In medical terms, a delusion is a persistent, unwavering belief in something that is definitely false/untrue eg the belief that someone is the President, or that someone is being hunted by assassins.

The first two criteria can be met in any religion with a deity at its centre. But could you say that God definitely does/doesn't exist? A delusion is something completely different. Like the belief in other life forms. I believe that life exists on other planets. I've never seen that life nor have any evidence about it. But it's not a delusion. You can't apply the definition to something where you cannot definitively prove/disprove something.

What about when God tells someone to kill people?

In days past, it would not have seemed unreasonable to march an army into war on the word of God. It still happens today, but it's less widely acceptable.

I agree that science can explain things in detail but cannot explain everything. It is limited to this "verse" and if other "verses" exist, then science cannot explain them as the rules and laws in another "verse" may well be completely different to this one.

What's more likely, a magical being created the universe and controls it to this day using his thoughts, or, someone is being hunted by assassins?

Go on, I know you can't quantity something like that, but hit me with your opinion.

This is a completely difficult and unique point. One guy on a rampage with a gun, claiming to be under the power of God and killing others will get arrested/shot/sectioned. A few thousand doing it and it all seems acceptable.

Remember that arrogance of conviction I mentioned earlier?
Yeah, that.

There is a very interesting observation however, that the rules of mathematics are held to be innately true. Frequently in physics, you find that every mathematically describable solution does actually exist. It's like harmonics on a vibrating string...

True but usually the delusion is the person is being hunted by assassins because they have a pack of jelly babies or something equally "ridiculous". That person feels they are being persecuted for something that is unique to them and them alone. How many other people have packs of jelly babies but aren't hunted. Delusions in themselves have to be taken as part of a wider context of the mental health of the patient.

The belief of a "magical being" or a God is one that has been going on for thousands of years. If such a thing had never had happened, then someone claiming such a person exists might well be thought to be delusional. Besides, if religion never happened, would science have ever began?

Please simplify the above. I'm trying to do portfolio stuff and keep up with this thread at the same time. Surely the rules of mathematics can only ever be true in this "verse"?

Your average Christian thinks that there is a personal God who speaks in a very metaphorical sense to everyone who will listen.They rarely expect an actual light in the sky and a command to do something in particular. Normally what they are after is divine help to appreciate something they kind of already know but maybe doubted.

Your average delusional maniac / granny stabbing fiend tends to get significantly more explicit instruction, and doesn't have the same expectation that God talks to everyone.

It's harder to tell the difference between a prophet and a maniac, often this is because the difference seems suspiciously slender. Attested miracles are generally considered helpful in these cases. Although those seem to be quite rare in modern world for reasons that are not frequently explained, yet we are never short of a few exciting prophets to follow. Technically, among the many religious claims we cannot possibly hope to prove wrong, are those of Charles Manson. Not believing he is a messiah of some sort is an act of faith.

The only so far logical argument in favour of religion, has been that you can't totally prove that it is totally wrong.

I might point out that we can take away a person's liberty for life, and the standard of evidence is "beyond reasonable doubt".

However people have arbitrarily chosen that the standard of evidence for disproving religious claims is "totally, 100%, pan-dimensionally, inter-universally beyond any doubt conceivable by God himself".

With the result that we can call [LIFTED] when a man says he didn't mean to kill a woman even though he strangled her, but we can't call [LIFTED] when someone claims to have been conceived without the need of semen.

Abstract Mathematics is not a physical thing - the universe fits mathematics and not the other way around. You can describe many otherverses in mathematical detail. You can mathematically describe topologies and geometries that are not of this universe.

Mathematics is the only truth we know.

Edit for XKCD:

But why? Why can't maths in other verse be different? What about physics? Surely the laws of physics will be different?

Faith, by definition, isn't a logical argument.

In terms of faith don't know anything. I choose to believe certain things and attempt to use those beliefs to inform my actions.