A Manual for Creating Atheists

by Peter Boghossian

CHAPTER SUMMARY Socratic interventions are easy to administer, no-cost treatments that can engender doxastic openness and even separate faith from its host. The main way this happens is by helping expose contradictions and inconsistencies in subjects’ reasoning processes. When administering Socratic treatments, keep the following in mind: Be aware of the stages of the method. Don’t transition from one stage to another stage until you’ve exhausted everything you need to do in that particular stage. Don’t rush. When appropriate, incorporate strategies noted in chapter 4: be attentive to context, don’t develop adversarial relationships or negative tones, “roll with it,” divorce belief from morality, focus on epistemology and not metaphysics, target faith not religion, and model the behavior you want the subject to emulate. Develop a safe space for discussion, almost a camaraderie. At the conclusion of some interventions, subjects will be confused or even scared. In chapter 6, I’ll discuss how to deal with this and what goes in faith’s place.