Disagree. Faith is unjustified belief, meaning beliefs supported by it lack sufficient evidentiary support to be accepted as correct by empirical standards.
The foundations of science include philosophical planks such as skepticism, or the idea that no idea should be accepted without sufficient support, and empiricism, or the belief that sufficient support comes from compelling evidence. Are these believed on faith? No. They have been shown to be reliable beliefs by the stellar success of their fruits.
But as I find myself writing increasingly often, what do you think the persuasive power of an argument that doesn't recognize the evidence in support of the scientific method and calls it all faith is?
Science doesn't say that it can know nothing about God. Theists do.
Let God manifest physically. Let God answer prayer. Let God move mountains when believers pray, and science will see it. If there is no physical manifestation to an imagined entity, then that entity is not a part of our reality, and can be said to be nonexistent.
Isn't that the quality that distinguishes the nonexistent from the real - the inability of the former to have any interaction with the latter? That's what distinguishes wolves from werewolves, and vampire bats from vampires. Wolves and vampire bats modify reality by virtue of being a part of it and interacting with its elements, whereas werewolves and vampires never change anything. They don't interact with reality. That's what nonexistent means - undetectable.
How are gods different than werewolves and vampires? What makes them more real? All three are considered undetectable. Isn't that what you mean by saying that science can say nothing about God - that it cannot make any observation or measurement that would reveal God or the realm of the supernatural? How is that different from saying that such things are nonexistent?
Supernaturalism is an incoherent proposition. It posits a reality that can impact ours without impacting our reality, that is, a God that is causally connected to nature such that it can impregnate a virgin, for example, but not detectable by science. Compare that with werewolves and wolves. Werewolves affect nothing, and are undetectable. Those two ideas go together, and are the sine qua non of the nonexistent. Whereas wolves (yes, I did that deliberately) affect their environments and are affected by them, and are thus detectable and can be listed among the real, the existent. Those ideas go together as well.
Where the concept becomes incoherent is when we mix these, and posit gods that can affect our reality but themselves are undetectable, a sort of one-way causality.
Consider Sagan's dragon in the garage, a figment of his imagination that refers to nothing real, but is claimed to be real and to exist. Take a look at this:
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll offer to spray-paint the dragon to make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?
Agreed. And notice that I didn't do that. I haven't said that gods don't exist, just that if they are empirically undetectable even in principle, they are indistinguishable from the nonexistent and can be treated as such until they DO do something detectable.
