Reddit reviews Science, Faith and Society (Phoenix Books)

This is a well-worded question.

The first thing to say is that positivist/scientific/empiricist methods could be rejected as exclusive epistemological methods, independently from other methods, religious or not. This for a variety of reasons including the problem of induction, critiques of positivism including Quine's, the fact that empiricism is theory laden, the social embeddedness of scientific practices as explained by Michael Polanyi in books such as Science, Faith, and Society, basic problems of the most common form of Naturalism I see on reddit, and any number of other critiques.

And there is the notion of Truth itself. What do you mean by this word? It's a problematic concept, so there are different theories of truth that a person might accept or reject for one's self.

When the skeptic throws epistemic challenges to the theist, ought that skeptic have rigorous solutions to offer that can't reasonably be rejected for reasons above? I'd say most skeptics do not believe they have any need to account for their views (should they have ever taken inventory of their views at all). The hand-waiving usually takes the form of "Where's your evidence, Christian?" or "You're the one making the positive claim, so you prove your position!" You can see why I find these attacks to be empty in the context of debate, and wholly dismissible, whether or not I have any legitimate reason to believe what I do. It's not about dismissing the question as much as expecting more from the skeptic than firing blanks.

So before I sketch out what I hold to, I'd like a response or two from skeptics about my question. Ought that skeptic have solid answers to deep-level epistemic questions and theories of truth before attacking theistic views? I think so. That seems fair to me. It's not so much an issue of "burden of proof" or winning debate points; I see it as a matter of intellectual integrity and honest self-reflection. To be honest, I see very little of this on reddit.

Thoughts?

While I am sure lots of such claims you've been given are rather vulgar, the premise is actually quite familiar and well argued in Michael Polanyi's Science, Faith, and Soceity(1946). He was a physical chemist and philosopher of science at Oxford. I would also recommend his book Personal Knowledge. After reading, you might come to believe that the "New Atheist" view of science is hopelessly naive.