I think a lot of unstated assumptions are being smuggled in with the word “god” (and related words like “worship”), resulting in confusion.
If I imagine I live in a world (W) where a powerful entity (E) punishes behavior it describes as immoral (B), and some people (P) engage in B anyway, and you ask me whether I ought to do what I can to prevent P from engaging in B or ought to write it up to personal choice… well, it depends on specifics.
E.g., if W = mid-20th-century Germany and E = the government and B = homosexuality, my answer is “neither.” I ought to do what I can to protect P from E, and to get rid of E.
I assume that isn’t what you mean by a “god I worship.”
If I instead imagine I live in W2 where E2 is an extremely reliable source of moral judgments and judges B2 immoral, and P2 engage in B2, what should I do?
Well, the simplest answer is “whatever E2 judges.” That is, I ought to ask E2 “Should I try to save P2 from their own folly, or write it up to personal choice?” and then do whatever E2 says.
What if I can’t do that? Well, why can’t I?
One possible reason is I don’t know enough about W2 to know I ought to ask.
In the real world this seems plausible to me: I’m willing to believe that there’s a system out there that reliably makes more accurate moral judgments than I do, but I don’t know of any such system. But your use of the word “worship” blocks that reading… if I worship E2 in W2, it follows that I do know E2 has that property, because why would I worship it otherwise?
Another possible reason is because E2 doesn’t answer such questions.
In this case, it seems to me that my next best bet is to reason by analogy from the things E2 has said, in order to answer the question. Which is more or less what believers in the moral superiority of various texts in the real world do. (Not just theists… a Objectivist friend of mine worked this way as well: when I asked him questions about what someone ought to do in this situation or that, his instinct was to go look the answer up.)
I realize that all of this sounds like I’m dodging the question, but to some extent that is my point: if you invite me to imagine that I live in a world that really does have a reliable source of objective moral judgments, and then ask me whether it’s more moral in that world to do A or B, the correct answer really is that I should look it up!
The fact that such an answer doesn’t tell me much that’s useful about the real world is, to my mind, evidence supporting the idea that I don’t live in such a world.
I think a lot of unstated assumptions are being smuggled in with the word “god” (and related words like “worship”), resulting in confusion.
If I imagine I live in a world (W) where a powerful entity (E) punishes behavior it describes as immoral (B), and some people (P) engage in B anyway, and you ask me whether I ought to do what I can to prevent P from engaging in B or ought to write it up to personal choice… well, it depends on specifics.
E.g., if W = mid-20th-century Germany and E = the government and B = homosexuality, my answer is “neither.” I ought to do what I can to protect P from E, and to get rid of E.
I assume that isn’t what you mean by a “god I worship.”
If I instead imagine I live in W2 where E2 is an extremely reliable source of moral judgments and judges B2 immoral, and P2 engage in B2, what should I do?
Well, the simplest answer is “whatever E2 judges.” That is, I ought to ask E2 “Should I try to save P2 from their own folly, or write it up to personal choice?” and then do whatever E2 says.
What if I can’t do that? Well, why can’t I?
One possible reason is I don’t know enough about W2 to know I ought to ask.
In the real world this seems plausible to me: I’m willing to believe that there’s a system out there that reliably makes more accurate moral judgments than I do, but I don’t know of any such system. But your use of the word “worship” blocks that reading… if I worship E2 in W2, it follows that I do know E2 has that property, because why would I worship it otherwise?
Another possible reason is because E2 doesn’t answer such questions.
In this case, it seems to me that my next best bet is to reason by analogy from the things E2 has said, in order to answer the question. Which is more or less what believers in the moral superiority of various texts in the real world do. (Not just theists… a Objectivist friend of mine worked this way as well: when I asked him questions about what someone ought to do in this situation or that, his instinct was to go look the answer up.)
I realize that all of this sounds like I’m dodging the question, but to some extent that is my point: if you invite me to imagine that I live in a world that really does have a reliable source of objective moral judgments, and then ask me whether it’s more moral in that world to do A or B, the correct answer really is that I should look it up!
The fact that such an answer doesn’t tell me much that’s useful about the real world is, to my mind, evidence supporting the idea that I don’t live in such a world.