"Any person that simply says 'religion is bullshit' hasn't actually studied any."
I've got to take exception with this claim, because virtually every atheist I know was brought up in some sort of faith-based community. Often they abandoned that community when it became clear that things were not lining up they way that they should. Claiming atheists haven't studied religion when prominent atheists like Matt Dillahunty and Dan Barker spent decades involved in study with their respective religions, came to the conclusion there was no evidence for the existence of a god, and stopped believing, just doesn't work.
There may be some people who are atheists because they were brought up in non-religious households and the God seed never took root, but I believe you'll find the percentage of people who actively studied and participated in one or more religions and concluded a movement like Secular Humanism was far more beneficial than belief in and worship of a deity to be much larger. :)
Saying that religion is bullshit, and not choosing to believe in a god are not the same thing. Religion not only exists, but it gives people fulfilment. You cant call religion bullshit because that is a blanket statement. One would have to have examined alll religions and determined that they are bullshit, which is also subjective. Its dismissive and disrespectful to millions of people whos lives are fuller because of their faith. Some people are just overly skeptical, too left brained, and cannot have faith in anything, and the rates of suicide, dying alone, drug abuse, among people with little faith is a tell of something isnt it? Faithful people are better people. They may be more gullible, but they will give you the benefit of the doubt. Thats what faith is. We want to marry a faithful person, not a skeptical person. There are also religions which are highly logical such as Illuminism. Tell me that is a bullshit religion. No one will, because they are instead focussed on literal interpretations, too far left brained that they dont have the imagination to understand allegory, poetry and myth.
Most people who claim mainstream religions dont even truly understand them. But some of us have gnosis. If anything I respect agnostics, because they are not so full of shit and unreasonable. They just say that they dont know. Atheists insist that there is no god, which is just as unprovable as those who say there is one. They are just miserable fucks.
You have to realize that highly scientific types are destructive by nature. The scientific method itself is about trying to disprove things. It is highly skeptical and destroys things. This is not a good mind to have, and this is why those types are more likely to die alone, have drug and drinking problems, suffer higher rates of depression and commit suicide. They are generally more miserable people. Now that is what I call some bullshit.
(Apologies in advance for the wall of text...this is a long reply).
There's a difference between asserting "There is no god!" and asking, "Where is the proof for the god you believe in?". Claiming there is no such thing as a god would be silly, because it's impossible to know for certain. That's Agnosticism: a lack of knowledge. "Does God exist? I don't know."
Atheism, on the other hand, is a belief claim. "You believe a god (or gods) exists? What proof convinced you?" Requesting proof is not the same as declaring a believer is wrong or that there is no God, it's just laying the burden of proof on the one making the positive claim.
Richard Dawkins, one of the most vocally outspoken atheists of the modern era, proposed a 7-point scale in his book The God Delusion. If 1 was "Absolutely certain without a shred of doubt that a god exists" and 7 was "Absolutely certain without a shred of doubt that no gods exist", Dawkins ranks himself at a 6. That's important: Dawkins isn't saying there's no such thing as god, he's saying the evidence for the existence of a god is inadequate to convince him. Dawkins, like any good scientist, is willing to change his mind, he just lacks the proof required for him to do so.
The scientific method is not about disproving things, it's about testing claims which are testable in a manner others can replicate to rule out false positives. I have a hypothesis, I make a prediction, I test my hypothesis multiple times, and when I am satisfied I have come to the right conclusion, I publicize the results so others can repeat my experiments, examine my results and theirs, and refine the conclusion as needed. It'a s self-correcting process, guaranteed to ensure the best conclusions are drawn from the best evidence.
Skepticism is healthy, not destructive. A skeptical person simply wants to believe true things. There's a difference between 'skepticism' and 'being close-minded'. A skeptic, when confronted with a person claiming the ability to turn lead into gold, says, "Really? Can you show me?" and will proceed with belief claims from there. A close-minded person, on the other hand, would call bullshit without waiting for the evidence. That isn't to say the close-minded person is automatically wrong, but a skeptic is at least willing to lend the benefit of the doubt, weigh the evidence, and see where that takes him or her.
Finally, socially-isolated individuals, no matter their belief or non-belief in a deity, tend to have higher rates of depression, substance abuse problems, and chances of dying alone. Atheism alone is no predictor of these things, since many non-believers lead highly productive and enjoyable lives, but atheists who go public with their beliefs often suffer heavy losses to their social support groups like family, friends, and (obviously) church as a result. We see similar problems when people convert from one religion to another; leaving one group to join another makes for a less-distressing overall change since it's exchanging one safety net for another, but just ask a former Jehova's Witness or Mormon about the cost of conversion even to another Christian religion: being cut off from one's parents, siblings, or children is no joke. Muslims who convert to any other faith (or no faith at all) literally risk death in some parts of the world. Losing one's safety net in general commonly results in depression, suicide, and substance abuse--one's religion or lack thereof plays little part in this aspect of human psychology, but belief isn't a switch one can turn on and off at will. If a person loses faith or belief in anything, it can be shattering. Take away the community's support or the way of life they have always known and it is literally life-threatening if they can't find shelter somewhere. Anyone would be miserable under those conditions, theist or otherwise. :)
There's not any actual empirical EVIDENCE for the existence of dark energy. Is there any reason I shouldn't just say "Hypothesis is bullshit?"
You're free to say and believe whatever you like, @tvulgaris. Anyone can say the dark energy hypothesis is correct or incorrect even while entirely ignorant of what the hypothesis claims and the mathematics underlying it, but this isn't a stance a rational individual would take.
The question a rational person would ask is: "Am I knowledgeable enough about cosmology, and/or physics, and/or astronomy to understand the dark energy hypothesis, claim it's bullshit, and then then provide a plausible alternative, with new evidence, that fits the facts as we currently know and understand them but negates some or all of the currently-accepted dark energy hypothesis?"
If the answer to that question is yes, then the Nobel committee would likely want a word with you, and you could find yourself a great deal wealthier and more famous in the coming decade.
If the answer to that question is no, it's probably best to admit you don't know enough about the matter to warrant a concrete belief one way or another, and that people who work in those fields are better-suited to work at determining the validity of the hypothesis.
Is dark matter bullshit? I don't know, chances are you don't either, and there's nothing wrong with not forming an opinion on the matter if there is insufficient evidence to do so. :)
I certainly don't, which was much my point- but it was the process of hypothesis itself I wanted to juxtapose to the experience of religious faith- dark energy was a useful example as the math underpinning it ISN'T empirical evidence. There's absolutely nothing empirical supporting the hypothesis YET- which a doctrinaire mind can quickly construe as bullshit. My question was leading.
Maybe you haven't run into the very many people (there's a lot in my age cohort) who label themselves "atheists" but for whatever personal reason have taken on an anti-theistic jihad, every bit as irrational as the most stupidly blinded fundamentalist- I suppose Doc has, I know I have. This is not to generalize, because I have atheist (or at least very well-read agnostic) friends I'll spar with, or just hang out with, and this is no cause for animosity.
I'll take it "on faith" those anti-theists are the people he's addressing...