Thank you for your point. I used the word faith to mean any belief held without proof or evidence of its truthfulness. Although it’s never directly related to a faith in God, the main purpose of the piece was to stop hard nosed atheists that pride themselves of “only believing what there is evidence for.” Perhaps this could be used to reason with agnostics as well? If you have any ideas how the argument or explanation could be reworked to be better at accomplishing the task of showing how all display faith to some degree I would greatly appreciate it!
In that case you might think about how rational belief and faith differ. The atheist in your post might have a rational belief that the book is wrong, because all the other proofs of the existence of God were refutable by him, and why should this one be any different? On the other hand, he might have a rational belief that the book is correct, because no previous atheist has ever been able to refute it, and why should he himself be any different? These beliefs are rational, at least in part, because they are supported by past history, but lack direct evidence to his own case because until he reads it, he doesn’t know what it actually says. (So, from a logical standpoint, they have almost zero weight.)
Incidentally, if I were an atheist, I wouldn’t read it. Because if I did, according to the premise, I would be damned as of that moment. But if I didn’t read it, there could still be some chance that God would reach out to me and establish His existence to me prior to my death, therefore enabling me to be saved at some future date. But, that’s because I’m not that cocky. A much more cocky atheist might read it in the expectation that he could go down in history as being the first person ever to refute it, all the ones before being beneath him. (These possibilities are from game theory: what is the payoff matrix for read it/don’t read it vs. the book is right/the book is wrong?)
btttt