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And why, even while being an atheist, would I accept utilitarianism over Jesus Christ in this case?

For more-less exactly the same reason you accept general relativity over aristotelian motion - it is derived from first principles using maths, can be shown to match experience even if somewhat intuitive to people, and works pretty well in practice.

> can be shown to match experience even if somewhat [un]intuitive to people, and works pretty well in practice.

I think these are the two points that those skeptical of utilitarianism have trouble with: it's exactly that it doesn't seem to match experience that started this thread. Additionally, it doesn't actually seem to work well in practice: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/07/the_argument_fr_...

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