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Zahid said:
The main argument against evolution is that it is biologically impossible.

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DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA for SCHIZOPHRENIA (American Definition)
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Diagnostic Criteria
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Characteristic symptoms: Two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less if successfully treated):
delusions
hallucinations
disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence)
grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
negative symptoms, i.e., affective flattening, alogia, or avolition
Note: Only one Criterion A symptom is required if delusions are bizarre or hallucinations consist of a voice keeping up a running commentary on the person's behavior or thoughts, or two or more voices conversing with each other.
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Social/occupational dysfunction: For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, one or more major areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care are markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset (or when the onset is in childhood or adolescence, failure to achieve expected level of interpersonal, academic, or occupational achievement).
Duration: Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least 6 months. This 6-month period must include at least 1 month of symptoms (or less if successfully treated) that meet Criterion A (i.e., active-phase symptoms) and may include periods of prodromal or residual symptoms. During these prodromal or residual periods, the signs of the disturbance may be manifested by only negative symptoms or two or more symptoms listed in Criterion A present in an attenuated form (e.g., odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences).
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Schizoaffective and Mood Disorder exclusion: Schizoaffective Disorder and Mood Disorder With Psychotic Features have been ruled out because either (1) no Major Depressive, Manic, or Mixed Episodes have occurred concurrently with the active-phase symptoms; or (2) if mood episodes have occurred during active-phase symptoms, their total duration has been brief relative to the duration of the active and residual periods.
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Substance/general medical condition exclusion: The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition.
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Relationship to a Pervasive Developmental Disorder: If there is a history of Autistic Disorder or another Pervasive Developmental Disorder, the additional diagnosis of Schizophrenia is made only if prominent delusions or hallucinations are also present for at least a month (or less if successfully treated).


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Diagnostic Criteria of Schizophrenia Subtypes
Paranoid Type
A type of Schizophrenia in which the following criteria are met:
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Preoccupation with one or more delusions or frequent auditory hallucinations.
None of the following is prominent: disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, or flat or inappropriate affect.
..Catatonic Type
A type of Schizophrenia in which the clinical picture is dominated by at least two of the following:
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motoric immobility as evidenced by catalepsy (including waxy flexibility) or stupor
excessive motor activity (that is apparently purposeless and not influenced by external stimuli)
extreme negativism (an apparently motiveless resistance to all instructions or maintenance of a rigid posture against attempts to be moved) or mutism
peculiarities of voluntary movement as evidenced by posturing (voluntary assumption of inappropriate or bizarre postures), stereotyped movements, prominent mannerisms, or prominent grimacing
echolalia or echopraxia
..Disorganized Type
A type of Schizophrenia in which the following criteria are met:
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All of the following are prominent:
disorganized speech
disorganized behavior
flat or inappropriate affect
The criteria are not met for Catatonic Type.
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..Undifferentiated Type
A type of Schizophrenia in which symptoms that meet Criterion A are present, but the criteria are not met for the Paranoid, Disorganized, or Catatonic Type.
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Residual Type
A type of Schizophrenia in which the following criteria are met:
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Absence of prominent delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior.
There is continuing evidence of the disturbance, as indicated by the presence of negative symptoms or two or more symptoms listed in Criterion A for Schizophrenia, present in an attenuated form (e.g., odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences).


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Differential Diagnosis
Psychotic Disorder Due to a General Medical Condition, delirium, or dementia; Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder; Substance-Induced Delirium; Substance-Induced Persisting Dementia; Substance-Related Disorders; Mood Disorder With Psychotic Features; Schizoaffective Disorder; Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified; Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified; Mood Disorder With Catatonic Features; Schizophreniform Disorder; Brief Psychotic Disorder; Delusional Disorder; Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified; Pervasive Developmental Disorders (e.g., Autistic Disorder); childhood presentations combining disorganized speech (from a Communication Disorder) and disorganized behavior (from Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder); Schizotypal Personality Disorder; Schizoid Personality Disorder; Paranoid Personality Disorder.

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If you, the reader, have read this carefully and basically read the story of your life & hardships or feel worried this might pertain to you by all means I urge you to get a psychologic evaluation to see if you not qualify for medical treatment.
If people are caught by psychological screening with only latent, residual psychosis or they are identified between psychoses usually a low, minimally unpleasant or even pleasant dosage of specific pharms may prevent future episodes from occurring at all.

I myself am on low-dose haldol (2mg = 100mg chlorpromazine as to psychotic efficiency) because i basically am excitement, being a chronic maniac (most of the time I am lightly manic, let's call it "euphoric derangement" )
For me after years with & without it causes no real side-effects but it rather it helps me to have conversations without coming across like a crazed squirrel on crack.

But the bottom line is that religion is compared with mental illness. Medically an illness is "something biological/pychological that strays from the average norm in a way that is percieved as detrimental by the affected and/or those around them".
Since the USSR (like the USSA today) repressed people by abusing this principle (Politicopath Capitalist Personality Disorder ) you should apply common sense and get apolitical with definitions.
I could declare somebody's red nose (or homosexuality) as adverse to my happiness but thats just bullshit political reasoning.

So let's look at your list from another side:



Feeling like something is watching you ---> or benevolently watching OVER you in perfect love and perfect trust.

Talking to yourself and imaginary beings or people. "Praying." ---> reinforcing your beliefs in the Greater Good and that you can be better then you are and that there is hope by externalizing thought processes.

Feeling like you have a special purpose ---> striving to achieve a goal you think will make the world a better place

Feeling like inanimate objects have special purposes ---> recognising and perhaps enhancing the value of objects, increasing your appreciation of the Any & All

Certain things appearing as signs, or that they are talking to them, or are symbolic to some higher cause. ---> LSD

Beliving you are going to die for doing something "bad" ---> dogma very specific to some religions but not others.

Feeling like you are dirty for doing something, and that you will suffer for eternity if you do not talk to yourself or to this "god"... ---> dogma very specific to some religions but not others.


Basically it is a double-edged sword: you can reinforce the good or the bad in people with Religion.

I hate to say it but basically Religion, like LSD, is a neutral entity: it can be detrimental or uplifting, deliberate or unintentional.

Visonaries in a way could be argued to be schizophrenic, but because they derive and yield benefit rather then detrimental chaos it is not a mental illness even though the core symptoms may overlap.

Have you ever had such vivid hallucinations that they completely replaced concensus reality, with voices speaking, past and future merging wit flights of fancy, being fully delivered into the maw of an insane logic where fantasy and reality are the same, a delirium followed by near-complete amnesia?
And would you voluntarily yield to this madness?

Yes. It is called Dreaming and we do it most nights of our life. We -all- are visionaries at heart. The alarmclock makes you arise briefly from your fullblown delirium.
You slap the "snooze" button.
You're out, and you're gone.
When it buzzes again, nine minutes later earthtime, you have spent hours of Dreamtime riding a wild pineapple, hunting and shooting your own oats & raisins for your early morning muesli in fullblown Delirium. Now that is HEALTHY.

If you get an overlap of waking consiousness into dreams it is called "lucid dreaming".

If your "dream machine" starts to run by itself in daytime the result is chaos, and from that chaos you either emerge victorious (Visionary) or you crumble, and the latter is called a psychotic break.

New neurobiological data I've seen shows there is an overlap in mechanism in Dreams, Delirium and Psychosis and thus I believe that the core nature of psychosis is a disturbance in the brain's ability to regulate waking and dreaming conscious brainstates.
Sane by day/Psychotic by night