Anonymous, I can’t help but observe that you seem to be emotionally caught up in this objection. I think the first thing that needs to be done, then, is to try to disentangle your emotions from the philosophical issues at stake here. Then you will be able to think more clear-headedly about the arguments.
It seems to me that apart from the psychological twist which the atheist objector puts on the argument, there’s nothing essentially new here that hasn’t been already addressed by divine command theorists, including myself. By “the psychological twist” I mean framing the question in terms of your personal reaction to the situation. As I have pointed out in response to other such psychological questions (e.g., “If the bones of Jesus were found, would you give up Christian faith?”), questions of this sort are of no more than autobiographical interest. It is of no philosophical significance what I would do or believe under certain conditions. What is philosophically relevant is what I should do under such conditions. By framing the question psychologically, the objector puts the believer in a psychologically tortuous condition which distracts from the real issues.
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