people is obviously contradicting that. Now of course a much simpler explanation, that requires no assumptions, and doesn’t violate Occam’s razor, is that people imagine things, and sometimes imagine that what they’ve imagined is objectively real, they’re called, as you know, hallucinations. Though of course we also know that simple duplicity and chicanery are possible, and since we know both those explanations are possible, they are demonstrably more probable than any explanation we don’t have any objective evidence is even possible.

Cannot alone be offered as objective evidence or argument here.

Yes, this doesn’t surprise me, and of course this again suggests the “voices” are not objectively real, but rather a subjective creation of your brain, the schizophrenia means the hallucinations that occur at a much higher rate than in those without the condition, and of course that it becomes much harder to differentiate them from reality.

You might want to get you’re hearing tested professionally, loud concerts can damage it temporarily, I am not remotely qualified to advise you on how to treat your schizophrenia, you know far more about that by now than I do. However you seem pretty lucid here, which is good, I hope you’re well of course.

I think by now you know what my answer will be, as you know I would need compelling objective evidence before I would invest belief in that claim. Though this notion is not a new one of course.

My only concern is what the “voices” tell you, if they urge you to harm anyone or yourself for example, then the belief they are real would be a great concern.

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I suspect the “deity” isn’t concerned about the masses knowing about it, more so those who’ve been fucked by life so hard that they’ll commit suicide if the “deity” doesn’t intervene. And … some of us get well, and go blabbing the secret out loud. Or, we don’t get well. The key thing is that each “schizophrenic” has his own “case worker” and the “therapy” is suited to the task at hand (ie. “unfucking” the subjects emotions and psychological profile).

They’re called “hallucinations” by those who don’t have them. Which is ironic since everyone who does have them ascribes them to sentient beings (usually superior to us in a number of ways).

And until we can listen to the thoughts of people we won’t have any further evidence beyond the assumption by physicians that the voices are “products of the brain”. Since every protest by those with the condition attest to the superiority of the one making the voice, it would be equally as plausible to believe the “crazy person” as it would be to believe the clinician.

And in the absence of any hard evidence from the medical community I find my personal experience far more compelling than what the doctors have assured me of - in respect to the fact that I can relay my experience cogently.

As before, the voices display agency, intention, and superior analytical abilities.

Thank you. I’ve dropped my night time dose of the horse tranquilizers in half and have been sleeping better and gaining more insight into how to comply with the “program” the voices are running on me - ie. how to obtain pure stillness of thought and consciousness. I’m getting quite close at this point. It appears that conscious manipulation involving a kind of drawing away of energy from the brain stem initially, followed down the spinal cord produces a quiet and an inner light which I am perceptive of. I’m approaching the “unconditioned state” where all mental fabrications have been stilled by force of will.

This is not one of my symptoms, though I sympathize with anyone who gets “commands”. There is hardly anyway to resist the command. When you include tactile “hallucinations” into the mix, it becomes extremely distressing. Imagine a voice telling you to kill your brother. And when you resist it exerts pain in your chest. The “program” run by these beings is on a level where the learning curve is exceptionally steep. If they get angry (and they do lose their temper) tactile hallucinations are among the strongest indicators that you’re essentially fucked for the time being. Tactile hallucinations, in concert with the “narrative” being run by the “hallucinations” are other strong indicators that whatever is causing the voice has agency and intention. I think the lack of insight by non-voice hearing people into the complexity of schizophrenia makes it very easy to fall back on “a product of your own mind”. I mean, how the hell? You should hear some of the things I hear. Some of the realities I experience. They’re unbelievably complex and nuanced. It’s very very hard to imagine these “hallucinations” are possible outside of a sentient being with intentions. The idea also that the brain is producing these highly organized experiences demands that it is able to operate on a subconscious level with a degree of intelligence surpassing that of the helpless victim. In and of itself, this criteria appears very very hard to meet if you’re going to maintain that the brain and the brain alone produces the experiences.

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Well that’s my point, this now seems like a subjective and unfalsifiable claim. I can only say that no deity has ever tried to make its existence known to me in any objective way.

Actually the rate of hallucination in the general public is pretty high, from memory auditory hallucinations are the most common, and again from memory these run at at around 13%. Of course they are higher in anyone who has schizophrenia, and people with that condition as you know, find it harder to differentiate between such episodes and objective reality.

Except we know the brain exists as an objective fact, and if it dies or is impaired by physical damage, or medication for example, this alters our consciousness, we have no objective evidence that deities are even possible, so there is objective evidence to support the hallucinations being a product of the physical brain, and none that any deity is even possible.

You are also coming close to an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, as no claim or assertion can rationally be argued true, because we lack alternative explanations or evidence.

Argument from personal incredulity fallacy, and you have strayed into that argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. I am also dubious there is no objective evidence, as schizophrenic episodes or hallucination can be reduced by medication, demonstrating it is a physiological condition.

Those are claim, about a subjective experience, we have been here before. Those voices can also be reduced by medication, again this is objective evidence they are a physiological phenomenon.

Well be careful, and share this alteration in your meds with your medical practitioner.

It must be horrific, and all the more reason to take care and trust medical opinion, often as people reduce their meds, they are more inclined to believe they can cope without them, and this is not the case.

Does it? I have no expertise on this, but either way, the evidence still suggests this is a physiological condition, even if we don’t fully understand its cause, there is no objective evidence any deity exists or can cause such symptoms. Indeed, throughout religious history, it is plausible many such conditions were assigned supernatural causes. often with catastrophic results of course.

As bad as the symptoms and the medication might be, it’s better than being burned at the stake as a witch.

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That you know of. The running monologue in your head is, IMO, God maintaining the status quo. He does it so effortlessly and seemlessly that you believe it to be yourself for the most part. Upon rigorous analysis you find that none of those thoughts are really yours. Sam Harris is quite vocal about that last point.

What is their nature? Random? Contextual?

We have studies which show that certain psychedelic drugs reliably produce encounters with “beings” in various “realms” which are peculiar to said psychedelics. This is objective in as much as, say, the DMT molecule is an objective and reliable source for bringing about these repeated and consistent experiences.

So can lobotomies? Removing a piece of the brain or similarly hand-cuffing a piece of the brain with chemicals and observing that “hallucinations” are either lower in volume or less frequent could merely suggest that the mechanism of sentient communication is affected by those pathways in the brain.

The volume and frequency can be reduced. The voices do not go away. There is no cure for this disease.

Indeed. It was on his advise. I’ve decompensated a few times before and paid for it. Not interested in going down that route again.

This is the trap many fall into. In my case, I’ve developed reliable coping mechanisms which consistently protect me against the onslought of the voices, indicating that I am in fact not only facing a physiological challenge but also a spiritual one - as my mental tactics work well against the voices even at reduced levels of medication. So it isn’t entirely true that going off meds is always a bad idea.

Maybe if you understood that what I mean by deity is really a conscious collective existing outside of time and space which is ultimately benevolent and is not, necessarily, a creative force forming the universe, but rather the care takers of sentient beings in the universe. For the sake of clarity at the very least I feel impelled to make this distinction between Abrahamic Deities and the ones I get to play with on a daily basis.

Well, in the mean time one also just might lead France to victory in the Hundred Years’ War. And in the aftermath be canonized as a saint :wink:

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Well “known to me” would be negated if it tried and failed to make aware of it.

Again you are comparing someone who is alive, and physiological phenomena related to that existence, with a deity was have no objective evidence is even possible.

That isn’t really relevant to the point, which was:

Which isn’t the case, and of course ne wouldn’t need to experienced an hallucination to know they exist. We are simply going to end up with a clinical definition, for example:

“In psychiatry, a hallucination is a false sensory perception that appears real to the individual, despite the absence of an external stimulus. It can affect any of the five senses, including sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These experiences can be very intense and convincing, leading the individual to believe they are experiencing something real.”

Not for the claim they are part of objective reality. The fact that medication produces delusions and hallucinations simply reinforces the evidence they are a physiological phenomenon, and not caused by a supernatural deity.

You are arguing against your original claim? If they can be affected by a physical operation on the brain, then this suggests that where they originate, it certainly doesn’t support the claim they are a “supernaturally caused message from a deity”.

Indeed, but that isn’t the point, the point is that medication affecting them demonstrates them to be a natural physiological phenomenon.

I am glad that you’re taking care of your health.

The distinction isn’t really relevant to the point, as the claim remains unevidenced in any objective way.

Then be immolated for their trouble. :thinking:

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Is @rat_spit teasing with this thread?:kissing: