On hypocrites

I forgot to point out that this is a readated post, and that the first two comments were from people writing 2 and a half years ago.

Before I went offline, I went over to Maverick Philosopher's site and posted a comment which I really ought to put here.

What's very interesting about hypocrisy is that it is an inevitable by-product of having a high moral standard and rewarding socially behavior that lives up to that moral standard. If the bar is high, then you are always going to have some people who want the social benefits of appearing moral without actually being moral, and if that is the case then you'll get hypocrites. Thus it is an argument for being a member of a Christian church, and not an argument against it, that there are hypocrites in the church. If you dumb down your moral standard to the level that everyone can fairly easily satisfy, you'll get rid of the hypocrites, along with the high standard. Russell, for example, preached free sex and by golly, he practiced it! Does that say anything great about him?