Religion and justice

Many years ago when my late mother had prayed the Ardibehesht Nyaish with the pichee ritual (moving a handkerchief over a patient while reciting the healing prayer) for her cook’s ailing daughter who subsequently recovered, an elder of our community had berated her for using our prayers for a non-Zoroastrian.
Do people really believe that religions are small courtyards?
The same lady had again pulled up my mother when she bought shoes for a three-year-old Baluchi boy in Quetta who was walking barefoot on a thick layer of snow, saying that my mother was interfering with God’s justice. The child was paying for his sins, she maintained, and this was his destiny!
What is destiny? We are told, as are people from other faiths as well, that we pay for what we do. How can we believe in a pre-written destiny? Is God sitting before a lucky dip box and picking out our destiny as per His moods or whims? Of course not! Our destiny lies in our own hands. It is the outcome of our thoughts and deeds. That is why Zoroastrians are not enjoined to do any physical or mental penance. We will get only what we deserve through our own actions or deeds and penance will not help.
Think this over: If all good and bad, smooth and rough, defeat and success were pre-ordained would we need doctors or hospitals, lawyers or courts? We pay not only for our wicked deeds but also for our carelessness, mistakes, cowardice, laziness, and so on, just as children lose marks for sloppiness or carelessness in school. So why blame God, our benevolent father, for all our problems?
The world is ablaze with communal fire. Is God responsible? Our religion (and other religions as well) teach us to practice good thoughts, good words and good deeds, and create a good destiny for ourselves. MEHER D. DHONDY
Gurgaon, Haryana