Okay. Got it - I think. You can't progress to assertions or conclusions from statements that don't actually contain the basis for valid progressions. We must take statements to mean what they actually say, and not what we want them to say, or think they could say. I know the whole business is more complex than that - but I am a man of simple tastes.
The problem with psuedo-skepticism is that is selective about what is doubted, and what appears as doubt is mostly denial. If one wishes to be skeptical about the spiritual then one must also be skeptical about the non-spiritual.
Skepticism, to me, is spiritual - in fact may reside at the very core of spirituality. A skeptic must adopt
epoché and look - not doubt. Decartes was wrong (actually he did not define doubt the way in which we do). Otherwise they are playing a game.
Yes, the progression of relevant query, in proper sequence, is called a
critical path. Each step along that path is called a
hypothetical increment (or in lab testing, a Series-Test Element XX-XXXX for example). And the ability to take that step is called an
inference (which is derived hopefully from a Series-Test)
Inference can be, in increasing order of probative strength:
diagnostic - abductive - look it up in a book or use the simplest explanation which makes sense
suggestive - inductive - conjecture a reason which is 5 steps removed from the observation
multifaceted - consilient - observe one hypothetical increment from multiple angles of evidence and see if anything agrees
elemental - reductive - reduce the argument down to its basic components and prepare to test them all
convergent - deductive - eliminate candidate explanations and irrelevancies
conclusive - falsifying - observe a white crow
The pseudo-skeptic
1. regards weaker evidence in this order to be conclusive, when it is not (usually flagged by habitual abuse of the term 'facts').
2. casts doubt on the stronger evidence (Nelsonian inference), by raising 'questions' to which they never want to lift a finger to help answer, nor do they even want an answer. So called 'doubt' is their only move (they rarely 'go look') only applying this canned snake oil, through blocking higher orders of inferential merit and probativeness - never questioning their lesser power inferences at all.
3. finally conduct long-winded appeals to authority...
They attempt to take reliable evidence and make it probative, when the task of the skeptic is to take probative evidence and increase the reliability of incremental conjecture which can explain it.
You will see people (even and especially PhD's when one is brought into a discovery lab to help 'turn it around') conducting 1 thru 3 above. You know and I know that they are dishonest, but the important thing is that THEY do not know that they are dishonest. This is what makes them dangerous as a spiritual being - they are open to agency (akin to being possessed). This is why I appear to be inordinately hard on people who use these tools of darkness.
Disagreement is actually wonderful. It is rather method, which is the lens into one's soul.
This is analogous to entering a higher spiritual realm. If you do not know your own evil, you will be a danger to all therein. Therefore the barrier one cannot cross. It is not that they do not love you - rather that you are not prepared to love them.
The way to counter this faking form of skeptic is to rarely answer their question with a direct recitation or single answer. Unless that addresses the issue 100% (which should have never been an issue in the first place then). Most answers do not come this easily, and they are pretending that they do. This neutralizes their single trick pony act, the 'doubt' move. Force them out of their passivity and make them go look, do the analysis for themselves - suffer the knowledge that conclusions do not come as easily as they might seem - that an answer requires hard work, not simply recitation.
That the answer itself may not always be convergent, but the change is one's self is always the goal.
In fact - with regard to our role spiritually - is this not what we too observe regarding ourselves and those of a higher spiritual nature?