{"id":156,"date":"2012-09-10T10:55:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T14:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/?p=156"},"modified":"2012-09-10T10:55:47","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T14:55:47","slug":"practical-atheists-and-party-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"Practical Atheists and Party Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imaginary friends and practical atheists:<\/em><\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for children to develop imaginary friends.\u00a0 These friends allow for fun and comforting companionship in times of stress or loneliness.\u00a0 Usually these friends disappear harmlessly as the child grows, matures and develops other relationships or resources for coping.\u00a0 Certainly an adult living with an invented relationship would be a cause for concern.<\/p>\n

Every relationship must have guidelines.\u00a0 We need to know what the other thinks, needs and wants so that we can order our behavior to please them and cause the relationship to grow.\u00a0 We cannot even have an adversarial relationship without knowing what is important to the other person or entity.\u00a0 We usually rely on communication of some sort.\u00a0 Whispered words from a lover, or a written standard from an employer, tell us what is expected from us and provide the framework for relationship.<\/p>\n

Imaginary relationships allow us to give to ourselves only positive feedback.\u00a0 We never fail to please or disappoint.\u00a0 Our fantasy friends are always happy with us and what we do is always pleasing to them, because they are really us.<\/p>\n

Our culture has given rise to the practical atheist.\u00a0 These folks are not atheists by profession; in fact, they may well sit next to us in church.\u00a0 These folks are atheists because they live as if there were no God, or worse, create a god who is pleased with them and the way they live.<\/p>\n

Of course, to do this you must ignore the Bible and its guidelines for relationship or find some way to explain it into irrelevance.\u00a0 The imaginary god\/friend you create must reflect you, not a set of standards apart from and above human experience.\u00a0 This pretend relationship cannot exist if the standards are objective and based on eternal truth and not the temporary requirements of self.<\/p>\n

Folks, fruit tells a lot.\u00a0 We can talk of God and pray and go through all sorts of relational activity; but if the entity we think we are in relationship with is make-believe, there is no relationship.<\/p>\n

This past week I watched practical atheists put their theology of an imaginary god into practice.\u00a0 They voted against the concept of \u201cGod-given potential\u2026\u201d.\u00a0 When the offensive words were subsequently restored to their document, they booed!\u00a0 These same folks had earlier decided that unborn children were tissue, an unwanted growth like a tumor.\u00a0 They also decided that traditional marriage between a man and a woman was narrow, restrictive and discriminatory.<\/p>\n

More than a concern, it is tragedy when adults have imaginary friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imaginary friends and practical atheists: It is not uncommon for children to develop imaginary friends.\u00a0 These friends allow for fun and comforting companionship in times of stress or loneliness.\u00a0 Usually these friends disappear harmlessly as the child grows, matures and develops other relationships or resources for coping.\u00a0 Certainly an adult living with an invented relationship … Continue reading Practical Atheists and Party Politics<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecclesia-real"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}