One can use multiple different instruments to corroborate our own senses that matter does indeed exist, whereas the explicitly inferred properties of dark matter / energy make it impossible to detect. That honestly seems more religious than anything.
Yes... we can claim that the gravitational effects are what let us 'observe' it, but this is like the former view of geocentrism and then using various orbital corrections to make things work. That is to say, one can choose almost any axiom and then fit predictive models to work around it, but it doesn't mean that the axiom itself is more accurate, and indeed we should always be looking to vet our axioms anyway.
Yes... we can claim that the gravitational effects are what let us 'observe' it, but this is like the former view of geocentrism and then using various orbital corrections to make things work. That is to say, one can choose almost any axiom and then fit predictive models to work around it, but it doesn't mean that the axiom itself is more accurate, and indeed we should always be looking to vet our axioms anyway.