Eh forget it. With the complete failure of Slashdot metamoderation and the increasing blatant intellectual dishonesty of the mods here, Slashdot has become worthless for useful discussion.

Merry Christmas, all.

Do I explain "citing primary sources" or "post hoc ergo propter hoc" first?

You toss a powerful magnet at a brain and you can shut off emotions, shut off senses, distort them and induce them... what makes you think the brain dying is any less traumatic than changing the flow of electricity in one portion?

I made no claim it is less traumatic. What is relevant is the high specificity of the results of the trauma, as quantified by the study. If the perceptions were random, say in the case of LSD, hitting someone in the head repeatedly with a rock, or random magnetic stimulation, I would agree the evidence would be very weak. They are not random. They correlate strongly with exactly what the religion predicts.

You are incompetent in literally every field you address. Why are you posting to Slashdot?

1. Your definition of "psychosis" is wrong. Check the DSM, or any actual professional in the field, that is, what science says.

2. There is nothing "obvious" about the notion there is not a God, feel free to share the special insight you have superseding thousands of years of theology, philosophy, and science demonstrating clearly it is not "obvious".

3. Even if it were "obvious", the notion it is therefore "psychosis" is nonsense. Once can name innumerable instances of something being claimed to be "obvious" for which disregarding it is not "psychosis"--say, choosing to drink and drive despite the consequences. Say, buying overpriced products. Say, being Republican or Democrat, viewed from the other side.

In short, you are being irrational. In short, something is indeed wrong here with mental functioning. The person exhibiting this would be you.

But if you truly feel there is a god, then obviously your sense of reality is wrong and this is what psychosis is about.

Back your absolutely nonsensical arbitrary claim here.

It would be called "science" by people like you, who fail to understand that nothing in science is "proven", it is a collection of models that are always provisional and permanently open to revision based on future data.

Still, say, one's preferences in art... do you object that those aren't "proven" and therefore aren't "science"--and what do you conclude from that?

This would be why you make sure you always argue with theists who reject evolution, I'll bet.

Which, for the record, is a minority of them. Unless you mean people who mean by "evolution" the irrational non-sequitur of "evolution is true, therefore there is no God" or other "often, therefore always" notions of evolutionary change.

Happy holidays, do enjoy your pet false dichotomy this festive season.

Such an imaginary construct does indeed fit the definition of psychosis by DSM

No, it doesn't. You are simply making that claim up. At worst, the religion could be incorrect. It could not be a "psychosis". Silly anti-science rhetorical amplification doesn't really add anything to your argument here.

As for your "enabling" claim, to what to you attribute the historical bloodbath existing previous to the presence of any religion, which undeniably according to your model, is the one-and-only reason you exist in the evolved form you do? What do you blame for these moral objections then? And while you're add it, on what basis are you implying such an objection, from -your- model?

Incidentally, maybe you can help me with a discussion with an acquaintance of mine. He has a philosophy he calls "fooism", and though it is suitably undefined and lacking in any actual demographic to compare with, and thus he can point out way more negative things done in the name of theism, he can also point out way more negative things done by atheism than fooism. Seems that when you have no admitted responsible adherents to your philosophy, other ones can be blamed for way more things, relatively. As an atheist, do you have some defense for how many more abhorrent things were done in the name of atheism than fooism? He's waiting.

Again, whether it constitutes "proof" is irrelevant. However, one does have reason to consider as evidence the decidedly non-random nature of the "hallucinations" supposedly caused by brain failure (try to short out your computer and see if you suddenly get presented with a new 3D MMO, for example), which correlate very highly with the religious model's predictions.

Formally, though I understand your statement is a Bare Assertion Fallacy troll, it is factually and scientifically incorrect to claim it is a "psychosis". Formally, per the actual field you clearly have no knowledge of, a position that the majority of a culture subscribes to cannot be a "psychosis", per the DSM. Your use (and Dawkins', who you parrot) is simply scientifically and factually false.

I could go on, but rather I'll leave you with a challenge. Predict the upper-bound of the lifespan of a man for the -next- 2500 years. Let's see how you rate compare to the goat herders.

If religious people had any proof, it would no longer be religion.

Sure it would. Why would the definition of "religion" change? I mean, the real one, not the Dawkins made-up one.

But, "proof" (clever of you to goalpost-shift this up front to a criteria virtually nothing, including science, can meet, by the way) would be tantamount to worldwide forced conversion. You'd either have to accept it, or go to an asylum for denying basic proven facts. Might you see a reason a God would not want that, particularly in this era of global communication?

That said, to use reasonable epistemological criteria, here's peer-reviewed evidence. As with most domains, -evidence-, not -proof-, is the intellectually-honest expectation.

So, you're refuting religion in general with a principle of a religion Lucas made up, stating as an absolute that only religion deals in absolutes?

Just checking here.

http://www.gamedev.net/

Yes, I see how it works. Sorry that you still don't.

But, that will inevitably be corrected. Just look at your watch, see if you see a trend there.

Just a little something I Know.

Meanwhile, evolution kills 100% of naturalists, and the only thing that actually survives is information.

So, you may at least want to leave a light on for, say, Platonic ideal Forms. Or the robots' software.