Which then just begs the question: what might be the actual existential implications of this if…
All I can do here is to [once again] relate that to the reason I created this thread: to allow those [like zinnat] who do believe in God to connect the dots between behaviors they choose here and now and through their faith in God in imagining the consequences of that in the there and then.
In other words, I speculate that a fundamental reason Gods are invented is that the benefits of knowing [philosophically, scientifically etc] that which is virtuous is just not enough. Not when folks know that those who choose vice instead may well not get caught. Not when folks know that those who choose vice instead may well not be punished.
And then the behaviors of the nihilists, the sociopaths, the narcissists, the psychopaths. What care they of the benefits reaped by those who do practice virtue? Instead, their intentions are often to take advantage of that.
Besides, this hypothetical community of those who are able to grasp virtuous behaviors in regard to conflicting goods, exist here just for the sake of argument.
As for this…
Sure, if you can actually think yourself into believing this, that’s one way to make the real world go away.
On the other hand, as though the tiny percentage of folks who own and operate the global economy while literally hundreds of millions of men, women and child barely sustain an existence from day to day, are punishing themselves for it. Hell, many of them have concocted philosophies that simply rationalize these grotesque disparities. And, besides, at least they’re not communists, right?
Ah, but the virtuous can still seek solace in knowing that they are virtuous, right?
But: Virtuous in regard to what? What does it mean to be virtuous [in a No God World] in regard to abortion, gun control, homosexuality, the use of drugs, social and economic justice, gender roles, animal rights, capital punishment, separation of church and state, just wars, immigration…and on and on and on.
What objectively different results in regards to issues like those above? Leaving aside our la la land hypothetical community that for the sake of argument we both agree have discovered the objective distinction between vice and virtue, what might that be in the real world here and now?
Sure, any number of folks might choose virtue over vice because they now know it is the right thing to do. And because they perceive clear benefits for themselves in doing the right thing.
But that does not make the points I raise above go away.