Do you forget that we are to render unto Caesar....? Perhaps take a tour of Paul's letter to the Romans.

Jesus said to render twice what was asked in his walk two miles instead of one remark.

Easy for him to say as he was not the one doing the lifting and toting.

Paul also taught just how a slave was to be beaten. Do you also follow that reasoning?

So tell me. What is more important to you God or his laws?

Regards
DL

So tell me. What is more important to you God or his laws? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

As other, they're not. As something I can take ownership of, they're both important.

I can see how you can take ownership of a law or incorporate it into your ideology.

How do you do that with some invisible absentee God?

If it is Yahweh under discussion, why would you want the laws or that God when he is depicted asw such a vile and satanic genocidal son murderer?

Regards
DL

How do you do that with some invisible absentee God? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

And what God, exactly, would this be?

And what God, exactly, would this be? — tim wood

I know of no exceptions. Do you?

Regards
DL

I'm wesleyan orthodox (a type of Christian).
Jesus simply his laws for us. This simplification is prifrased, love God then love others. So the answer to your question is God is more important.

Yes, I know the question that come with divine command theory.

I mean only that there can be no single idea of this God; therefore, of those ideas I file under God, if I choose to adopt them as imperatives, then I can own them.

↪Gnostic Christian Bishop I mean only that there can be no single idea of this God; therefore, of those ideas I file under God, if I choose to adopt them as imperatives, then I can own them — tim wood

Indeed. That is why there are as many Gods as their are people to think of them.

We will all have our own notions of what God is.

https://imgur.com/9eoBEyo

Regards
DL

love God then love others. — hachit

Love must have works and deeds and reciprocity between lovers to be true love.

God is not around to love is and thus cannot be said to love us just as we cannot be said to love God in the real sense of the word.

If you think God loves you, then you must also think he is quite rude as he does not return anyone's love.

This song expresses that thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YB4J-keW3A

Regards
DL

Jesus simply his laws for us. — hachit

If that is the case, you miss his message. You are naming another as your law while ignoring that you are to be God.

Modern Gnostic Christians name our god "I am", and yes, we do mean ourselves.

You are your controller. I am mine. You represent and present whatever mind picture you have of your God or ideal human, and so do I.

The name "I Am" you might see as meaning something like, --- I think I have grown up thanks to having forced my apotheosis through Gnosis and meditation.

In Gnostic Christianity, we follow the Christian tradition that Christians have forgotten that they are to do. That is, become brethren to Jesus.

That is why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.

Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded

Joseph Campbell shows the same esoteric ecumenist idea in this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths.

Regards
DL

Your initial post is a bit confusing in my opinion. You seem to actually be talking about at least three things:
(1) Gods
(2) Laws that gods issue
(3) Laws that people create

It seems like you primarily want to ask about (1) versus (2), but you keep mixing (3) in, too.

With (1) and (2), it's not clear that there would be a difference. Wouldn't most people say that if you're devoted to (or following or whatever) a god, then you'd be devoted to the laws the god issued, since they're a part of the god's nature?

It does get a bit confusing.

Scriptures say we are to emulate God in all of his ways. Be ye as perfect as God are the words used.

God says, do not kill. We cannot emulate God as he is a killer. We terefore have the option to either follow the laws of God or the example of God.

Which are you doing? Following God's nature and seeking that perfection, or just seeking to be a follower of someone else's law?

God does not follows his own laws.

Is it moral for any law maker to say do as I say and not as I do, when he also says be exactly like me?

Regards
DL

I'm an atheist, by the way. So I was just addressing the logic of the argument.

If there are gods, and there are good reasons to believe that the god has issued laws, then obviously you'd follow the laws and not "the example of the god as it might behave other than the laws seem to be," as if you somehow know better than the god what the reason for the apparent discrepancy is.

It is not about knowing better than God. It is about if the biblical instruction to be as perfect as God should be followed or not. Those biblical words, to Christians, are God's own Words and must also be followed.

They contradict each other.

Hence my "Is it moral for any law maker to say do as I say and not as I do, when he also says be exactly like me?

Regards
DL

Wouldn't part of god's perfection be the laws he's set forth?

Wouldn't part of god's perfection be the laws he's set forth? — Terrapin Station

Indeed.

If perfect, then he should not break them any more than we should.

That is not the case, which would make God less moral than moral people.

For instance, he is shown as a genocidal and infantasidal God and most people would not ever follow his lead to those immoral extremes.

How Christians end in adoring such a prick I cannot fathom. How they can set their moral sense aside for their tribalism is beyond me. It also happens in politics. We have a perfect example of this when the Republicans publicly held their noses when voting for truth-less Trump.

Regards
DL

God defines love differently than you do. God loves us as a father, he want us to be content not happy. It works for me.

Not that I'm a Christian or religious believer at all (just to emphasize that again, because I'm about to defend them a bit), but the idea is that there are reasons that god would have rules for us that either don't apply to him or that he only apparently breaks, where we don't (and I think it typically goes that we could not) understand, since we're not gods, we don't have god's intellect or understanding, etc.

It's just an issue of whether one is going to believe such things on faith or not. I do not.

God loves us as a father, he want us to be content not happy.

Is that the best that you want for your children?

I want more for mine. I am happy and want all people to be.
— hachit

God defines love differently than you do. — hachit

For sure, as well as genocide. He defines that as good while I define it as evil.

Regards
DL

where we don't (and I think it typically goes that we could not) understand, since we're not gods, — Terrapin Station

The bible does not agree with you, in terms of us knowing good and evil the way God does.

Gen3;22 Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;

We have the same morals as God which is likely why Christianity preaches that we are to take on the Christ consciousness.

This also explains why secular law is so much better than God's laws. We have collectively grown away from ancient immoralities and poor laws, while Christians and Muslims hang on to their foul laws and views of morality.

Regards
DL

For instance, he is shown as a genocidal and infantasidal God and most people would not ever follow his lead to those immoral extremes.

How Christians end in adoring such a prick I cannot fathom. How they can set their moral sense aside for their tribalism is beyond me. It also happens in politics. We have a perfect example of this when the Republicans publicly held their noses when voting for truth-less Trump. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Once again - just one more iteration of the argument from evil.

And the theist response remains the same - compensating goods.

There are 2 type of evil, those done by man's acts of free will. In these cases theists would argue that free will is a compensating good. We can not have real free will without allowing for the prospect that some of those choices will be evil.

The second kind is natural disasters etc, not acts of man. And the theist response is the same response to all no- seeum arguments.

basically - you would say there are no compensating goods for these natural disasters, because you have looked around and have not seen any. With the underlying assumption that if there were such things, you would know where to look for them, you would see them and recognize them as such.

Skeptical theism would argue back you have no real basis to believe you would know any such thing as "God". Nor any basis to assert you have looked in all possible places in the realm of all abstractions, nor would be able to see or recognize these compensating good as such.

again - just the same theist response to the same argument from evil. Both positions are reasonable chose the one you like.

https://answersingenesis.org/who-is-god/can-we-understand-gods-ways/

Do you believe that literalist fool?

Regards
DL

Do you believe that fool? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It's not my view, but it's a pretty standard view for Christians.

We can not have real free will without allowing for the prospect that some of those choices will be evil. — Rank Amateur

I agree. Conversely, we cannot say that we have a free will that might not sin since we have no examples of people who have not or will not sin.

Here is a short version of something I wrote. I have a longer version if you do not quite see what I mean.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature, then the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

The second kind (my insert, evil) is natural disasters etc, not acts of man. — Rank Amateur

I do not class natural disasters as evil.
To be evil or an evil sin, which is analogous to illegal in a court, it would have to fail, or pass men's rea, depending how you read the explanation of that legal term which speaks of having an evil intent, there is no crime or sin. Natural disasters do not have an evil intent, just like white lies, and are therefore not evil or sins or crimes. An example of this in a court would be insanity where the defendant might be have done an evil or illegal act but would not be held culpable for it.

As to the God question.

You are correct if the only way you define God is based on the supernatural.

As a Gnostic Christian, I hold no supernatural beliefs. I do think the world has more than we can see though due to my apotheosis. I have no proof to show though so asking would be fruitless. It is all in how we name our God. Mine is I am.

Modern Gnostic Christians name our god "I am", and yes, we do mean ourselves.

You are your controller. I am mine. You represent and present whatever mind picture you have of your God or ideal human, and so do I.

The name "I Am" you might see as meaning something like, --- I think I have grown up thanks to having forced my apotheosis through Gnosis and meditation.

In Gnostic Christianity, we follow the Christian tradition that Christians have forgotten that they are to do. That is, become brethren to Jesus.

That is why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.

Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded

Joseph Campbell shows the same esoteric ecumenist idea in this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths.

Regards
DL

It's not my view, but it's a pretty standard view for Christians. — Terrapin Station

I agree. Same response. They are fools.

Faith without facts is for fools.

Regards
DL

For sure, as well as genocide. He defines that as good while I define it as evil.

We're you get that idea.

We're you get that idea. — hachit

From the fact that Yahweh uses it often.

Christians also define genocide as good because they say God is good when he uses it.

Regards
DL

it is not genocide just mass killings.

Genocide must at some point make the people seem less than human.

I get you point though. You probably think all killing is wrong. I have no clue of your opinion on self defense