"When I sit down on my chair I have faith that it will hold me up. I don't understand exactly how, but I have a working understanding through personal experience."
The difference here is that chair is an object in the natural world. Your faith in God is different from your faith in your chair.
"There is no play on words here. My faith in God is no different then my faith in chairs or the scientific method. They all rely on personal experience."
Your faith in God is something out of the realm of the natural world. You cannot ever test your faith in God. In fact, it isn't even relevant.
I think we can agree that I myself, am part of the natural world. Even assuming that God does not really exist my faith in God is part of the natural world, as is my faith in science and in chairs.
You cannot ever test your faith in God. In fact, it isn't even relevant.
Heck my faith in God gets tested all the time. Like when people cut me off in traffic. So does my faith in chairs. I'm a heavy fellow, and some have broken under me.
I maintain that testing for the existence God is not something that is subject to the scientific method (at least not how I define it. Others with a looser definition of science might disagree).
God seems content to let the natural laws of nature prevail in almost all cases, and does not seem to be willing to cooperate with super natural intervention at the whim of scientists trying to reproduce results. Which makes it about as testable as trying to see if Darwin was actually right (O.K. God, please back up time a few million years again, we are trying to fine tune Darwin's hypothesis).
The best we can do is look at evidence after one time events in both the case of miracles and the origin of life through evolution. In both cases experience and common sense guide us, but not strict science.
If we discuss one in Biology, lets discuss the other as well. And lets treat neither as dogma in the classroom.