After reading a dvar torah from a rabbi seeking to deal with the problem of Atheists (really the problems atheists have with religion), I was inspired to offer my own solution to "Why Atheists are Wrong."
First of all, the method employed by an atheist to prove religion wrong is reductionism. Basically, they have proven it false. You start with certain givens, whatever they may be, and see if the organized religions pass your litmus test. It also means creating a new set of standards with their own priorities. If a religion sees A as more important than B, while the atheist values B more than A, then the religion is false. Now this may seem overly simplistic, but it's really just about qualifying an atheist for the purposes of refuting the method. The method could also be some offshoot of Enlightenment or existentialist philosophy, not just a Boolean set. But no less reductionism. Religion can be understood based on its need for adherents, a leader to guide them, and a system to keep the leaders in power. This then leads to the judgment of religion as being anti-intellectual and hypocritical, because these parts of the system continuously fail. There are the abuses, the holier than thou attitudes, and the inability to just see things the way they clearly are, right?
Second, I assumed that an atheist has already integrated a system of beliefs- maybe: ethical hedonism- to which he adheres. This is what motivates him in his decision-making. The attitude is that an atheist has two options after making a logical conclusion: 1. Does this still apply to me or 2. Is this an outdated method of thinking? This eliminates the problems of religion because an atheist is either flexible or staunch in his resolve without the hypocrisy and arrogance assumed by religion. An atheist is a humanist. Philosophies come and go. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just improve it!
Religion cannot defend itself against an atheist by answering his questions. He believes that his moral code is of equal or greater value, but is more meaningful because it is his own and not some else's. By explaining how religion builds character, etc. is of zero value to someone who believes that they know better. That would leave you with only adherents who think religion has better answers. That's absurd...
The only way to defend yourself is with claims of authenticity. I remember in parsha class many years ago, R. Lopianski pointed out that religion cannot prove itself because it has the ability to coerce you to believe (i.e. well it's prohibited to ask such a question, so religion has that magic power to make you believe- not true). The "Truth" was in the nature of its Revelation- a person cannot be dissuaded by the questions and issues he has. All questions have answers. That doesn't change what we've experienced and what we know as "Truth." Dr. Joseph Bernstein, who is a neighbor of mine, spoke on Shavuos about the difference between Truth and what science calls "fact." The scientific "fact" cannot be true because it cannot stand by itself as "Truth" because it needs observable phenomena with a high statistical probability in order to assure its steadfastness. It is hardly "true."
You can then proceed to point out that many philosophical and ethical attempts by mankind are ad-hoc. They make assumptions that may not pass from one reader to the next. As R. Lopianski pointed out that class, philosophers have spent the millennia asking questions about their predecessors, destroying their foundations, and building their own new foundations. Which were then uprooted by the next guy, and rebuilt, and then someone else came along and uprooted that one. It's a non-ending cycle. An atheist could not be set up to be hypocritical: he'll invent a new word like "tolerant" to describe his change in opinion, or hold fast to his own moral code in an attempt to show that he holds the high ground. It's ad-hoc because he can go either way. With "Truth," the only other choice is to lie or fall short of what is expected.
An atheist is wrong because he has no connection to history. He has only himself and what he can accomplish. He'll make a name for himself and build a tower to the sky in his attempt to challenge the One Above.
