Posted on 02/28/2010 1:53:01 PM PST by NYer
In this provocative essay, Dinesh D'Souza argues that the atheist critique of life after death is actually irrational. He takes on Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and more to say their arguments lack evidence.
Recently I saw atheist Richard Dawkins being interviewed on Bill Maher's television show, and Dawkins declared that he wanted to have his own death videotaped. Asked why he might contemplate such a strange thing, Dawkins replied that he was sure religious believers would spread rumors that he had converted on his deathbed, and he wanted to make sure there was a record to show he did not.
Equally insistent about maintaining his unbelief in the face of death is philosopher Daniel Dennett. A few years ago, Daniel Dennett went in for a serious nine-hour heart operation that could well have been fatal. It was, Dennett admits, a "harrowing experience" which tested his atheism. In an essay published after his recovery, Dennett wrote his atheism emerged quite intact and in some ways strengthened.
Reviewing these episodes, I am intrigued that these two leading atheists seem willing to go to their deaths without taking seriously the possibility of life after death. In other words, they act as if they know that there is no such life. And this is the "knowledge" that Dawkins and Dennett are disseminating in their books and articles. So what do they know that we don't, and how did they come to know it?
The atheist confidence that there is no afterlife is, of course, matched by the religious believer's confidence that there is. Ask a Christian if there is survival beyond the grave and he or she will answer, "Of course there is." Pretty soon you are getting the full details about what such a life will be like in the good place and the bad place. When you demand sources for such a thorough account, you find that they are the familiar ones: The Old Testament, the gospels, the Book of Revelation. When I raised this issue with a member of my church, he pointed to a sticker in the parking lot, "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it."
Evidence of this sort makes atheists apoplectic. In The End of Faith, Sam Harris writes, "Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever."
Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, wryly comments that no one has ever met a dead guy who came back to report on the afterlife. Lots of people have died, and none have filed reports or presented themselves for television interviews to give us the riveting details about what we can expect on the other side. Shermer's contention is that the believer has no good arguments for asserting that there is life after death. The believer's view is held in the complete absence of evidence. It is an assertion not of reason but of faith.
Shermer makes a good point, but it can easily be turned around. What does the atheist know that the religious believer doesn't? Nothing at all. Atheists haven't interviewed dead people any more than believers have. Nor have any atheists themselves crossed the river in death's boat to discover what lies on the other side. Death remains, as Hamlet tell us, the undiscovered country, and even the ghost tells the young prince, "I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house."
The bottom line is that the atheist has no better proof that there isn't life after death than the believer has that there is. Both groups are claiming knowledge that neither group actually possesses. For the atheist, no less than for the believer, it is entirely a matter of faith.
This equivalence between atheism and belief might seem equally damaging to both positions, but in fact it poses a much bigger problem for atheism. First, the faith of the believer at least has a plausible source. That source is divine revelation as expressed in a sacred text. So the believer is trusting in what is held to be an unimpeachable source, namely God. From where, by contrast, does the atheist get his faith? Who or what is the atheist trusting for the determination that there is no afterlife?
To this, the atheist typically replies that he is trusting in reason. Sam Harris writes that the truly rational person makes "the same evidentiary demands in religious matters that we make in all others." Richard Dawkins writes, "I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence."
In this case, however, Harris and Dawkins have rejected the afterlife on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. How, then, do atheists convince themselves that they know things when they actually don't? The answer, surprisingly enough, has to do with a profound misunderstanding of science. In a famous incident a few decades ago, a group of Soviet cosmonauts returned from a space mission with the triumphant announcement that they had searched and searched but not found God. On this basis the cosmonauts affirmed the Communist doctrine that there is no God. I suppose by the same evidence the cosmonauts could have declared that there is no heaven.
When I mentioned this incident to the atheist writer Christopher Hitchens, he laughed and said, "It's hard to believe those guys were really that naïve." Hitchens understood right away that the Soviets were looking for God in all the wrong places. They were still captive to the medieval picture of heaven "up there" and hell "way down below" and earth somewhere in the middle. But for many centuries now religious believers have asserted that God and heaven can only be found in realms that transcend the universe. Imagine poor Hamlet running around the castle saying, "I've looked everywhere, and I can't find Shakespeare. I'm forced to conclude that Shakespeare does not exist."
In his book God: The Failed Hypothesis, physicist Victor Stenger writes that the issue of life after death is a scientific question. The problem, however, is that "no claimed connection with a hereafter has ever been verified…in controlled scientific experiments." Biologist Francis Crick writes that if religious believers "really believe in a life after death, why do they not conduct sound experiments to establish it?"
The answer to Crick's question is that most religious believers probably don't care whether their belief in the afterlife meets scientific tests; they don't believe in it on that basis. As practicing scientists, one might have expected that Crick or Stenger would suggest some experiments that could help decide the issue. If the claim that "there is life after death" is a scientific hypothesis, then it seems reckless to reject it without even attempting an empirical refutation. Even so Crick and Stenger do reject it, causing me to wonder if these gentlemen routinely adopt opinions in the absence of facts.
Such a criticism is a bit unfair, however, because as many atheists realize, there are no controlled empirical experiments that can resolve the issue one way or the other. Consequently atheists seek to affirm the rationality of their position by taking a different route. They appeal to an argument offered in the late nineteenth century by William Clifford. In a famous essay, "The Ethics of Belief," Clifford argued that "it is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
Clifford offered the example of a ship-owner ship putting a ship to sea without performing the necessary safety checks; he wished the passengers well, but when the ship sank, he calmly collected the insurance money. The ship owner had no regrets, since he didn't know the ship was unsafe. Clifford's point is that the man was a scoundrel. He should have known! He had no right to declare the ship seaworthy without collecting all the evidence. Clifford's conclusion is that we should believe as true only propositions that come with sufficient proof; we should reject as false those that don't. This position can be summed up in the popular atheist slogan, "The absence of evidence is evidence of absence."
Clifford's principle seems praiseworthy for its heroic attachment to truth, but nevertheless there is something deeply wrong with it. Specifically, it confuses "what is known by a given person under the circumstances" with "what is or is not the case." Imagine a fellow living in ancient Greece in the fifth century B.C. As far as he can determine, using all the experience and evidence at his disposal, there are only three continents on the planet, no other planets in the galaxy, and only a handful of stars in the universe. What does this tell us about the actual number of continents, planets or stars in existence? Absolutely nothing. It only tells us that ancient Greeks had very limited information at their disposal.
As a second example, consider efforts on the part of contemporary scientists to find out if there is life on other planets. So far scientists have found nothing. Should we all, therefore, refuse to believe that there is life on other planets on the grounds that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence? Clearly this is premature. The absence of evidence may indicate only that we haven't figured out how to locate what we are looking for. "Not found" is not the same thing as "found not to exist."
These examples show the limitations of the "absence of evidence" principle, but the issue of life after death poses an even deeper problem. To see this, let me offer an analogy between life after death and having a large sum of money in a Swiss bank account. Imagine if I asked you whether or not I have such an account. You declare your firm belief that I do not. As evidence, you cite the fact that you have never seen me go the bank. Moreover, you have observed me shopping and notice that as I spend money my wallet gets thinner. You infer that at some point my wallet will be empty and I will be broke. So clearly I don't have a bank account.
Then I ask you, do you have access to the bank's internal records? You do not. Have you ever been to the bank? You have not; in fact, you have never been to Switzerland. Have you organized 24 hour surveillance of the bank in question so that if I did go there, you would be notified? Of course not. Obviously we can conclude from these facts that you have arrived at a most unreasonable conclusion. In reality you have far too little information to decide one way or another whether I have a bank account. And this is precisely the situation facing the atheist with regard to the afterlife. On the basis of the available facts, not only does the atheist not know what happens after death, he cannot possibly know. The absence of evidence is evidence of nothing.
So what do atheists have to say about all this? Basically, they say that to give up reason and evidence, even in situations which seem outside the bounds of reason and evidence, is to open the door to all kinds of craziness. Should we start believing in unicorns and centaurs on the grounds that there is no way to disprove them? The philosopher Bertrand Russell gave the example of a celestial teapot that is said to rove the solar system but is undetectable by all scientific instruments. Should we believe in such an absurdity simply because it cannot be refuted?
With some glee, Richard Dawkins invokes the example of an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster that controls the operations of the universe. These way-out examples can't be disproved, Dawkins writes, "yet nobody thinks the hypothesis of their existence is on an even footing with the hypothesis of their non-existence." In other words, the odds in favor aren't the same as the odds against.
A little scrutiny of these examples will quickly show that the craziness here is entirely on the part of the atheists. We have combed the earth without locating a single unicorn, so we seem justified in rejecting unicorns. Centaurs are believed by scientists to be biologically impossible. In these two cases, the odds are clearly against. Celestial teapots are also very unlikely, as are Flying Spaghetti Monsters, but our derision is prejudicially solicited by the particular examples chosen. Teapots do not fly, and pasta is an unlikely ingredient to produce flying monsters.
On the other hand, if we modify the examples slightly to involve matter and energy that is undetectable by scientific instruments and yet is presumed to exist in order to account for the motions of the galaxies, we have just described "dark matter" and "dark energy," widely accepted by scientists today. Here the odds are heavily in favor, even if the phenomena in question are strange and not well understood.
I agree with Russell and Dawkins that even when propositions seem outside the bounds of verifiability, there is no cause to give up reason; I am merely arguing that we should be constantly aware of what reason does, and doesn't, tell us in a given situation. Moreover, there may be things that are outside experience that have features different from what is within our experience, and we should be open to such possibilities and not dismissive of them in advance.
Consider the possibility of aliens that exist in some galaxy far away. Is there anything we can say about them that would automatically count as absurd? For instance, can we reject out of hand the possibility that the aliens each have 10 eyes? No. Can we dismiss the suggestion that they weigh less than a speck of dust, or more than a skyscraper? No. Can we laugh out of court the idea that they don't have hearts, or that they communicate by telepathy, or that they sustain themselves by consuming metal? In each case, no.
So the bottom line is that there is nothing about the possibility of aliens that is prospectively out of bounds; we simply have no idea about what aliens, if they exist, might be like. Perhaps there is even one that looks like a Flying Sphagetti Monster! If atheists wrote about life on other planets in the way that they write about religious claims, their derision would be immediately seen for the ignorant prejudice that it is.
Atheists like to think of themselves as the party of reason, advancing views that are based only on facts and evidence. Here we see that when it comes to life after death, the atheist claim to knowledge constitutes a kind of false advertising. In reality, the atheist is in the same position of ignorance as the believer. Yet the religious believer doesn't claim to be a champion of reason and is content to hold his position based on faith. The atheist is a victim of what may be called the "Dawkins Delusion": he too holds a faith-based position while deceiving himself into thinking that his rejection of life after death is wholly based on the evidence.
“Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, wryly comments that no one has ever met a dead guy who came back to report on the afterlife.”
But, there is a dead guy who came back to report on the afterlife. That’s the point here. The point is not that Christians insist that they believe on their position without evidence, the point is that atheists reject evidence which doesn’t fit their preconceived notions.
I was an agnostic. However, the question has to be, if scripture is correct, and the account of Christ dying and coming back to life is correct, then the choice is simply to believe. That’s it.
But wait I was speaking of oblivion and you just brought emotions “peace” and time “billon” into the equation.
Before you were conceived there was no you and you had not entered into this world and hence there was no time to experience. So if there is no life after death there is only oblivion and really what is so bad about it? There is nothing to be afraid of if death is oblivion and why is not one life well lived enough? Why do people think life has to be eternal? And eternal bliss at that? Why is not virtue it's own reward? Why do you need a reward for doing good? If doing the right thing meant you had to go to hell would you still do the right thing>
Just one anecdote.
I’ve been at the bedside of many people dying in almost 30 years of nursing.
The only one I ever saw sit up and open their eyes to die was a professed atheist.
Wasn’t a sudden death either as what comes in a cardiac event.. He was comatose and expected to go as his liver shut down .
Bingo. We have ample historical evidence of what a world without Christian morality looks like. It is deadly and evil.
“I was an agnostic. However, the question has to be, if scripture is correct, and the account of Christ dying and coming back to life is correct, then the choice is simply to believe. That’s it.”
Yeah but what’s so great about eternal life? And what is so terrible about death followed by oblivion that one must be afraid of it? See the problem is if death were merely oblivion then eternal life does not seem quite so mean an alternative. According to scripture and many other religions there’s only two places you can end up. Eternal bliss or eternal torture. Let’s face it, fear is a motivator to faith. Fear of eternal torture if one does not surrender and believe. Do you want your spouse to marry you and love you because you will torture her if she does not? No! You would be a sick puppy if you hung that threat over her head! There’s something wrong with God if he has to threaten us with eternal torture to get our love and obedience. There can’t be anything wrong with God, he is perfect. Therefor there is either no God or we have him all wrong and he does not have a heaven or a hell prepared for us. When we die he just sends of back to the void of oblivion where we came from.
I think the biggest detriment to belif is the concept of hell. No loving God would send a person to an eternal torture chamber no matter what that person has done. The concept of hell has to go. And why eternal bliss? Why not live a good virtuous life as a reward in itself and let that be enough?? What’s wrong with that? And let the law, imperfect as it is take care of evil doers in this life? There does not have to be perfect justice in an afterlife where everyone gets what’s coming to them. The essence of virtue just might be accepting that many wrongs will never be redressed in this life or the next and neither will all virture be rewarded.
“Bingo. We have ample historical evidence of what a world without Christian morality looks like. It is deadly and evil.”
But Buddists are moral too. Many, many atheists are very moral. Humanity is mostly moral or has been to this point or we would have wiped ourselves out by now.
There just does not have to be a promise of an eternal life of bliss to give you strength or motivation to live happily and with charity to all mankind. I am sure there are a lot of happy, content atheists.
There just does not have to be a promise of an eternal life of bliss to give you strength or motivation to live happily and with charity to all mankind.
Just sharing this clever story:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, “why do airplanes fly?” on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
“First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, “that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic.”
The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.
I do not believe Richard Dawkins exists. I have seen no proof of it apart from second, third, or even twelfth-hand accounts. He’s an illusion, and a sad and shameful one at that. He has no existence, no reality whatsoever.
I said nothing about emotions being the barometer of reality or the essence of being born again. I do not trust emotions either (and spiritual impressions, though different, also need to be subject to the Bible), yet they are real, thank God (Jesus rejoiced, and wept) and can truly testify of something inside, but they are to be the caboose, not the engine. And being born again is not really about emotions, but about radical changes in heart attitude and spiritual affections that are not caused by group pressure, or will to change, etc., all of which can happen in religion but still are not the realization which souls manifest who truly do humble repent and turn in faith to the Lord Jesus.
My changes were not about emotions, and to relegate being born again to emotions is neither logical or reasonable. When the fire-breathing, Christ-hating Saul was converted, his consequent love for Jesus and Christians was not just emotions. While there are always superficial conversions, which do not last, plenty of verifiable testimonies show a deeper and lasting reality.
As far as being born again, and the Bible not requiring a personal relationship with God/Jesus, both are clearly attested to.
As for personal relationship, not only do the personal prayers from David to Paul indicate more than “saying prayers,” but plenty of verses speak of knowing God, meaning something deeper than head knowledge.
(John 14:16-21) “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; {17} Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. {18} I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. {19} Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. {20} At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. {21} He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
(Gal 4:6,9) “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
(Romans 8:15-16) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
It was Jesus who spoke of two birthdays, one physical and the others spiritual:
(John 3:6-7) “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. {7} Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
And that is what happened to the souls who believed in Acts, such as in Acts 2:38 and here in 10:43-47:
“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. {44} While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. {45} And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. {46} For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, {47} Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”
(Acts 15:8-9) “And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; {9} And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”
(Eph 1:13) “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,”
(James 1:18) “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
Catholicism believes that this happens at baptism when you assent to statements of doctrine, but which usually is held to take place by proxy when an infant is baptized. However, an infant cannot obey the commands given in order to be baptized, that of repentance and whole-hearted faith, (Acts 2:2:38; 8:37), and that infants need salvation is debatable, while the only example of proxy faith did not procure salvation for a man who was incapable of believing, though intercession can procure mercy for others.
Instead, as seen above, the Holy Spirit is given to contrite souls who truly repent and believe on Christ to save them by faith (which overall follows Christ). To God be the glory!
*Bump!*
Great piece.
“Yeah but what’s so great about eternal life? And what is so terrible about death followed by oblivion that one must be afraid of it?”
You have a false dichotomy here. If it is true that eternal life exists, then both heaven and hell are true as well.
“Let’s face it, fear is a motivator to faith.”
Something either is or it isn’t. Death is inevitable to us all. The question whether or not eternal life exists does not care about whether you fear hell or not.
“There’s something wrong with God if he has to threaten us with eternal torture to get our love and obedience.”
Where has he threatened us? It is a fact. If heaven and hell are true, then the consequence is that those who do not go to heaven go to hell. It is no different then the fact that gravity causes an object to fall.
It is not because God hates us, that Hell exists. We can choose to be without him and the result is that we go to hell, or we can choose to be with him and go to heaven.
“There can’t be anything wrong with God, he is perfect. Therefor there is either no God or we have him all wrong and he does not have a heaven or a hell prepared for us.”
How so? If God is good, then he has given us a choice. We can choose to love him of our own free will, or we can choose Hell, to be without him.
“I think the biggest detriment to belif is the concept of hell. No loving God would send a person to an eternal torture chamber no matter what that person has done.”
So let’s review this. God loves all of us. However, would you want to be with him if you hate God? Think of when you are with someone you despise. It is difficult and it is torture. This is why God gives us the choice. If we insist on living our lives without him, then we will get exactly what we have sought for all of our life.
“The concept of hell has to go. And why eternal bliss? Why not live a good virtuous life as a reward in itself and let that be enough??”
What is the good virtuous life? Have any of us lived the good virtuous life?
“And let the law, imperfect as it is take care of evil doers in this life? There does not have to be perfect justice in an afterlife where everyone gets what’s coming to them. The essence of virtue just might be accepting that many wrongs will never be redressed in this life or the next and neither will all virture be rewarded.”
So you do not believe in Justice? God, as you said is perfect. This means that he is perfectly Just. Saying that God should turn a blind eye to your sins is saying that God is imperfect, and flawed.
“But Buddists are moral too. Many, many atheists are very moral. Humanity is mostly moral or has been to this point or we would have wiped ourselves out by now.”
What is the definition of morality?
I disagree. While many people are relatively moral, and atheists can be as well, I believe most people will cheat and break laws if the gov. enforced consequences are missing. Cultural factors have a lot to do with that, and the religion behind the culture, even in formerly religious ones, like Denmark. But take away police (and gun owning homeowners) and in populated areas will be crime ridden in a relatively short time.
To have small government in a large country then souls need to be overall controlled from within, and so they need not be controlled from without, and that is what made American an anomaly, all things considered.
While atheistic government can uphold some degree of morality, lacking a beneficial transcendent objective authority it relies upon human reasoning, which can offer no assurance it will not sanction what Mao, etc saw as reasonable. And such governments have killed more than religious ones in the last century (better weapons helped).
As far as Buddists being peaceful, it depends upon who is control. When their faith is threatened by conversions, they also resort to violence and in Burma they are trying to force Christians to convert to the state religion of Buddhism.
Despite aberrations, the Christian church was not constituted by Christ to rule over those without, or use the sword of men to spread or defend the faith, which sword the Bible sanctions the civil powers to use, while the church work to bring souls to be controlled from within Thus enabling small gov.). And for real believers, contrary to what is charged, the motivation is to be of selfless love, in response to knowing God’s love, not to escape Hell, and the charity that it has exampled is far beyond its secular non-profit counterparts. Praise the Lord.
I do not sanction all Rick Warren says, but as far as social work goes, good interview here by secular press: http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=221
Good night.
You mean, if I become an atheist I'll live a life of debauchery? Why didn't somebody tell me that while I was young enough to be debauched??
We mostly almost did. What you are looking at are the results of society ordering itself over long periods of time including deadly periods of “trial and error”.
People are moral because we’ve learned and moved toward it.
If we throw that away, we’ll return to those ages and that is my point.
“So let’s review this. God loves all of us. However, would you want to be with him if you hate God? Think of when you are with someone you despise. It is difficult and it is torture. This is why God gives us the choice. If we insist on living our lives without him, then we will get exactly what we have sought for all of our life.”
Okay, since God commands that will love him I will. Yep that’s just what I am going to do. I mean, I would not want to make God angry now would I? So yeah, if God is going to insisit okay then. I love God. I hope he is appeased now and that he will not leave me to myself all lonely and depressed.
“Okay, since God commands that will love him I will.”
Where does he command you to love him? He gives you the choice. You can choose to love him or reject him.
What you object to is that there are consequences to choices. Let me put it another way. Every choice has a consequence, some of which are forseeable, others which are not. If you choose to rob someone, you may get away with it, or you may go to jail and be arrested.
Is it unfair that the choice of robbing someone has the consequence of you getting arrested?
In the case of God, you have a choice. Accept him or reject him. Accepting him means you go to heaven, that is the consequence, and rejecting him means you go to hell.
It has nothing to do with ‘fairness’, but with consequences.
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