Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Why Do Atheists Insist That the God of the Bible Be Bound to the Same Moral Code?

I just answered the following question on Quora:

Why do many atheists insist that the God of the Bible must be bound to the same moral obligations which He places on His creations?

Well, I don't insist such as an atheist, as I don't believe there is a god. I did, however, insist that when I was a Christian. It's the same principle of parents living the proper example for their children or a law enforcement officer setting the precedent for fellow citizens. As a child of God—as I believed I was—I fully expected God to be better than I was, to set the right example, to certainly not ever sin. If he was to sin, to break his own law, and I supposedly deserve to die and stay dead for breaking any statute of any commandment of that law, then he surely deserved to die, too.
During my last two years as a commandment-keeping Christian, I started seriously questioning, if I knew I felt guilty after yelling at my kids when I'd lost my temper, because it was wrong of me to act that way, then why was it ok for God to feel remorseful and repent of his wrathful and destructive outbursts against his children (including murdering large numbers of them and worse) yet not deserve to die forever without forgiveness? And who must forgive him? I puzzled so much over all the passages of the Hebrew God feeling guilty and repenting each time of the evil he had done. I knew it was not ok that he could get away with it but that we all deserved to die for much, much less (most of us don't send enemies to rape and kill our own children and destroy all they have).
No one should be above the law, and that most certainly includes any God that has the audacity to create us and expect us to follow a law of his/her/its own making.
That is why I also seriously started questioning the supposed rebellion of angels. Rebellions are often waged by the righteous against tyrants.
If there really was a god, no one should want to bow to tyranny and condone tyranny. Of course, we only need to look back through human history and our present to recognize only tyrants demand worship—strict honor and obedience from their subjects. A righteous leader serves his or her people more than they serve him or her. Jesus even taught this wonderful truth. If you scrutinize the best parents and the worst parents, you'll notice the best parents serve their children far more than the children serve them (which does not mean always doing everything for them, as the best parents train their children to become capable adults). The worst authoritarian parents will sin left and right without consequence but expect perfect obedience from their children; the worst permissive parents will neglect proper care and training of their children. The same goes with the best and worst governments. Governments should be made up of model public servants to serve the citizenry.
Tyrants never bother to apply the law to themselves, but they carry out the most severe punishments to those they force into subjection who break the statutes.
I implore you never to find yourself excusing a tyrant from keeping his own law that he forces upon his subjects.