So tell me – what are the other ways of determining truth that don’t rely on the scientific method?

P.S: I am not a Christian, nor a Scientologist.

Here’s where I think you are wrong:

1. Of course if we cannot prove something doesn’t exist, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. However, if we have no evidence to support the theory that something exists, then why believe it does? In the complete absence of evidence, there is NO reason to believe something exists in the first place! In fact, believing something exists, in the complete absence of evidence, is close to the definition of insanity. Having a THEORY that it exists is a different thing. There are an unlimited number of things which “could” exists, but only a sub-set of those actually *do* exist. And the only way to tell which exist is to look for evidence. If there is no evidence… then there is no evidence. It goes into the very large pile of “things that might exist but for which we have zero evidence”, like fairies, UFOs and Jesus.

2. This whole idea that scientists get caught up in a particular viewpoint of what exists and therefore refuse or fail to see anything outside of that spectrum is just STUPID. Think about it – if you’re a scientist, what’s your great dream going to be? Discovering something NEW. BREAKING NEW GROUND – that’s what you win grants and Nobel Prizes for, not just repeating what someone said before you. Scientists are constantly trying to overthrow old ideas – which is one reason why the “earth is flat” meme that people use to demonstrate the flaws of science is so incredibly stupid – it is the scientific method we have to thank for proving that the earth is ROUND. That is a *good* thing, not a bad thing. The other reason why the whole earth is flat argument is stupid is that it wasn’t scientists who were saying it was flat in the first place. No educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century BCE onward believed that the earth was flat.

The best pointer to all this is Paul Feyerabend’s Against Method(go read his Wikipedia entry). “He objected to any single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would limit the activities of scientists, and hence restrict scientific progress. In his view, science would benefit most from a “dose” of theoretical anarchism. He also thought that theoretical anarchism was desirable because it was more humanitarian than other systems of organization, by not imposing rigid rules on scientists.”

He’s not against science, more that it should be expanded in it’s thinking. If all current science can prove the Earth is flat, then it’s bloody difficult to come along and prove the Earth is round.