How does religion explain birth defects?

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

It appears that you don't quite understand this: YOU have the ability to choose. If you want nothing to do with God, He will abide by your wishes and you will spend eternity apart from Him in Hell. And God's laws are for the same purpose, to protect us. A good amount of our laws today come from the Laws God has given us.

I think you don't understand just how well I do understand this.
What you need to understand is that my choices, according to your religion, boils down to either -
I can choose to relinquish all free will and thought and many of the things I was born to do (such as if I were born gay or quite literally unable to accept god's truth - such as from mental retardation or dying a horrifying and painful death at 18 months from Tay Sachs disease) or my other choice is eternal torture.

There is no positive outcome here. I do not have free will and my entire existence is meaningless in your religion except to satisfy your god's insanely jealous and vain ego or suffer a torment beyond my mortal understanding based on the actions I have over the course of maybe anywhere from zero to about 120 years of life for all infinity.

That is beyond assinine. My life, however small and insignificant on earth or generally in the universe, has far more meaning from my atheist point of view than even the religious one. I want my life to amount to more than how much better I can kiss god's stupid ass than the next douchebag.

Your god is neither loving nor merciful and pretending he's anything else shows an extreme ignorance of how the bible (new and old testiment) actually depicts this 'supreme' being. He's not worth my time because he is the most evil and despicable fictional character I've ever known who is also portrayed in the dullest and least interesting fashion.