Smith offers a sociology of religion in which men, having no other model of intelligent beings than themselves, necessarily ascribe their own sentiments and passions to the mysterious beings they imagine but cannot see, effectively creating gods in man's own image (inverting the Judeo-Christian creation story), and moral judgments then become locked up with and enshrouded in those personified deities.

causalpending

Speaker

Dan Klein

Evidence Quote

And so they personify you know God and and then you know so many of these moral judgments are locked up with God and then that's the enshrouding right?

Source

Dan Klein on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Episode 4--A Discussion of Part III 04/29/2009EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:36:51 AM

My Notes

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