No reason justifies disbelief.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, you introduced it, I commented, and then you repeated it as though it was ever anything I was arguing.  You've been doing a lot of that lately.

Sure, if you say so.  

Horseshit.  Science has in fact neither answered, nor shown any capacity for answering, the kinds of questions we've been talking about.  Here's you in a nutshell: "We can use science to answer some why questions, so. . . science is the best tool we've come up with yet for explaining why there's something rather than nothing."

Obvious non sequitur is obvious.

-and there you are, the other part of your "thesis".  That there are both questions and answers fundamentally beyond the scope of our best empirical tool.  Not hasn't, not won't.

Can't.

That this set of knowledge, metaphysics,  distinct from physics, is populated.  In what way is the question above other than empirical, in what other than empirical way could you answer it, and in what other than empirical way do you know either?    

I'm not talking about the conclusions.  I'm talking about the observations themselves.  If you want to argue that a ruler measurement or detection of X-rays is dependent on interpretation, then rock on.  I'm going to argue that the kinds of observations use in what we normally call science, and the kind of subjective observations you've been equivocating about by babbling about "empirical observations" instead of "science" when I talk about questions answerable only by direct experience, are unlike in important ways.

Empiricism - the theory that all knowledge is based on sensory experience.  Science, a tool for verifying (or falsifying) predictions by or against empirical observation.  Scientific observations -are- empirical observations, Benny.  Subjective experience -is- empirical, direct experience -is- empirical.  

Consider what you're saying here, particularly in light of your previous comments affirming the claim that empiricism makes.  In what way could any observation or knowledge be other than empirical if sensory experience is the basis of all knowledge? In what way is an empirical observation importantly different from empirical observation?

-and how or by what other than empirical process do you or could you know that? Hell, I've been having a convo in this thread about the two most popular candidates for being importanly different than empirical knowledge or observation. For populating the metaphysical set, the set of things that no empirical process could answer. Intuited knowledge and innate knowledge. Is the proper method for answering the question you posited above, of why there is something rather than nothing, intuition or reference to innate knowledge? Are these actually different than empirical knowledge?