Is God Unfair?

I have a big 'fairness button'. Lately, I have become more aware of my emotional response to unfair situations and am trying, with some success, to moderate my reactions. One thing that helps is becoming aware of where my reaction to unfairness began.

I have a very clear memory from early childhood. I was two or three years old. My parents were living in an apartment in a small town in upstate New York, near the Canadian border. This is about my first experience with unfairness. I think this is where my anger began.

My parents went out for the evening and left me with a baby sitter - a teenage girl. As soon as my parents had left, she asked me if I had a 'victrola'. I had never heard of a 'victrola', so I said no. I remember her grabbing me by the hand and marching me to the hall closet, where on the top shelf there was a record player. She called me a liar and sent me straight to bed. I remember crying myself to sleep, angry and humiliated at having been called a liar.

I realize now that I had been set up. The girl just wanted an excuse to get me out of the way so she could listen to her records in peace.

I make a connection between this memory and the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. Adam and Eve were innocent and naive. They were like babies. God knew that they were going to eat the forbidden fruit. It was a setup from the start. Why did God put the forbidden fruit in the garden in the first place? Why did God allow Satan to tempt Eve?

There are many other examples in the Bible of seemingly unfair behavior on the part of our creator. I personally have so many questions about the Bible and God and what our lives mean. However, I have chosen to love God in spite of those questions and I have never regretted that.

Here is a question for my agnostic friends. You instinctively know, even as a young child, what is fair and what is not. You even understand fairness in context and can distinguish between fairness in different situations. Yet you were not taught this. Where do you think your sense of fairness came from?