Doubter; atheist

Usage examples of sceptic.

MINUET Great misfortunes do not affect me very much, said John Bridelle, an old bachelor who passed for a sceptic.

I was amused at the false reports which were being circulated about me, and, I became from that moment a thorough sceptic on the subject of historical truth.

The infallible literalist, and the no less dogmatic sceptic, are equally presumptuous in forecast of the third.

Reason here seems to be thrown into a kind of amazement and suspence, which, without the suggestions of any sceptic, gives her a diffidence of herself, and of the ground on which she treads.

Without command, moving like a shoal of fish without a leader but with as ingle purpose, laughing sceptic ally or shouting speculation and comment and query, brandishing shields and ancient firearms, the women clutching their infants, and the older children dancing around them or darting ahead, the shapeless mob streamed out of the broken ground and down into the saucer-shaped valley of the wells.

Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle.

There are certainly some sceptics who laugh at me, but I let them talk.

But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined sceptic in the same condition as other mortals.

What rewards are religious sceptics given by the established religions - or, for that matter, social and economic sceptics by the society in which they swim?

Inveterate sceptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

Occasionally they threaten sceptics with the direst imaginable penalties.

And, it must be said, some scientists and dedicated sceptics apply this tool as a blunt instrument, with little finesse.

Indeed, on most TV documentaries and talk shows, sceptics get short shrift and almost no air time.

We are not anxious to preserve the memory of such sceptics, much less their ideas.

This is a topic, therefore, in which the profounder and more philosophical sceptics will always triumph, when they endeavour to introduce an universal doubt into all subjects of human knowledge and enquiry.