How does religion explain birth defects?

[Lethe]

If you murder someone, what happens? If you are found guilty, you get the consequences. The judge doesn't just go "oh, it's ok, we'll just let you go". You go to prison.

But God isn't just a judge. He is said to be the judge, the jury, the prosecution, the lawmaker, and the enforcer. Saying he's just doesn't make him just, and even if it did -- wouldn't he, being all-powerful, have the power to define justice as it suits his purposes? And isn't a self-defined, self-serving brand of justice the same as a vigilante's?

God actually has held back, because he loves us.

I don't find damning your 'children' to an eternity of torment in a fiery pit for questioning your existence grounds for having 'held back'.

We ALL deserve eternal damnation, because we are all sinful.

Yet it was God who supposedly created and defined this sin. You can say that sin was introduced because a woman ate an apple, but it was God who would have created that apple to begin with.

God could destroy us all because we have turned away from Him, and have sinned. He would be totally justified in doing that.

To himself and his followers perhaps, but not even a concept is exempt from the judgment of others.

One day everyone will bow before Him and acknowledge Him as Lord. If you don't choose to take His free gift, then you are choosing Hell. But you DO have a choice.

Why Hell? If he were all-loving why not let his beloved children choose their own path after death? Why not nirvana, reincarnation, or any of the other countless afterlifes? Why would a supreme being be so desperate for the praise and adulation of others that he would threaten torture for those who do not do so?