Californian Christian sect teaches you how to see and talk to God

The Guardian has an excellent article on the Vineyard Churches, an evangelical sect of Christianity with an emphasis on a personal relationship with God. Sounds like every evangelical Christian denomination, right?

Wrong.

These people really have a relationship with God. Some people pour an extra cup of coffee for God every morning. Others set a place at the dinner table for God. “One woman would have "Date nights" with God, where she would go into the park and sit on a bench with him, eating a sandwich. “

The research was done by Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University. She studied the ways in which people could induce themselves to see and talk to God everywhere they go. She essentially said that first, you have to be temperamentally predisposed to being good at pretending, and then you hone the skill to an art form.

A truly pathetic art form. God is often referred to as an “imaginary friend,” but these people have taken it to a whole new level. 

You can find the article here.