I just thought of a good way to explain how things work inside my own thought processes...

When I was a child, all of the "empirical evidence" at my disposal "proved" the existance of Santa Clause. All of the authority figures in my world insisted that he existed. In fact the entire culture of the society in which I found myself, insisted that he existed. I saw him with my own eyes many times as a child, in department stores, on TV, in books, etc. The experience was repeatable and predictable... evidence of his existance was found under the Christmas tree every year. Without fail. Every year, the cookies and milk that we left out for him on Christmas Eve were gone on Christmas morning. The authority figures in my world insisted that they did not eat the cookies and milk, and that the presents under the tree were from Santa Clause.

But when I was about seven years old, my intuition told me that there was no such thing as Santa Clause. It turns out that my intuition was right. Since that time, my intuition has turned out to be right in quite a few situations in which most, if not all, of the empirical evidence pointed one way, my intuition pointed another. So I have every incentive to trust my intuition about things and to not trust people who tell me I should not trust my intuition, and no incentive to do otherwise.