Is God really just?

[Black_Rose]

I recently found this while doing a google search on the subject for the heritable of human intelligence (for another thread):

So, in defiance of this psychological difference, and in defiance of politics, let me point out that a group injustice has no existence apart from injustice to individuals. It’s individuals who have brains to experience suffering. It’s individuals who deserve, and often don’t get, a fair chance at life. If God has not given intelligence in equal measure to all his children, God stands convicted of a crime against humanity, period. Skin colour has nothing to do with it, nothing at all.

And I don’t think there’s any serious scholar of intelligence who disputes that God has been definitively shown to be most terribly unfair. Never mind the airtight case that intelligence has a hereditary genetic component among individuals; if you think that being born with Down’s Syndrome doesn’t impact life outcomes, then you are on crack. What about lead-based paint? Does it not count, because parents theoretically could have prevented it but didn’t? In the beginning no one knew that it was damaging. How is it just for such a tiny mistake to have such huge, irrevocable consequences? And regardless, would not a just God damn us for only our own choices? Kids don’t choose to live in apartments with lead-based paint.

So much for God being “just”, unless you count the people whom God has just screwed over. Maybe that’s part of the fuel in the burning controversy - that people do realize, on some level, the implications for religion. They can rationalize away the implications of a child born with no legs, but not a child born with no possibility of ever understanding calculus. But then this doesn’t help explain the original observation, which is that people, for some odd reason, think that adding race makes it worse somehow.

lesswrong.com/lw/kk/why_are_individual_iq_differences_ok/

The point of this piece is that while many people deem racial differences in intelligence as repugnant and undesirable, why would differences in intelligence be tolerated within a population. Even among whites as the author explains, there is a significant proportion of people who would never be able to understand calculus because the variance and mean of intelligence would ensure that many fall below the minimum intelligence required to understand calculus. (One can easily imagine an intelligence distribution where even individuals two standard deviations below the mean are able to understand calculus, but that distribution does not correspond to reality.)

So does the current distribution of human intelligence indicate a just god? The question is easy for an atheistic or an agnostic to accept since he/she does not assume that God plays any role in the creation of humans; it is all just a product of recombination and union of gametes from their parents.

Again, this is a generally a theological question. I do not want this thread to delve in o whether the purported racial differences in intelligence are “real”, “hereditary”, or “environmental”. I have my own opinions on these issues, I have decided that they should not be discussed because such a topic is inherently inflammatory.

 

[ohioszo]

The reading today was about an unjust judge, who responded to a persistent petitioner.

I believe that it is possible that intelligence depends on effort.

Further, I believe that God has other measurements that are more important to Him and to our fellow man, that is, the exercise of virtue.

 

[Corki]

I recently found this while doing a google search on the subject for the heritable of human intelligence (for another thread):

lesswrong.com/lw/kk/why_are_individual_iq_differences_ok/

The point of this piece is that while many people deem racial differences in intelligence as repugnant and undesirable, why would differences in intelligence be tolerated within a population. Even among whites as the author explains, there is a significant proportion of people who would never be able to understand calculus because the variance and mean of intelligence would ensure that many fall below the minimum intelligence required to understand calculus. (One can easily imagine an intelligence distribution where even individuals two standard deviations below the mean are able to understand calculus, but that distribution does not correspond to reality.)

So does the current distribution of human intelligence indicate a just god? The question is easy for an atheistic or an agnostic to accept since he/she does not assume that God plays any role in the creation of humans; it is all just a product of recombination and union of gametes from their parents.

Again, this is a generally a theological question. I do not want this thread to delve in o whether the purported racial differences in intelligence are “real”, “hereditary”, or “environmental”. I have my own opinions on these issues, I have decided that they should not be discussed because such a topic is inherently inflammatory.

The question is only relevant if one’s place on the continuum of intelligence makes a difference in determining whether one obtains salvation. Is it easier for intelligent people to get to heaven?