Fairness in religion

**awisler** · January 20, 2010, 03:41 PM

I am not very religious, so consider me uninformed on the following assumption: God is always fair towards his people.

If the aforementioned assumption is incorrect, then skip to the bottom where I will address that point.

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However assuming it is correct:

If I ask someone why god made some pretty awful things exist in life, they will tell me its because you have to make the right choices in life and earn a spot in heaven.

My reply is what about a baby that dies in the womb? or a few hours, days, or weeks after birth? According to religion, life begins at conception. The baby that dies in the womb is a life, and it never had a chance to prove itself and earn its spot in heaven. This leads to three conclusions;

1) That the baby automatically gets to go to heaven which is unfair, Im sure many people would wish they were killed in the womb if that were true.

2) The opposite of #1, the baby does not go to heaven. Again unfair.

3) It is a way of somehow testing the mother and father. If that's true, then God murdered a young life in order to test someone else? You would think he could have come up with something better.

I see no other possibilities here. If I missed one, let me know.
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Now, if my initial assumption was incorrect and God is indeed unfair, then why do we look up to someone? Isn't God supposed to be some sort of gold standard for everyone to look up too. If he can be unfair then I sure as hell can too, which means prejudice, racism etc is all back in play.

**Groundtotem** · January 20, 2010, 03:52 PM

Now, if my initial assumption was incorrect and God is indeed unfair, then why do we look up to someone? Isn't God supposed to be some sort of gold standard for everyone to look up too. If he can be unfair then I sure as hell can too, which means prejudice, racism etc is all back in play.

Fear? I have never understood why people look up to God or want to follow him, but since a lot of religious people seems to pick and chose on what they should believe and not take literally i guess it's easier to follow a vengeful and hateful "god". If there is a God (which i doubt) i wouldn't follow him, not even if i would be sent to hell. God as i see it is a selfish bastard that only cares about those who do believe in him. You can be a very good man and do good in the world and still end up in hell for not believing, this to me says that God only cares about if people believe in him. He cares nothing for good people. If we were to follow Gods standards and morals down to the letter (which no one does it seems) i think this place would be a hell hole.

**awisler** · January 20, 2010, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by Groundtotem

Fear? I have never understood why people look up to God or want to follow him, but since a lot of religious people seems to pick and chose on what they should believe and not take literally i guess it's easier to follow a vengeful and hateful "god". If there is a God (which i doubt) i wouldn't follow him, not even if i would be sent to hell. God as i see it is a selfish bastard that only cares about those who do believe in him. You can be a very good man and do good in the world and still end up in hell for not believing, this to me says that God only cares about if people believe in him. He cares nothing for good people. If we were to follow Gods standards and morals down to the letter (which no one does it seems) i think this place would be a hell hole.

I agree. I am just trying to see if there is any counter to my argument. This is offtopic but my philosophy is just be a good person hopefully you end up in the right place when you die, if there even is a place.

**Helm** · January 20, 2010, 04:25 PM

It depends on your definition of good, and it's easy to be "good" when you're living in a comfortable kind of environment/lifestyle.

**MaximiIian** · January 20, 2010, 05:15 PM

As helm said, "good" is a vague concept. I tend to think of the gods as being beyond good and evil, which are mostly human concepts; they are forces of nature, literally and figuratively. Some gods are fair, some aren't; it's just a matter of personality.

But, I think, they are worthy of respect and honour, just as all forces of nature and reality should be respected and accounted for. In the end, the decision to worship and honour them is just that- a choice. I do not believe that there are punishments for this; we all have our own beliefs and paths that we choose to follow.

**awisler** · January 20, 2010, 05:22 PM

I think I should have been a bit more clear, my intention for this thread was primarily asking if anyone can really counter my argument? I have brought it up against a few people who believe in Christianity lately, and they haven't countered it. So in terms of Christianity's God, or the other sort of mainstream religions.

The argument at least can prove that THEIR God is non-existent, right? I could be missing something here and that's what I was asking.

**MaximiIian** · January 20, 2010, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by awisler

The argument at least can prove that THEIR God is non-existent, right? I could be missing something here and that's what I was asking.

Not really. You can't "prove" a non-physical proposition, as proof requires physical data.

What it does demonstrate, though, is that the Christian notion of deity isn't always a fair one. But not all Christians claim that their god is fair. Being right and being fair are two different things.

Another wise concept to remember when dealing with complex theology: do not attribute to malice that which is actually due to paperwork.

**Tacitursa** · January 20, 2010, 06:21 PM

I see no other possibilities here. If I missed one, let me know.

You missed one.

God gets bored and starts messing with people. Anyone that has ever spent more than 5 hours building on Sim City knows this. The odd tornado , Hurricane , Earthquake spices things up a little. Powers are quite limited in sim city though but god is special he can do anything he wants.

He seems to like deseases and starvation the most and i dont think he like's african's very much he kills 25,000,000 of them each year. Best i ever managed on sim city was 4,000,000 with a UFO attack. I dont think i could beat god's score, I think he hacks

**Helm** · January 20, 2010, 05:26 PM

With Christianity everyone is guilty of sin in Gods eyes, and so everyone is deserving of Hell but there's a way to avoid it because Gods only son died for our sins.