[Al Swearengen]

Tell me, Brain, have you ever heard of "Pascal's Wager"? Personally, I fully understood the tenets of Pascal's Wager long before I knew the concept had a name. Basically, "PW" exposes atheism for the utterly foolhardy practice that it is. In plain english, it means that you have absolutely NOTHING to lose by choosing to believe in a creator/supreme being, and EVERYTHING to gain. Ok, so here we are, locked into the mortal coil, now...in Christianity, for example, choosing not to believe in God is the one impardonable sin that will land one's miserable ass in eternal hot water, agreed? Ok, so if there really IS a Christian God, then choosing to believe in Him would seem to be the logical and intelligent thing to do, would it not? If it turns out theres no God then you've lost nothing, correct? This is the same conclusion even the most theologically ignorant soldier arrives at when he finds himself in combat. Its where the saying "ya wont find a single athiest in a foxhole" comes from! So, where does that leave us? Well, to my way of thinking, it means that there are no REAL atheists, only those who PROFESS to be atheists. Yes, there are those who profess atheism...right up until they find themselves confronting their own mortality, then they recant.