Manipulated, or mindful of the God we believe exists?

Imagine with me that in the state where you live there exists a subset of residents who don’t believe in the federal government. They not only reject its laws, they deny it even exists – they’ve never seen it, after all. No authority higher than their own state government makes any demands on them, they insist, and they scorn all who think otherwise. When “federalists” tell them they’re wrong not to pay federal income tax or obey interstate commerce regulations, or that same-sex marriage is a right no matter what their state government has said about it, they deride the federalists as backward and deluded. Or, from a more “charitable” view, as manipulated by evil *#$%*#s charlatans.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see the problems that would result from such a coexistence of federalists and “afederalists.” The afederalists would strongly object to any judgment based on a federal code they reject as illusion and would refuse to submit to it. The federalists would object to judgments that disregarded a federal code but would be unable to win any afederalists to their view because the afederalist thinks their federal government is merely imaginary.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. We have in this country two broad categories of citizens, those who believe in a God who has established a standard of right and wrong and holds us accountable to align ourselves with it, and those who don’t. Theists and atheists/skeptics have different worldviews because we effectively live in different worlds, and when both weigh in on certain moral issues…worlds collide.

This is especially evident on the issue of homosexuality, and I often wonder if many atheists and skeptics make an effort to even try to understand where theists, specifically Christians, are coming from…those who hold to the traditional, biblical view anyway, because I recognize not all Christians do. Do they, before branding us as hateful bigots, take a minute to ask themselves, if what Christians believe about God were true, does their view on homosexuality make sense? Is it reasonable that, given their sincere faith, they would object to same-sex marriage, to using their creative talents in support of such a union, and to indoctrinating children into the homosexual agenda in the public schools?

And then, when their effort to understand reveals the reasonableness of the Christian’s position, and our mindfulness of our responsibility to the God we profess, do they acknowledge it and give him or her deserved respect, or do they dismiss us as bigots anyway and demand we ignore the very real world we live in and submit ourselves instead to their limited, purely material world?

Only one of two worlds actually exists…a world with God or a world without him. Considering the enormous difference the reality of God makes, we should be focusing on establishing which world is the actual world, and giving each other the benefit of the doubt when dealing with specific issues that our worldview strongly impacts instead of shaming and name-calling. Because we who believe God exists have ample evidence to back up our claims, and at the very least those who come to a different conclusion from the evidence should acknowledge that their conclusion is not the only viable one…if it is viable at all.