[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.