Vox Day has an interesting piece on the subject of A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter
Boghossian, a book written with the purpose of teaching, in Boghossian’s own
words, “how to talk people out of their faith”.
Day makes the point that Boghossian’s position could not be
more distant from that of an authentic sceptic in the traditional sense: “Boghossian’s
very stated purpose is in direct and explicit opposition to everything Sextus
Empiricus advises, beginning with ‘suspension of judgment’ ”. A reader imprudently
engages him on this and
Day responds (with my italics):
“Scepticism does not mean ‘I am dubious about X.’ It does not mean ‘I am going
to convince you that X is better than Y’. It does not mean ‘I will only believe
X if there is sufficient evidence to justify it’. It means: ‘I have no opinion about either X or Y, and
if you assert that X is better, I will argue that Y is better in order to
produce a contradiction of equal weight and thereby allow me to suspend my
judgment.’ What virtually no one who talks about scepticism seems to
understand is that for the sceptic, suspension of judgment is not the method or
the initial approach, it is the objective.”
— Vox Day
I had not thought of this before, but it provides a good
jumping-off point for looking at the issue of how people respond to the
preaching of the gospel.