Everyone's really getting some good digs in.
IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.
THIS is the part that I object to most. Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff. Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd. Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?
INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life. If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism. Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth.
Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK. I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure. I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better. WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).
FWIW, I don't really think any of this is incompatible with my understanding of "why Christians are supposed to do good things and avoid bad things." I get your point about, "I try to avoid hedonism, not because I think the avoidance will please a god, but because I think avoiding hedonism is good for me." But it's not really a far leap to square that circle if you start with the premise that basically every Christian is supposed to start with: "God wants good things for me, and doing good things pleases him." In other words, good things tend to be good for you
and please God.
Perhaps a lot of these biblical rules (i.e. avoid hedonism even though it feels so damn good) were implemented
because they were/are good for people, and God wants people to live in a way that was good for them. Anyway, all that to say, I don't think your post I quoted is necessarily contradictory to why good Christians act in a particular way.