HG_Eliminator - I'm afraid I'm one who tends not to believe anything unless I can weigh the evidence for myself. In the case of Pluto, that evidence is based on having used a telescope myself, understaning the principals and the physics of how light behaves in such systems through directly testing it myself, and hence established the principal (to my own satisfaction) that planets exist, that gravity works in a way consistent enough with Newtons ideas as to be a reasonable estimate, and checking the credentials of those people telling me that thier bigger better telescopes reveal things I can't see myself, and then checking for myself that the theories they then build are self consistent and don't contradict anything I've established from my own experiences to be probably true. It also includes comparing the evidence from many independant sources, and checking the declared methods used to gather that evidence.
The key part in that though is that where I have to rely on things I can't test directly myself (in a reproducibly way), that the results are consistent with things I have been able to verify, and that the logic is sound and introduces as few assumptions as possible.
So do I "beleive" that Pluto exists? GIven the balance of the evidence, it would seem a reasonable premis to accept for now.
You might prefer a more down to earth example. Someone once told me that they can reconcile their belief in god with practicing science because science asks us to just accept that things exist that we can't see as well (similar to your point). They used the example of electricity to make their point as something we can't see, but that science asks us to accept exists....However, there is a fundamental difference between electricity and god. Each time I flick a light switch, the light comes on (give or take the odd power cut). Therefore there is a phenomenon to be explained which can be examined, postulated on and the resulting theory tested against reality. Using the analogy for a belief in god on the other hand relies on someone else telling you that 1000's of years ago, someone once switched on a light switch and the light came on, but no one has done it again since, and we can't find the switch, the light or any evidence that the person that supposedly did it ever existed for certain...and at the same time, you have other people claiming that THEY know the one and only person who was able to flick a switch and make light, and everyone else is lying...and some people are even saying that lots of people used to flick switches all the time....and some people claim that we could flick a switch if only we close our eyes and empty our mind enough to let the switch just happen....and despite all those people claiming all those things, there's still no solid evidence that anyones particular story is actually any more than that - a story.
In a way, I'm envious of people who can blindly beleive in things without needing evidence, but it's not for me. I'm cursed with needing good evidence and a logical theoretical explanation otherwise how would anyone know which random story to believe? I'd be worried I'd end up beleieving the wrong one and possibly being made to look a right mug if one of the others turned out to be true...
Ultimately though, all we KNOW is "I think therefore I am", and everything else relies of trusting that there is some sort of reality "out there" which follows some sort of rules which we can hope to fathom out. It could be that everything we think we experience is a delusion - it could even be some sort of Matrix like virtual reality....but if we ignore the apparent logic and rules which we can observe in favour of picking any ol' idea that drifts by, then surely that's only a step away from madness?
