I can't believe this thread turned into another religion vs. atheism argument.
Schizophrenia, particularly paranoid schizophrenia, is characterized by powerful delusions and hallucinations. A person with schizophrenia isn't in a position to reason their way out of the disease because they're not in a mental state to distinguish the reasonable from the unreasonable. To a schizophrenic, delusions and hallucinations are as real as anything else. A God, or other figure, simply serves as a focal point for delusions, and an explanation for the inexplicable things which a schizophrenic experiences. Other powerful figures, such as the government, are also typical focal points.
I'm an atheist, but if I heard powerful voices in my head telling me to do things, and saw things that would have seemed impossible to me before, and I really believed those things were real because, to me, they were real, then I might believe it was God speaking to me because, frankly, that explanation is every bit as rational as any other explanation I might be able to come up with. Rational thought is not an option for people suffering from severe mental disorders, and choosing between religion and non-belief isn't something a schizophrenic can do in any rational way.
It's strange how few people are able to conceive of what it might be like to have a disease of the mind. We've seen that in several threads about depression and suicide before. Perhaps part of the difficulty is that so many people are used to thinking in terms of rationality and logic, and aren't particularly good at empathizing with others.
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