While I am certainly an atheist, if we take for granted that there is a God, and that God is like the one worshipped by Hans Christian Anderson, namely Yahweh, and that god is not hypocritical, then what he says is oh so very close to valid, but not quite valid. One who would do good solely for the sake is not hypocritical, but why is it hypocritical to do good only for reward. I don't like kids, but if I saw a baby in a dumpster I would try to save it. Is that hypocritical since, while I feel morally compelled to act in such a manner, I do not especially value the lives of kids? Let's imagine I viscerally hated kids and did want them all to suffer harm or die, but I saved them anyway out of an instinctual compulsion. Would that make me hypocritical? I suspect not. It seems hypocrisy can only be applied to actions considered bad, at least in the sense that I take it to mean. I take hypocrisy to mean that one does not live up to the moral standard they hold others to. If that is the case, then what Anderson calls "religious hypocrites" are only people doing good, but motivated by what he takes to be a poor moral compass. Of course, he might mean that such people are causing harms and not living up to their own moral codes, in which case they are hypocrites, and assuming God is all good, a position that does not mesh well with theodicy by the way, an atheist who does good and lives up to a high standard is indeed closer to God.
This assertion seems to hinge in one respect on the question of whether or not thoughts are amoral. I think thoughts themselves are amoral, that is to say; go ahead and think whatever you want. Your thoughts are not subject to ethical concerns. Let's say I think about killing someone because I believe it would be pleasurable (due to the public nature of this forum let me be absolutely clear that I do not.) However, I do not go through with it. The thought of me killing someone, (which again due to the public nature of this forum I should declare that I do not have,) was neither good nor bad in itself. Dangerous, potentially, but neither good nor bad. If I really wanted to kill someone and refused solely for goodness sake, I do not think that makes me any better than if I refused due to a fear of incarceration. If I were to judge someone for thinking about killing someone, having the stance that I espouse, I would be hypocritical in passing that judgement. However, if any harm were done to the person so judged, it would lie solely in the knowledge that I passed a hypocritical judgement. My point is this: Hypocrites are best avoided. Those that are constitutionally hypocritical, (I think we all are from time to time,) are certainly not the nicest of people and should be avoided, but the hypocrisy in and of itself does not make them any more or less bad. So while good people who are not hypocritical do have more God like qualities (God cannot be a hypocrite since there is only one in the Judeo-Christian mythos,) I would not agree with Anderson that they are better people, as he seems to imply. In answer to your second question, a philosopher is 100% likely to make an argument like this. However, I am uncertain of the likelihood of a philosopher selected at random making a similar argument.
