Is God Testing Us? Examine the Examiner

Just Answer This (Yaksha Prashna | यक्ष प्रश्न)

If life is God’s examination, why do the candidates get different papers, different clocks and different chances?

Put the Test Itself on Trial

People start with very different abilities, opportunities and lengths of life. Before accepting a judgment that lasts forever, examine the test itself. Does this explanation fit the claim that God is just and perfect?

The Argument

Note: This article does not intend to deride any religious belief. On the contrary, I believe in the utmost respect for any religious belief, irrespective of religion, so long as it is respectful and tolerant of others. This article is a series of questions addressed specifically to those who believe that only their religion is best and others are inferior. The aim of the article is to drive home the point that religion is a matter of personal faith. Any attempt to persuade others to leave their personal faiths and adopt my favourite religion will be full of logical loopholes. Any reference to a religion in this article refers only to those within it who engage in conversion activities.

Many people in the world believe that:

• God is just, kind, perfect
• This life is our first and last life (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara)
• God is testing us here (Bhagwan Pariksha Le Raha Hai)
• Based on the marks we obtain in this test, we will go to either Heaven or Hell. (Swarg ya Narak)

 One life as a test; God as the best examiner; the result, a pass (Heaven) or a fail (Hell).

Let us examine the examiner.

Explore the 14 arguments

• 1. Passed Before the Examination Begins
• 2. One Twin Gets Heaven. The Other Gets Tested.
• 3. What If the Mind Cannot Take the Test?
• 4. Born into the Wrong Religion. Sent to Hell?
• 5. An Atrocity Sold as a Shortcut to Heaven
• 6. Different Papers. Different Conditions. One Final Result.
• 7. Heaven Can Prepare Us. Why Could Earth Not?
• 8. Would a Cockroach Get a Better Deal?
• 9. One Unequal Test. An Eternal Sentence.
• 10. A Baby Is Raped. Whose Test Is This?
• 11. Why Allow the “Wrong” Books in the First Place?
• 12. Brainwashed from Childhood. Judged Forever?
• 13. A Lifetime Reduced to One Last “Sorry”?
• 14. Given Intelligence. Punished for Using It.

1. Passed Before the Examination Begins

Many children die in the womb. Would they go to Heaven or Hell? Many say they go to Heaven because they never did anything wrong in their lives.

Now my question is “Did they even have an option to do anything wrong?”

Is God not being partial when he passes one candidate before the examination even begins, while another must take test after test for a hundred years?

2. One Twin Gets Heaven. The Other Gets Tested.

Many children die before maturity. Even their wrong acts arise from innocence, not a deliberate wish to do wrong. Would they reach Heaven or Hell?

If they reach Heaven, then why does God not kill everyone in their childhood and ensure a seat in Heaven for them? Is God not being unjust and imperfect?

If they reach Hell, what was their fault?

Say twins were born. Both lived the same innocent life for the first three years. Then one died. He will go straight to Heaven. The other remained innocent for the next few years, then got into bad company and died at age of 60. Now he would go to Hell simply because God decided to test him instead of his brother whom God killed as a child.

Is it not God’s crime that he made this child live for sixty years but not his brother? Had he killed both at the same age of three, both would have gone to Heaven!

So if there is one life and permanent Heaven/Hell, it proves God is unjust.

3. What If the Mind Cannot Take the Test?

A person is born insane. His mental faculties have not developed beyond those of, say, a five-year-old. But he lives a long life. Will he go to Hell or Heaven?

The same questions arise. Either God is unjust, or the concept of one life as a test for entry into Heaven or Hell is wrong.

4. Born into the Wrong Religion. Sent to Hell?

Different people are born and nurtured in different religions. But these conversion preachers say that only followers of their religion will go to Heaven. Others will go to Hell irrespective of their deeds.

So who will go where?

What is my fault if I was born and brought up in a different religion? Why has God planned my stay in Hell in advance?

5. An Atrocity Sold as a Shortcut to Heaven

People say that children are innocent and hence they will go to Heaven, if they die young. Suppose a person takes this view seriously and resolves to gift heaven to all children. As a noble example of self-sacrifice, he starts killing children. His logic is: even if I have to burn in Hell forever, I should do my best to ensure that these innocent children have a place reserved in Paradise!

Thus he is doing a selfless social service. Will he go to Heaven or Hell?

If he goes to Heaven, then God is setting a wrong example for people to follow.

If he goes to Hell, then selflessness is bad.

Further, since no one will actually know who will go where until doomsday comes, it means God has already spread enough confusion to motivate many innocent selfless social workers to follow the path of infanticide and killing!

6. Different Papers. Different Conditions. One Final Result.

A fair test requires that

• first the topic be taught to everyone with the same facilities and attention under the same conditions,
• then they should be evaluated under the same testing conditions.

Accordingly, God should have first instilled true religion and its scriptures in everyone’s heart, then given them birth into the same types of families, allowed them to grow up in the same place and under the same conditions, and only then should have conducted the test.

But in this world, we find the testing environment to be as diverse as one can possibly imagine. And yet God is claimed to be perfect, just and kind!

Most religious scholars answer this contradiction by saying that God knows how to judge each person’s acts in light of their circumstances and decide their fate. This sounds as though God has something like the Duckworth-Lewis formula used to decide the winner of an interrupted cricket match.

This raises a few doubts:

a. Why Stage the Examination at All?

If God is perfect and His scoring formula is so good, why stage the whole drama and make it run for years? Why not apply the formula at the start and send everyone straight to Heaven or Hell?

b. Why Make Some Candidates Suffer Longer?

If the formula works on a stillborn child or a fetus, why did he needlessly discriminate against certain people and make them face the troubles of a long life? After all He had created everyone equal to start with!

c. How Can Fixed Destinations Reflect Different Lives?

The test seems to have only two results. Either you get Heaven or Hell. The result does not seem to vary with what each person has done. Some books do speak of several varieties of Heaven, but this merely replaces two outcomes with a finite number – say, ten Heavens and ten Hells instead of one of each. But there is still no continuous scale of results. Ten Heavens and ten Hells still leave the question unanswered: how do a handful of fixed destinations do justice to lives that differ in countless ways?

7. Heaven Can Prepare Us. Why Could Earth Not?

People seem to be retaining their youthful bodies in Heaven. Now will they be able to change their looks if they want to? What about children and fetuses who go to Heaven? Will they go as adults? Will they receive training in the language which is supposed to be the language of Heaven? If indeed so, why did God not make Heaven’s language the common language on earth as well?

8. Would a Cockroach Get a Better Deal?

What about animals – reptiles, insects, mammals and other creatures? Will they go to Heaven or Hell? The earlier belief was that animals do not have souls. But now that it has been amply proved that at least the higher animals feel pain and pleasure like humans, the opinion is divided.

Some claim that they will also go to Heaven. Others say that God knows the best!

In case they go to Heaven, why did God discriminate against others by not having them born as cockroaches and goats? That way they too would have received a direct passport to Heaven!

In case they go to Hell, what was their fault?

Also, will they live like cockroaches and goats, or will they receive human bodies? Will their intelligence be enhanced? Or will they remain as dumb as they were on earth?

9. One Unequal Test. An Eternal Sentence.

Heaven and Hell seem to be permanent. They will continue forever, according to these religions. If that is so, God’s injustice becomes even more prominent in light of the points above.

Based on one single test, God put certain people directly in Heaven without testing them at all! Others he tested for so many years. Some he caused to be born into the homes of apostates.

Is this not the gravest cheating?

God is the most unjust and the biggest cheater if these stories of a single examination and everlasting Heaven or Hell are true.

A further question:

What would happen if people begin fighting, cheating or committing adultery in Heaven? Will they be shifted to Hell? Or will they be permitted to do whatever they want and yet remain in Heaven?

10. A Baby Is Raped. Whose Test Is This?

Often we hear tragic news of even babies being raped.

The rape of a baby is an atrocity. Calling it a test does nothing to justify the child’s suffering. Now who is being tested? The victim or the rapist?

If it is the victim’s test, is the baby in a position to respond?

If it is the rapist’s test, why the hell did God make the poor little baby a scapegoat?

God seems nothing more than a crazy, stupid, psychopathic dictator if these stories be true.

11. Why Allow the “Wrong” Books in the First Place?

Almost all books of Eastern philosophies refute the concept of one birth. They believe in life being a continuous cycle not interrupted by death. It is broadly termed the Theory of Karma.

Now if this were not true, why did God confuse people born in the Eastern part of the globe from their very childhood?

God has performed great miracles in the past, including burning entire towns and villages and bringing Jesus into the world without a human father. If He can do so much, why did he not burn these Eastern books forever? After all, He himself laid down the criterion that those who refuse to believe in Jesus or Muhammad will go to Hell! Ideally he should have stopped the creation of these Eastern books in the first place!

12. Brainwashed from Childhood. Judged Forever?

What about terrorists who were brainwashed from very childhood to do Jehad? Will people like Kasab who killed many in the Mumbai attack go to Heaven or Hell? They were simply brainwashed by fanatics to take up arms to seek God!

13. A Lifetime Reduced to One Last “Sorry”?

People say that God forgives the sins of one who accepts the true path of God! 

Embrace the faith and previous sins are wiped out. Leave it and die in disbelief, and your deeds are wiped out. What decides the eternal verdict: your life or your final religious identity?

This raises further doubts:

a. A Whole Life Reduced to Yes or No

A whole life, with all its efforts, learning and complexity, goes for a toss. All that remains is a final yes or no. Is this not against nature?

We all know anger is bad. But still we succumb to anger at times, due to limits of our understanding and the way our brains are wired.

If someone has been a believer throughout life but, through confusion, becomes an apostate in his last few days, why should he be punished so severely?

And why should another, who was an apostate all along, be rewarded with Heaven despite all the nonsense he thought and did for decades?

No decision is without confusion. The only way to take a right decision without confusion is to know everything and be able to analyze everything. This is impossible for any human. Thus no human decision can be considered reliable and final.

Thus regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the message of God, the decision is full of confusion and based on extremely limited knowledge.

Is God not crazy then to curse one to Hell and another one to Heaven forever, based on a momentary decision made in ignorance?

Is God not unjust to have designed such a faulty testing mechanism that relies on people’s ignorance to decide the fate of all souls forever?

b. Misbehave Now. Say Sorry Later?

Does this not encourage people to keep doing all sorts of nonsense throughout life and say sorry at the end?

Thus we see many becoming saint-like as old age approaches to say sorry and go to Heaven. More careful ones do the nonsense, and then confess the same, and go scot-free!

c. Nature Does Not Accept “Sorry” as Payment

Why, then, does nature work in the opposite way to God’s method? Was nature designed by God when he was imperfect?

Because in nature, if you commit a mistake, you cannot go scot-free without paying the price.

If you eat excessive sugar and develop diabetes, saying “Sorry” does not cure you! You need to undergo the entire treatment process and even then perfect cure is not guaranteed. We do not get strong by saying, Sorry! We do not get back our teeth by saying, Sorry! We do not become scholars by saying, Sorry! We do not master skills by saying, Sorry!

On the contrary, in nature, everything happens in a continuous process as per definite laws. There is simply no escape from it. Why does God suddenly switch to such a terrible and confusing system of fixed, separate results! God must be crazy!

14. Given Intelligence. Punished for Using It.

If God is just and kind, why does He demand belief in things we can neither see, hear, analyse nor feel, for booking our permanent future?

We neither see God nor witness Him performing such miracles. We see no special divine people around us, nor have we seen even a trailer of Heaven or Hell.

Yet belief in each of these is necessary to book a seat in Heaven!

And if we do not, we are doomed to Hell forever!

God gave us intelligence to distinguish fraud from truth. On earth, we respect those with more of it.

But in God’s kingdom, this intelligence is the greatest cause of sin.

Only the blind will enter Heaven. The rest shall burn in Hell!

God’s world is indeed very confusing.

God must be crazy!

The Vedic Answer: Life Continues. So Does Our Progress.

The Vedic Eeshwar does not test us. He only helps us. His laws do not change. He gives life after each death and supports our progress as we remove ignorance through our own efforts.

Developed from the foundational works of Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati and scholars in his intellectual tradition.

In Essence

• Unequal beginnings and opportunities weaken the claim that life is a fair, final examination.
• Children, circumstance, repentance and suffering test that model against perfect justice.
• The Vedic alternative joins lawful consequences with continuing progress through effort.

Take This Forward

• A claim of perfect justice must withstand questions about opportunity, responsibility and consequence.
• Repentance cannot replace the work of correcting conduct and repairing its effects.
• The Vedic Eeshwar does not suspend law or demand that intelligence surrender; growth requires our own effort.

A Question to Confront

How can a judgment that can never change be fair when the supposed examination gives people such unequal chances?

Sources42 references

Explore the references used in this article. Open a source to inspect the reference.

1. Quran 4:40quran.com
2. Quran 23:99-100quran.com
3. Quran 67:2quran.com
4. Quran 98:6-8quran.com
5. Sahih al-Bukhari 7047sunnah.com
6. Sunan Abi Dawud 4403sunnah.com
7. Sahih Muslim 2662csunnah.com
8. Sahih Muslim 2658bsunnah.com
9. Quran 3:85quran.com
10. Sahih Muslim 153sunnah.com
11. Quran 2:286quran.com
12. Reference: icc media information duckworthlewis calculations explainedicc-cricket.com
13. Sahih al-Bukhari 3208sunnah.com
14. Quran 46:19quran.com
15. Sahih al-Bukhari 2790sunnah.com
16. Sahih Muslim 2837sunnah.com
17. Sahih Muslim 2833sunnah.com
18. Jami at-Tirmidhi 2545sunnah.com
19. Reference: the language of paradise inhabitantsislamweb.org
20. Quran 6:38quran.com
21. Reference: en/answers/11437islamqa.info
22. Reference: nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declarationsites.google.com
23. Reference: en/answers/14404islamqa.info
24. Quran 15:47quran.com
25. Reference: news/2018-01-30/eight-month-old-baby-raped-in-india/9376746abc.net.au
26. Reference: passagebiblegateway.com
27. Reference: hud/82quran.com
28. Quran 19:20-21quran.com
29. Quran 4:150-151quran.com
30. Reference: en/node/804nia.mha.gov.in
31. Quran 39:53quran.com
32. Sahih Muslim 121sunnah.com
33. Quran 2:217quran.com
34. Jami at-Tirmidhi 3537sunnah.com
35. Reference: health-information/diabetes/overview/symptoms-causesniddk.nih.gov
36. Quran 2:3quran.com
37. Quran 4:136 | An-Nisaquran.com
38. Quran 4:56quran.com
39. Yajurveda 40.8; raw Sanskrit textvishvasa.github.io
40. Rigveda 1.24.1-2; raw Sanskrit textsanskritdocuments.org
41. Rigveda 10.48.5 and 10.49.1; raw Sanskrit textsanskritdocuments.org
42. Rigveda 9.63.5; raw Sanskrit textsanskritdocuments.org

What You Must Do

• Replace fear with responsibility. Confront a recurring fault, repair the harm it causes and build the discipline to change it.
• Give others the means to grow. Teach, mentor, organise learning and help someone recover from failure. Refuse systems that condemn people while denying them that opportunity.
• Put the Vedic principle into practice. Eeshwar’s lawful order calls for effort, not helplessness. Walk the Vedic path to anand through Karma Yoga. Become stronger and help others acquire the power to rise.
• Turn conviction into service. Through our education work with refugee children, help children learn, gain confidence and build their future.

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