“That’s not fair!” “All right, boys, play the game fairly.” “The Fairness Doctrine shall apply.” “She won it, fair and square.” “All’s fair in love and war.” “It is fair to say…” “He doesn’t fight fairly.” Well, well, well. We are a society that seems to measure all things as to whether they are fair or not. Well and good. It would be difficult to make decisions in any society unless we were mindful at all times that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. The only problem is that what is fair often defies definition. Our children certainly have a different definition of fair than their parents have. Courts of law have vastly different judgments as to what is fair according the whim of that particular judge. Laws of the land may be fair for some of the population, but distinctly unfair for other large portions of the population. It seems many times that decisions are made on the basis of what we can get away with rather than as to what is most fair. In the ultimate sense, personal god believers struggle with the suffering, sorrow, cruelty and death which are a part of every day life. Why does a God who is fair allow such things to happen?
Well, we don’t want to hold you in suspense for a long time. The answer is: God is not fair. God is not always good, and God is not always evil. God is both good and evil. God does not care about our welfare and does not care whether things are fair for us or not. God is uncaring, unfeeling and impersonal, doling out bad things to good people and good things to bad people as much as the other way around. Fairness is not in God’s vocabulary. The only thing that God cares about is adaptation. We either adapt to whatever we are given in life, or we perish.
Nor are we prone to find fairness in our society everywhere we turn.The closest we will come to fairness is in a democratic society, and it has a whole bunch of flaws. Don’t expect fairness in the court system. The client who has the most resourceful lawyer is the one who will win, not necessarily the one who is right. Pay enough bucks and you can win any court case. Lawyers don’t have any concept of right and wrong. As soon as they become lawyers, right to them is winning, and wrong to them is losing. They also have no concept of fairness. Their definition of fairness is “efficacious.” If there is something they can get away with or convince enough people to accept, that is “fairness.” Right, wrong and fairness are foreign to the lawyer’s world. Don’t expect it from your legislators. Their only concern is doing enough things to get re-elected. Don’t expect it from corporate executives. Their only concern is making more millions to put into their own pockets. They don’t care how many people they kill or maim as long as it increases their bank accounts. Don’t expect fairness from auto dealers, salesmen, phishers, telemarketers, gladhanders and bureaucrats. They are out to get something from us and are not there to be fair. Everywhere we turn in this society, we are going to come to face with someone who is not fair, and who simply wants to take away from us everything that they can.
Fairness also varies so much from one society to another. What was fair 200 years ago is definitely not fair today. What is fair for children is not fair for parents. What is fair for one family is not fair for another family. What is fair for a Palestinian is not fair for an Israeli. What is fair for an Irish catholic is not fair for an Irish protestant. What is fair for an American soldier is not fair for an Iraqi fighter. What is fair for Osama Bin Laden is not fair for George Bush. What is fair for a human is not what is fair for a cow. What is fair for an owl is not fair for a mouse. What is fair for a lion is not fair for a gazelle. What is fair for a fish is not fair for a worm. Unfairness is part of the life system. Life is not fair. Everywhere we turn we see someone else who has gotten more than us and has gotten it with less effort. We sometimes think that life is a matter of gradually adjusting to unfairness and learning to appreciate what we have, however little it may be.
We hasten to add that we believe in fairness. We believe that children should be taught fairness. We believe that fairness is an extension of the only rule that counts: to love your neighbor as yourself. We believe that fairness is about the only way we are going to survive as a species. We ask you to keep working to be fair. We recognize that we have a long way to go.
“Time is too slow for those who wait
Too swift for those who fear
Too long for those who grieve
Too short for those who rejoice
But for those who love, time is not”– Henry Van Dyke
“To love justice, to love mercy, to assist the weak, to love the truth, to utter honest words, to love freedom, to love family and friend, to make a joyful home, to love the beautiful in art and nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, to fill life with generous acts and the warmth of loving words, to destroy prejudice and superstition, to receive new truth with gladness, to cultivate hope and see dawn beyond the night, this is the new religion of reason.”
– Robert Ingersoll
“Truth on this side of the mountain is falsehood on the other.”
– Pascal
“God reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists. God does not concern himself with the fate and actions of man.”
– Spinoza