Scientists: we got something we can't explain. let's make something up for which we have no evidence other than there's stuff we can't explain. We'll keep pondering whether we can figure out how to detect what we just made up because we got nothing so far.
Theologian: we got something we can't explain. let's make something up for which we have no evidence other than there's stuff we can't explain.
True, both use a filler name like "god" or "dark energy" for gaps in understanding they cannot explain.
But the big difference is: Scientists are happy about "dark energy" being explained away and made superfluous. The filler being smaller or vanishing is progress. A scientist's job is to fill the gaps with proper explanations.
Theologians are the opposite, the filler is their whole reason and purpose. If you take away the filler by providing proper explanations, theologians will resist in any way possible. Progress for them is sowing doubt on all scientific explanations and spreading the influence of their filler on everything.
"Scientists are happy about "dark energy" being explained away"
Is that why Einstein a nobel for his work on Brownian motion instead of relativity? I asked that sarcastically because it is well known that some of the powerful "Scientists" were very unhappy with relativity...
Einstein got his Nobel price for his work on the photoelectric effect (basically a small part of what became quantum mechanics).
Special and general relativity were too new and revolutionary (and admittedly strange) so that at the time, safer bets were considered for the price.
The strangeness hasn't gone away, relativity does still take some getting used to, as does quantum mechanics. But all of those are proven scientific theories backed by experimental and observational data such that they are accepted as true within the margin of error for the corresponding data (as always in science). All predictions that could be tested stood true, we just have some predictions for extreme cases that are contradictory and currently not confirmable by experiment or observation.
Scientists, even back then, with time and data, came around to accept relativity.
Dark energy isn't like that. Dark energy is an observed problem in cosmological data we cannot explain. The expansion of the universe in some phases of it's development is faster than it should be. When we plug that data into our current cosmological theories, it looks like the energy content of the universe is higher than it should be by observation. Because it is energy and have not been able to observe it, we call it "dark energy". Explanations such as "the data is wrong", "the theories are wrong, here is a different one", "gravity is different, try this alternative to general relativity" and stuff like that haven't yielded any satisfactory theory that would fit the observations. So we are stuck with this problem called "dark energy". We haven't solved it yet.
Basically we are like before 1900, where there was no quantum mechanics, just some strange experimental results that called for a new theory that somebody had yet to invent.
It should be noted that I only dragged religion into the discussion because of the “flying spaghetti monster” analogy which is a reference to a famous atheist’s mocking of religion.
That said, concepts like faith and belief are wholly independent of religion.
So if you want to denounce religion from your critical reasoning it is unnecessary to claim you also denounce the concept of “faith”.
How can anyone do anything without faith?
Why are getting in that vehicle? I have faith/believe it will take me to my destination.
Why are you fastening your seatbelt? I have faith/believe in the science that shows it will provide protection in the event of a collision.
Scientists: we got something we can't explain. let's make something up for which we have no evidence other than there's stuff we can't explain. We'll keep pondering whether we can figure out how to detect what we just made up because we got nothing so far.
Theologian: we got something we can't explain. let's make something up for which we have no evidence other than there's stuff we can't explain.
Me: both have faith in their models