a. he has given us fair warning, really? So say I was born in the most remote part of the jungle, never hearing or seeing the outside world. Never hearing good word. Living a life that is not to harmful but totally sinful in terms of the bible. Maybe I had 3 wives, I have made numerous idols of false gods I was brought up with and praised them, never kept the Sabeth because I no not of it and so on. Not that the sin is that important as the magic key is accepting god in the first place. Anyway I was to die tragically you would understand me being a little upset if I was to come up to find this god that I never knew existed and them sent down for an eternality of horrible painful torment in hell? You would be like hey man you could have given me some warning!
The bible refers to this exact situation. In Romans chapter 1, it speaks of how God has been revealed since the very beginning of time, to everyone, and so it included every single person, whether they live in the bush or the city. It speaks of God's "invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made". It then says: "so that people are without excuse".
Romans 1 :18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles."
b. We judge each other and often have legal frame works. These vary in fairness depending on cultural expectations and parts of the world. Most systems at least try to write some sort of proportionality into their sentencing structure, not god. He is very inflexible on this matter. You either except him as lord no matter how evil you have been on earth and go to heaven. Or you don't except him and face an eternity in pain and misery. Even if you have not been a very good persons that seems a little harsh don't you think? I mean an eternity of never ending pain and misery. That easily a million times worse than the death penalty. And in most places around the world they try to carry of the death penalty in a quick and as pain free as possible manner. Definitely not something that is drawn out in pain over an eternity.
The trouble is, we are eternal beings. You can't suddenly become a non-eternal being just because you made the wrong choice! Thats like saying its not fair to die because you jumped off a cliff. There are consequences that you have to accept.
Ok so we see god punishing the truly wicked. Lest see what he does eh? So 'God brought judgement it was at a time people had turned to idols, and were busy sacrificing their babies to the idols'. So he looks down and says that's bang out of order, fair play. So naturally he decides that mass genocide would show them a lesson, it sure did. Killing innocents. Once killing the whole planet and ironically all the innocent babies and animals bar two of every type. Does that sound like fair justice? Of course I suppose the population of the plant that was cleansed by god are still enjoying an eternity in pain.
It wasn't just two of every kind, there were seven of some kinds, but yeah, I get what you're saying. What you're saying is, God is allowed to bring judgement but it has to be acceptable to you, a mere mortal? And you accept that death may be an ok punishment, but it has to be the right type of death, on of your choosing? With all due respect, you are not God! It strikes me a bit like someone peering over the shoulder of a brain surgeon, trying to tell them what to do. It's a bit above our station!
Let look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? So the whole male population wants to rape the two angles that god set down. Understandably this is horrible and god is fairly upset. So how does god deal with it justly? Of course 'then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land' (Genesis 19). So he slaughters all the bad men, the innocent women, children, toddlers and babies.
It wasn't just rape they were doing, they were committing atrocities that would make you wince. The people were collectively in complete rebellion against God. Unfortunately, when people collectively make wrong choices, the innocent suffer too. In Syria at the moment, men are making bad choices and everyone is suffering. That's what happens and it is a tragedy. But here, in Sodom and Gomorrah, the women were as much to blame as the men, and the babies are the innocents. But if you judge their parents with death, they babies will die anyway, won't they? Its a terrible and tragic consequence of men's really awful decisions.
Then just to add salt to the wounds he saves Job (the good guy) but his wife gets turns into salt because she disobeys god and looks at its destruction.
They were living in a position where they knew they had to obey God, it was such an extreme time, a real judgement, and they needed to continue to obey God to survive physically. She would have gone to heaven as a believer, but as we find in the new Testament, delivers that disobey God face consequences, sometimes even to an early death. Not always, but sometimes, and god is the judge of that, not you or me.
And now the wicked heathen men, women and children of that land are spending eternity in pain and suffering. Was this slaughter just and proportional?
They had a lot of warning first, as always.