Some individuals may claim the existence of God to be self-evident. Trouble is I have seen philosophers in the last couple of centuries treat the most absurd ideas as objectively true. Or deny the existence objective truth altogether for that matter. Some of those ideas are so weird I wonder if the person presenting them actually trusted them or was insane. Can one handle everyday object if one truly believes they have no existence independent of one’s own mind? Yet with the exception of Friedrich Nietzsche – who actually ended up in a metal asylum – I have seen no indication any of them were mentally ill. Still, they make me seriously wonder if anything at all is self-evident. If there is, it is on such a mind-bogglingly basic level people would discover it themselves. There would be no need of others to tell them.
If any ideas are self-evident a single almighty deity is certainly not one of them. Before the spread of Christianity and later Islam (Allah means God in Arabic) monotheism was actually rare. Even today at least 1/4 of humanity does not believe in God. Most of them know about monotheism but don’t believe in it for various reasons.
By the way I find it pathetic to use things in the physical world as evidence of God’s existence. The person making such an argument takes something in its most familiar form and assumes this to be natural and normal. Then the person argues for a divine origin of its characteristics based on them being natural and normal. In reality these characteristics are not natural and may not even be as common as assumed. Since they are non-natural and possibly uncommon this invalidates the argument.
It is worth noting gods judging people in afterlife did not turn up until societies reached a population of one million or more. The purpose of this was to make it easier to cooperate with strangers. With present-day knowledge about human society this is no longer needed. For example, one no longer has to pay taxes believing the ruler has a divine right to demand it. Instead, one needs to know taxes pay for all the things one would otherwise take for granted. If taxes were voluntary too few would pay them and the costs of these could not be covered.
I am not saying religion is no longer needed for anything. Many and perhaps most still feel the need to believe in something. Interestingly, Albania tried abolishing religion altogether during its communist era. Churches and mosques were rebuilt for other purposes. Both the Bible and the Quran were made illegal to sell making them hard to find. This ultimately failed as only 8% of Albania’s current population have no religion. A little more than half are Muslims and the rest are mostly Christians. Compensating for defiance in welfare could well be a factor here.
The idea of God being self-evident is ultimately based on an untenable assumption about the human mind. It presupposes everyone to be so mentally similar that if they were just told the same things their decisions would be identical. Does anyone who has had all chances to learn to know his or her fellow beings actually believe that? Or has one never thought about the consequences of individuality? Some people’s expressions make me really wonder about this.
Uploaded on the 26th of February 2024.
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