scientific fact=belief

This time I will structure my reply a little differently, as it seems you are taking the argument in a circular fashion. True, belief is required for trust and it is difficult to decide who to trust, this must be based on a acquired information. Belief is not necessarily theism, I for example believe that reason, understanding and learning should provide a way of living, yet I do not necessarily believe in a deity. Furthermore belief is not necessarily religion, ghosts are not a religion. When comparing Santa and your drugs, I assume these drugs are proverbial, and not ones which will affect your ability to think in a logical manner. Santa does not certainly exist, returning to what I think was a previous argument, it is difficult to disprove existence. The drugs can exist, they are described by science, they are made of tangible, real matter, they can be sensed, they obey the laws of physics. If your argument is that nothing can be proved then this is the viewpoint taken by you as an external observer confined by your consciousness. I would beg to differ that information does not exist, it does exist as it may be transmitted and manipulated. The memories of your experiences may be fake, you may be living in a simulation Neo. The problem is, we are observers that may only gather data and observations from our limited consciousness. Your brain contains memories stored as electrical charges, proved by neurologists. You argue that robots may not have a religion and that they are programmed but why may you argue that humans have religion then? Humans are effectively biological robots with many more faults, programmed to have their proverbial program altered by the environment. By this logic, we do what we are programmed to do; adapt. The robots effectively do believe, though they are forced to do so by their program, they may not be influenced by external sources. The light on your TV is the transmission of data in a form which you understand. The requirement for this to be fictitious would require a massive web of lies, or would require severe mental disease, either of which possibilities you must therefore accept. Why do you assign doing to knowing? It is just as likely that your memories have been fabricated as the news that is supplied to you through others. Yes, it is possible that China blew up ten minutes ago, it will still; have existed, the news will still inform me that China has been blown up. This would not affect whether I know China exists or not, the crater will remain. If you are so sure of your argument that you may believe my story and yet not know my story, then why exactly do you seek opinion on a debates site? Surely I am fictitious and my thoughts are fabricated. "If" can not equal false, as false is not a variable, it is a word to check whether a value conforms to another value. For example within C++: if(A <= B){ A++; } Will increment A by one if A equals B, therefore after the program has reached the end of its function A will equal one more than B. (This code snippet could/should be reduced to A = B+1;) I believe I have covered everything of relevance within your reply. I am still of the opinion that information does not have to come from individual experience. If this were true then science would only have advanced as far as the first scientist ever reached.