... But if you think about it, someone who believes in an afterlife can never be disappointed. If you die and there is one your beliefs will be confirmed and you will experience it and if there isn't one, you will never know.
Yes, that is called P\aAscal's wager. I learned about it from a 9th grade teacher, Mr. Bailey, and I never forgot it:
"God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives.
A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
You must wager (it is not optional).
Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
But some cannot believe. They should then 'at least learn your inability to believe...' and 'Endeavour then to convince' themselves."
Pretty much puts it in a nutshell, eh?
