Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Do as I say, not as I do

The majority of atheists and skeptics of religion would agree with the accusation that the Christian god is a hypocrite. After all, he commands us not to kill, but has no problem with the snuffing out of human life at his own hand. He even gets all up in the betrothed Mary, if you know what I mean, despite outlawing adultery a mere millennium-and-a-half ago.

The blogger(s) over at PleaseConvinceMe attempt a defense of this behavior by asserting that the creator of laws has every right to disobey said laws. While this does nothing to dissuade that this particular deity is not a hypocrite, it instead makes the argument that he can be a hypocrite if he wants, and there's nothing we can do about it.


I'm pretty sure the author(s) at PCM would take issue with this, but they did post the above image, so presumably they endorse the definitions contained therein. Most notably:
2. a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
If this god imposes a law that forbids killing, then I believe we can be reasonably sure how he feels about killing. He believes killing is bad, yet he kills - that's hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong, he has the right to be hypocritical, he is god after all. But let's call a spade a spade. I, for one, don't believe a flagrantly hypocritical being is worthy of any sort of worship.

Let us assume he believes there is no moral transgression when he kills, but there is a moral transgression when one human kills another. I'm fine with dropping the hypocrisy accusation at this point, but I still don't believe a god that kills innocent human beings is worth my adulation and prostration.

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