Why would you say that, Rider?

Some of science is after the fact and some of it predicts things. Einstein predicted gravitational lenses, for example, and they weren't actually observed for a long time after that. We haven't seen a black hole yet (or the light ring around its event horizon), but we know they almost certainly exist and what they're like.

I think the fact that those people were atheists is kind of irrelevant, by the way. Pythagorus, Mozart, and Michelangelo weren't, and they weren't half-wits.