Conclusion: If your philosophy and religion are true why hasn't anything been done with them?
Case in point: something has to be useful for it to be true. No basis for this belief; just mere assertion and condescension. In other words, the classic newbie approach.
......How long has science existed? How is it anywhere near an effective meme as religion?
Over the course of a mere four centuries, modern science has dominated the philosophy of the Western world. I'd consider that highly successful, wouldn't you?
No it's not, because if, for example, I had access to my own source code, had some way of verifying, to arbitrarily high amounts of certainty that what I'm seeing was true AND THEN miracles occurred in front of my eyes that contradicted everything I knew so far, and everyone else in the world, with similarly high certainties on what they've seen told me so too then yes, yes I would convert!
That wouldn't prove God, I'm sorry to say; all it would prove is that the natural universe was chaotic. Which is something I believe to be true as a Nietzschean, by the way- no God required.
You do not have 0% probabilities. Ever. Because the chance of your entire life being a lie is a definite non-0% probability.
This is a simple restatement of the principle of inductive knowledge: "knowledge that can be otherwise." If there's even a hypothetical alternative to something, its probability can never be 100%. The only possible exception to this rule is a logical tautology, such as the law of identity or the law of non-contradiction (although, as a Nietzschean, I would reject these as well. Chaos.)
And where did you learn that empirical claims are not worth something?
I didn't say that. They're worth a great deal to me in my personal life. As far as their application to truth? Probably suspect, certainly not absolute- which is my point. Not absolute.
Did you NOT see, NOT hear, NOT feel, NOT smell, NOT use any of your sensory organs to arrive at this argument?
I did. And I used my mind. Again, empiricism proved useful in the construction of this argument. For ascertaining truth? Probably suspect, certainly not absolute.
Do you think your eyes and ears were invented to DISTRACT you from the truth of a bloodthirsty predator running toward you?
And you've hit on something profound: human beings are programmed not for truth, but for survival. Our constitution is equipped with a necessary mix of truths and falsehoods. Unless you're planning to argue that all truths encourage survival, which would be silly.
But again, irrelevant to the topic at hand. Even if I happen to trust my senses in day-to-day affairs, how does that confirm that the scientific method is the One True Way to Absolute Truth?
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