God isn't obvious. That's one of the main reasons why I'm agnostic. But if any religion can make a case for God being close to obvious, it's the Jews. Here's a quick recap of the high-profile miraculous-adjacent Jewish events in recent history.
Israel is a country. It shouldn't be. I don't mean that in a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad kind of way. I mean that in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not kind of way. Sure, 32 countries, including Djibouti, still refuse to recognize Israeli statehood. But to be fair, most Americans don't recognize Djibouti's statehood. Most American's think Djibouti is what you shake at Djiclub.
The Six-Day War was proof of God's existence. Unless you're Muslim. In June 1967, Israel handed Egypt, Syria, and Jordan their respective asses. The last official day of the Six-Day War was Saturday, so God won the war, but the Israeli troops broke the fourth commandment.
Hitler didn't single out Mormons in the Holocaust. Throughout the Old Testament, God threatened the Jews with brutal punishment if they turned away. I don't know if or how they may have turned away, but I can't imagine a more brutal punishments than the Holocaust. Jews make up a statistically insignificant portion of the world's population, yet they continually take center stage in human history.
Jewish exceptionalism is hard to deny. Today Jews make up about 0.2 percent of the total world population, but they make up 73 percent of the writing staff on Big Bang Theory. Jews have a outsized representation among the world's foremost scientists and entertainers. It's like they were chosen. They do suck at sports. They only make up about 0.2 percent of the professional athlete population.
The two most successful world religions are spin-offs of Judaism. Paramount Studios didn't create Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine because Star Trek sucked. Judaism must've gotten a lot of things right to have two blockbuster spinoffs. Also, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are both Jewish. I learn things from Adam Sandler songs.
Pretty damn amazing, right? Wrong. The Pew Research Center just undermined all of that with one of their god forsaken surveys.
Apparently Judaism might be going out of business because Jews (at least in America) are becoming more and more secular. According to CNN.com, nearly a third of Jews born after 1980 say they have no religion at all, almost 60 percent of Jews who have wed since 2000 have a non-Jewish spouse, and one-third of intermarried Jews say they're not raising thier kids Jewish. Top that off with the fact that Jews generally don't proselytize. It's an unsustainable religious model.
Clearly, the Jewish faith is nowhere near receiving a going concern opinion - it will undoubtedly continue to operate beyond the next 12 months. But the idea that it's in decline raises some interesting questions.
Let's say the day comes when Judaism has zero followers. Does that prove that the God of Israel does not exist?
I haven't given the existence of the Roman pantheon serious consideration. That's because nobody believes in the Roman pantheon. Okay. I'm sure somebody does, but I assume they're being ironic.
No followers for a particular god doesn't disprove that god's existence, but it does put that religion into the neighborhood of deism which is located in agnostic county.
Assume God exists. Let's call him Preston. He's not YHWH or Jesus or Allah or Brahmin. None of those guys exist. Preston exists. He's omniscient and omnipotent. But no one believes in Preston anymore. NO ONE. And he's cool with that. He could reveal himself, but he doesn't.
What does that tell us about Preston? It tells us (1) he doesn't want a relationship with us, (2) maybe he doesn't mean us any harm, but (3) he doesn't love us, and (4) he doesn't think we need to know what happens after we die.
Deists believe those exact same things about God, and many agnostics would affirm all four of those statements as long as each began with the disclaimer "If God exists, then since he hasn't made his existence and identity clearly known ..."
Judaism tops the leaderboard of believable religions except for the fact that it appears to be heading toward extinction.
