Of course. That doesn't make scientific concepts like falsifiability apply accurately to the way historians actually work with records.
They have similar ideas that help rate our historical ideas as more or less likely to hold up. We take down the standard from things we can see and experiment with ourselves because we still see a lot of value in learning from records.
In that it's in the realm of questions beyond the reach of empirical investigation, I would agree.
Sometimes. If there were say, a literal God, there isn't really any need for this divide. Metaphysics was coined by Aristotle at least in part because it came after a good study of the physics to broader questions.
I assume you're referring specifically to religion, in which case the complication of revelation comes in. I would say that's less a matter of people making up answers to metaphysical questions, and more a pre-rational commitment underlying everything else. I don't really see it as a problem, though.
It's a problem because people absolutely do make up answers to metaphysical and moral questions and start religions.
Unless we are going to take the position that every religion was true...
Why does it not help the idea of Christianity at all?
From what you've written, you seem to take a very subjectivist approach to these questions, which is obviously a very different take on autonomy and morality than what Christianity teaches. With Pascal's Wager, we're dealing with potential consequences of being wrong, and it seems to me that if Christianity is correct, then that whole method of valoration becomes questionable.
The thing with Pascal's Wager is that you've made your bet. That's fine, but the possibility of being wrong is attached to it.
If say Christianity as correct then I will be punished by a God for not coming to the correct metaphysical and moral conclusions as written in his eons old best selling book.
I consider the proposition absurd, the wager only makes sense if you take Christianity seriously.
It looks bad for the Christian who thinks it is obviously right that I be punished for differing. It is up to them to justify their beliefs here and the wager doesn't do much good for them, makes them look a bit ghoulish in my opinion.
So, the person "on the fence" as you put it has to not only accept the "wager", but have a lot of credulity in the general judgment of the unbeliever regardless of why they are incorrect.
The heart of the wager is that we should all fear the unknown deity that governs this world (or spend as much time sucking up to it for the chances it will favor us) to the extent that we give up our moral autonomy and submit to the writings of those who were chosen to tell us what to do. OR ELSE!
It's a hideous set of beliefs there, I don't think I could believe that about God or people in general if I tried my hardest. So, not really a wager, more of a well rooted distaste for the liars that have hustled believers into this psychological noose.
I can't get there from here. There is no switch to pull, no amount of "immersion" with Christians or even brainwashing would do. The idea of the wager, and any attempt to take it seriously should have us recoiling in disgust from it's framing of the divine as a thinly veiled psychological attempt at emotional manipulation, aimed at control over others.