John Hardly...I got a little confused at the use of 'we' in your post. You began with it referring to you & your friend, then it seemed to change into a reference to 'they', as in "...We arrogantly believe it unnecessary... we will graciously allow ..." and later in "We even think that we can divide our society..."

You seem to be objecting to the efforts of some to trivialize faith as being somehow "unscientific"...which, in fact, a few do. Of course, it IS unscientific, though hardly trivial. It is not supposed to be scientific...it comes from a different place, and is processed differently. One's defense or explanation OF their faith can be badly expressed or downright illogical--but that doesn't affect the ultimate 'truth' of it.
....and, since belief AND non-belief are both a form of faith, NEITHER should be considered 'true' or 'not true' based on the glibness of the argument!

Indeed 'empirical' and 'real' are words which can have very different meanings to people, and in any discussion where they are used, it should be made clear how they are being understood, lest the discussion be doomed from the beginning.

It is unfortunately the case that many on both sides of the faith/belief issue proceed without a clear understanding within thenselves just what they actually believe 'truth' to be, or how they got there....(as you can see above, I have struggled long to even express my personal position)