Questions about religion

These are things I'm curious about. I admit some questions may seem or be loaded, but I think they make sense.

First:

Seeing what the world is like today, one has to wonder what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the people in the time of Noah, did to deserve summary death. Any modern Western city has its share of crime, prostitution, drug addiction, etc, etc. Consider places like North Korea, Cuba, China and others were torture and other forms of cruelty are common, and you wonder, For that matter, since god didn't choose to destroy Germany or Japan throughout WWII (the Allied armies did in retaliation and self-defense), or the Soviet Union afterwards, what the bloody hell did those ancients in the Bible do.

More later.