GOD AS A MORAL PROJECTION OR WHEN YOU PRETEND YOUR MORAL PREFERENCES ARE SOMEHOW GOD AND YOU EVEN PROJECT YOUR MORALS ONTO "MORALITY"

We all have seen clear examples of how we assume others are like us and got it wrong thus proving that our relationships were more about the picture we had of them than them.  We all have a degree of  narcissism where we only like in others what we like in ourselves.  And vice versa.

We outsource our wants and values and anti-values to moral rules.  To other people.  To God.  What is more, this is so normal and so rife we would keep trying to do it where we cannot.

What you consider fair will be coloured by how you think you are some kind of expert on fair when you are not.  That is one example.  You claim to be ruled by justice but in fact you decide what is fair and you call that justice.  You only designate something as fair and good when you have already decided that beforehand and judged them.  Yet you say you are ruled by the moral law as if it overrides your opinion.  The moral law should overrule your opinion but that is not how human nature works.  The one who says, "God alone decides for me" is lying.  It should be, "I decide that God shall decide for me and God is right so it is about me."  Substitute absolute morality for God and you get the same result.

We see others in the way we see ourselves. You project your fears onto them. Your fear of them says more about you than them. It is why an untrustworthy person trusts nobody else. Projection involves lying and untruth. It is treating what is in you as if it is in someone else. It is distracting you from a problem you have and if you cannot see the problem you cannot give yourself the chance to improve on it.   If we do that with people  how much more do we do it with God for unlike a person who realises what we are doing and tells us, he does not speak.  So we get away with it.

This study does not argue that people invent a God to worship as a crutch or psychological projection and that therefore there is no God. What it argues is that even if there is a God, nobody worships him but their own creation made to counterfeit him. People like goodness but only on their own terms. They care about good to suit themselves. It is not about good as it is in itself. Thus they create a God who reflects the values and prejudices they like and who is going to reward them for living out these values and prejudices.
 
Belief in God is not God. Belief in God too easily becomes one's god. When your faith is your idol it is really you who are your idol.  Belief makes a remarkably good god in your mind though you may not even see it.  It is able to function like a God in how it makes you program yourself to act as if a God was really working in you.

We cannot really think of moral values such as love and compassion and respect and justice without thinking of people and how they do them.  Your view of them says more about the people who have inspired you.  It is really people you are talking about.  We cannot really think of evils such as hate and hardness and cruelty and injustice without meaning people we know about.  They may be there in the background but they are there.  They are there in the subconscious.  Also we cannot think of these goods or these evils without thinking of our own individual personal experience of them.  As we project a lot it really comes back to this, my ideas about right and wrong say more about me than right and wrong.  And what you think of people and how they teach and represent moral values comes back to you in the end for you see them as you see yourself.  You project.
 
Those who worship God are projecting their interests into a God they imagine. There could be a real God and they could still be doing that. They are out of touch with him for they have made up - wittingly or unwittingly - a God of their own. It is about wish-fulfilment. The reason people may not outgrow God is because he is presented as the ultimate power in the universe and who knows all and sustains all. Fantasy friends such as Santa or the tooth-fairy are outgrown for they cannot compete with that. But if say Santa was presented as somebody who watches over you invisibly and who is there to guide you day by day it would be a different story. They could say that though Santa does not bring toys at Christmas he inspires people to do it. That would prevent the loss of belief in Santa.

CHRISTIANS: Objective morality is about what is really right and really wrong. It is opposed to the view that you can invent right and wrong. Objective morality will say it is bad to needlessly hurt a baby no matter if you think it is right or not. If there is no God then morality is not real. It is just opinion and its no big deal if somebody believes that murder is good and righteous. The need for objective morality is why we worship God despite the terrible things that happen in the universe.  We regard him as ultimately responsible for the damage done but not as criminally or morally responsible. His role is justified.  Without God we would have no reason to condemn such things.
 
SANITY SAYS: The Christians are pretending that you need God to really take morality seriously as a concept. But if we need God in order to believe that things are objectively right and objectively wrong, then the problem arises, "Do I believe in God because I need him?" If I do then my belief is irrational. Needing something does not make it real. And the answer to the question would be yes. God would then be a crutch. Belief would be a simulated belief rather than a real belief. 1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist
 
2) Objective moral values and duties do exist
 
3) Therefore, God exists
 
The trick in the argument is that 1 is a blatant lie. We recoil from what it claims.
 
Hurting a baby would be wrong whether there is a god or not. Denying that is trying to stunt our perception that it is bad. We should be able to see its wrongness right away without even thinking of a God. The objective morality argument is not the big fan of objective morality it tries to pass itself off as.
 
1 is wrong and opposes objective morality despite its outward appearance of endorsing it.
 
3 therefore is the wrong conclusion.
 
The argument will be more concerned for justifying belief in God than in morality. The Christian believes that as God comes first it follows that if we have to choose between him and morality we must choose him. That would not make us immoral for it is the only option. A dentist is not cruel for pulling teeth.
 
The argument is very confusing to most Christians who end up taking it for granted that it is correct. Christianity likes to promote that confusion for the argument by itself is ludicrous. You would need to be confused by it to consider it true.

At the end of the day, even if objective morality exists, what matters most is our perception that it exists even if we struggle to get the rules correct. Thus it does not matter if you believe in God or not EVEN IF objective morality is grounded in him. A level of confusion would be part of the human predicament.

So Christians are saying God is right to let so much evil happen and for moral reasons we need him despite the evil.  But those reasons are themselves antagonistic to the morality and the moral God they want to protect!  For example, if you decide there is a God you have to blame humankind not him for evil.  That is against plain justice.  You don't have enough proof.