How successfully does religion respond to atheism?

They might;

• They might reject atheist ideas completely
• They might use the argument that the knowledge from the God's revelation extracted from sacred texts e.g. The Bible, are more trustworthy  than knowledge of a humans.
• Might claim that atheists are deliberate attempts to discredit belief in God to suit their own purposes. HOWEVER this makes no attempt to engage with and answer atheistic challenges.

• The challenges from science have been answered by the argument that nothing within these challenges amounts to a proof that God does no exisit.

• If science explains how the world was created and functions along with the physical reasons for why they occured, it does not preclude the possibility that God was behind them,  giving them a purpose, which science cannot reveal. Argue religion can explain why events first came about.

• Ayers religious language is meaningless can be dismissed on the basis that the verification principle itself cannot be verified and therefore meaningless itself.
• Physical existence of the earth and the high level of design could be interpreted as empirical evidence for a creator (God)
• Could argue that some religious experieces hold empirical evidence, that the absense of a physical explaination suggests a cause beyond the physical. It can be argued that religious truths can likewise be accessed by an awareness that operates beyond the five senses.

• Human free will
• Augustine argued that evil exisited because of humans misusing their freewill.
• Irenaeus is unavoidable because of freewill. In order for their to be good, their has to be evil in order to set the boundry.
• If God wanted Humans to be genuinely loving we must have the freewill to chose to. Other wise we would be robots. - John Hick