I'm wondering whether you are being serious here...

What is the basis for Christian beliefs, if not The Bible?

One of the nice things about being an atheist is that I'm not bound by incoherent nonsense* conceived 2000 years ago.

* I'm being slightly dramatic here, obviously some parts of The Bible taken in isolation (ignore the contradictory parts) can be quite profound

If God does not follow what he preaches, he is a straight up hypocrite. Don't try to justify ways around it. I actually can't think of reasons for God to have any rules whatsoever (so stop referring to it as 'rules', not being a hypocrite is not a 'rule'), but if I'm going to worship him, and idolize him, I sure as hell will not do that if he is a hypocrite and considers us to be the equivalent of 'dogs'. As for children......I don't know what sort of father you're going to be, but children recognize hypocracy just as easily as adults do.

Analogies don't have to be perfectly analogous in every way for the concept to be demonstrated, so no, I wasn't calling humans dogs to God. Are you claiming that you can not think of any rules that apply to kids but not adults, or are you claiming that adults are hypocrites for these rules? I can't believe you think it's bad parenting to enforce rules on children that the parents don't abide by (just some quick examples: go to sleep early, no hitting anyone, no driving, no making fires, no climbing up a tall ladder, no having sex with adults).

If you want some reasons why it would make sense that God has different rules than humans:
1) God is not the same as humans, so there's no reason to assume the same rules apply right off the bat.
2) God has more insight into situations so He can better judge the correct action, whereas we should take a different approach based on the little we do know.
3) God serves a different purpose in the universe than we do (or at least plays a different role).

It's really not hard to think of possible reasons like this.

But you do want it to have some of the same qualities (at least, qualities you yourself want to have, I don't know you very well): be clean, be civil, be not annoying to others. You put rules in place on the dog to try to get him to have those characteristics, at least in part (poop outside, not on the rug, no barking really loudly whenever you want, don't get on the couch, no eating shoes).

Moral values are pretty good on their own, aren't they? I don't think we can really increase our power in the sense used here (maybe even knowingness, which I think is distinct from simple knowledge?).

VeeDDzz

Parents do not tell their children not to kill while going out and doing whole sale murder of innocent children and babies.

Oh wait. All of those heathen were evil and corrupt.

You are correct though. Trust between children and parents is paramount and they recognize hypocrisy. Yet Christians cannot trust their God to do what he says he will do and they have their heads too far up his ass to brand him the hypocrite that he is.

Regards
DL

Yes they are hypocrites, but that doesn't make them bad parents. Whether one is a good parent is a different issue to whether one is a hypocrite. What your example argues here is that - its ok for God to be a hypocrite, as long as its for our benefit. This doesn't change the fact that he is a hypocrite.

You'd imagine that an omnipotent, all-powerful God could avoid being a hypocrite (maintain integrity) and provide us with rules that are - for our benefit....... Only when you admit that God is not omnipotent, can you actually argue what you are arguing.

So you are saying that adults are hypocrites and lack integrity because we have these rules ("go to sleep early, no hitting anyone, no driving, no making fires, no climbing up a tall ladder, no having sex with adults") for kids but not for ourselves? You can't really believe this.

Can you find me a definition of hypocrite and tell me how it actually applies here? I don't think you are using the word correctly.

I think I'm confused about what you're saying here because I think the rules are for our benefit.

And there their head will remain because of the dichotomy that most hold.

1. The bible god is the One, the True God.
2. There is no God.

You disparage the bible god and ears remain closed because atheists think you are confirming #2 and religionists think, if their god of tradition is shown false, their only alternative is #2.

I take it that you, GIAM, hold that both #1 and #2 are false? Then what is the truth regarding the One True God?

Dictionary.com:
"A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs."

We are hypocrites for enforcing them on children but not following them ourselves. Yes, being a hypocrite in these cases is for the benefit of the children, but it does not change the fact that we are being hypocrites.
What I'm saying is that an omnipotent/all-powerful/all-knowing God, would be able to simultaneously avoid being a hypocrite and provide us with rules which benefit us. Only when you accept the notion that God may not be omnipotent, can you arrive at the conclusion that he provides us rules which benefit us, but which he does not adhere to/follow himself.

Equally important however, you realize that parents are no longer hypocrites once their child matures? as the child can now think for themself and doesn't need rules which are different to the rules of the parent.....If you're going to argue that the "do unto others" rule was handed down by God because we could not have thought of this ourselves (as a child cannot think to avoid climbing tall ladders or playing with sharp objects), then you are either terribly misguided or lack fundamental knowledge regarding ancient civilizations or even evolutionary biology (the evolution of empathy/oxytocin chemicals).

That definition does not support your stance. Setting rules for children that don't apply to adults to keep the kids safe and because they lack the understanding of the world that we have is not pretending to have certain morals/values. The strict rules themselves are not the values in question -- instead, you have values that you adhere to with different rules based on age. That is, for example, your belief isn't that people shouldn't have sex, and so you are hypocritical for keeping your child from sex while having it yourself. Instead, your belief is __whatever___, and so you keep your child from having sex while still engaging in it yourself, with neither of these acting against that belief and therefore keeping you from being a hypocrite in this regard.

I have no idea why you think I would argue that, but I'm glad you find it a bad argument anyway.

Jesus. While I am no longer a catholic and can't believe anything I was taught. The example given by Jesus is amazing. I'm sure many people believe Jesus is GOD and don't believe in many things in the bible.

I can assure you compared to GOD you aren't even close to a dog. Neither is anyone else. You don't have absolute truth and therefore need rules.

Now im confused. You said before we are not supposed to emulate Gods morals since his moral rules for us are different then for himslef.

It is all myth.

At least the miracle working absentee God.

My belief, thanks to apotheosis, is in a cosmic consciousness. Atheist tend to hold that against me till they see that my moral position matches theirs.

Man is to be supreme here in our world. Not an invisible God who must be adored.

It all began in Egypt and Sumer.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x84...st-1-of-3_news

Regards
DL

Man is definitely a rule following animal.

The problem with the bible is that the rule maker has no morality and those who follow that God have their morals backwards thanks to believing in a genocidal son murdering God that they think good.

Christians always quote Jesus and his rules but never mention how his older head had children slaughtered and their mothers raped.

Regards
DL

Last time I checked I don't have a system of eternal torture set up for my children if they don't follow rules I have broken myself.

All parents are hypocrites. Duh. And? I don't claim to be ruler of the f'n universe do I?

Irrelevant to this conversation, at least the part I'm involved in.

I made more than one post saying parents aren't hypocrites, and you respond by just negating that instead of dealing with my explanations? Are you interested in a real discussion or do you just want to tell me I'm stupid?

Oh, I never got back to respond to this and then forgot. I think that God does operate under the same basic values that we humans should, only with different levels knowledge and power, they get manifested in different actions.

So it is good for man to kill man when he has the power to cure him and God takes it up a notch and it is good to use genocide on us when he can just as easily cure us.

Is that what you mean?

Regards
DL

Bad analogy, as kids age these things become allowed, acceptable, w/e.

But conversely, it's not like once you hit the age of 54 [or any arbitrary age!] you are allowed to commit genocide, or commit adultery, ect..

Therefore at a bare minimum, the degree of hypocrisy is much higher with god/people relationship than with the parent/child relationship.

The max is hard to define because it is contingent upon lots of other factors, but the floor is quite clear.

I can understand your hangup if you can't get past that..

No, I do not want to say you are stupid.

My post was a statement of its own. The point I made was directly opposed to yours. You say parents aren't hypocrites for saying one thing and doing another. I disagree with that. Whether or not it is for the child's benefit or not is irrelevant to the point.

I may be doing it to protect my son, but it doesn't change the fact that I am a hypocrite if I do it myself.

That's my stance. I don't mean any insults and I apologize if it came off that way.

It's all good. I didn't like the word stupid in my post anyway, but I couldn't figure out what word I really wanted.

Still, in response to the content here and the post below:

I feel like no one besides myself is actually using hypocrisy to mean what the only posted definition in this thread says. It's about claiming to hold values that you really don't (and often taking actions counter to these values). It's not like your values are "people shouldn't drive or use the stove" and so you'd be hypocritical when you tell your kid not to drive or use the stove but then you do both of those.

Instead, your values would be something about avoiding needlessly risking harm to yourself and others. For kids, this manifests as no driving/cooking with fire. For you as an adult, driving and cooking don't break your values. No hypocrisy!

That the kids will eventually be adults has no relevance here. The point is that you do stick to your values by applying them to kids with rules when you yourself don't follow those rules. You can abide by the same core values while taking different actions. Whether you're dealing with kids that will live to 10 or 100, or even with dogs or cats doesn't change the scenario in any meaningful way wrt the OP.

Alright his moral values are the same but he has more knowledge.

This means i shouldn't emulate his moral actions without his level of knowledge and power.

In my view that is correct (but I hope you see how it's different than emulating His morals -- this is basically the same convo I'm having above about kids and adults).

No i dont see the difference in following Gods morals or emulating them.

If all you say is true i dont think we should emulate Gods morals or look to him in anyway when it comes to human moral actions since Gods morals are above us in knowledge and power.

If he smites witches i shouldn't smite them since i dont have the knowledge he does. If he loves all i shouldn't try to love all and emulate him since i dont have the knowledge he does.

Basically Gods moral actions become the worst moral guide one could have.