Hi Natural, thanks for taking the time to at least start reading it.  I will admit that I think I went into my reading on these topics with a bias towards evidentialism, though I never entirely agreed with that statement by Clifford.  I think perhaps this has slipped into the early part of the piece, and maybe this is what you are referring to, but I'm not sure.

Your view of pragmatism is indeed dead simple and unbeatable, but I agree with what I think you are also saying in that it doesn't really strike me as a philosophy in itself, more draws on the strengths of others.  However, this seems very similar to the situation of when presented with many choices, and using as your guiding principle "choose the best option".  Sure, whatever the best option is is the best one to choose, but it doesn't really help us find the best option.  Regardless, I wasn't attempting to attack, criticise or even contrast your view of pragmatism, I was doing so towards the pragmatism as I saw it from William James.

This is not the start I got off to that you have called "false" my overall starting point for the position of William James that I perceived was laid out in the paragraph above that quote

"when we are faced with a genuine choice about what to believe, and where evidence does not decide the matter, we are free to decide however we want(Jordan 2004)."

As per the citation (I'm really sorry for anybody who ist a much more meticulous citer than myself who reads the above piece and winces, I promise to edit and fix things like that up) I got this from the Jeff Jordan article, where he says:

As far as I can see, this is derived from:

He goes on to describe suspension of judgement as a passional decision, which I disagree with on pretty much the same grounds that I think "lacking a belief in god" is different from "believing there is no god".

I think, and hope, this is where you have misunderstood me.  I was not trying to straw man the "[A] rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule." (James 1896: 28)" quote, I merely thought that, after my general introduction, this quote from James was a good place to start.

He said our passional nature MUST decide a genuine option that is intellectually open and said leaving the question open is passional.  I disagree with this version of pragmatism, and I also agree that the rule of evidentialism, as presented by Clifford, is too strict.

You said

I take this to mean you more or less agree with my judgement on what James was indicating.  It is preferrable to risk error for the chance at truth.  Preferrable to what?  In my understanding, he meant preferrable to believing something on insufficient evidence.  This is the basis for my 4 points at that stage of the writing.  Namely

1."Why should it be accepted as a general rule that suspension of judgment is inherently inferior?"
2."Strawman argument.  Clifford did not advise sitting around and hoping for evidence. (i.e. Evidentialism is obviously concerned with the avoidance of error, but is also concerned with that same vital good that James says pragmatism is)"
3."James seems to presuppose that any single example of truth is more (vitally) good than any single example of error is (vitally?) bad." and
4."some pragmatic arguments are truth-independent."

But then you seemed to do an about-face and said:

So I'm not entirely sure if you agree with me or not!  However, I think I can see that I need to be clearer in that particular sentence.  I should have said "First, the pragmatist is unable to demonstrate that a belief unsupported by evidence IN REGARDS TO A GENUINE OPTION is always more beneficial than a suspension of judgment IN REGARDS TO THAT GENUINE OPTION and/or that a belief unsupported by evidence is not, in fact, sometimes much more detrimental, EVEN IN REGARDS TO GENUINE OPTIONS.

I go on to explain what "genuine" options are soon afterwards.

I hope with the above clarifications you can follow the point I was intending to make now.

An excellent example, thanks.  I think that it is an interesting question as to whether evidence that we are only subconsciously aware of still counts as evidence.  Off the top of my head, I would tend to think that yes, it does.  I'm not sure though, I reckon this point is potentially up for debate.  Even if subconscious perceptions of evidence doesn't count, then I think the point I go on to make in regards to "forced options" would cover this scenario you describe as well.

Again, this was never my position.

Well, I'm not sure how your version of pragmatism helps us find what the best ideas are.  Even in your version, belief in the christian god would be the best idea if the christian god was real.  That is to say its 'best idea' status is truth-dependent.  Like I said.

However, I obviously agree that Pascal's wager is ridiculous, and it wasn't your version of Pragmatism that I was working with.  To tell you the truth, I didn't actually read a more modern piece on pragmatism, is there any book you could recommend I pick up on the subject?  For me, searches tended to bring up the older pieces.  I charged ahead anyway, as it was the James version I was planning on contrasting with evidentialism because it was a piece that was specifically addressing W.K. Clifford's "The Ethics of Belief", which outlined a "strong evidentialism".  I initially thought "what could be better than evidence as a rational basis for the formation of beliefs!" so I thought these would be the best pieces to at least start with.

I think that sounds like a BARGAIN for such a useful tool.

Agreed