Remember, atheists don't actually reject the idea of God, they just strongly doubt it.
Nope. One cannot "doubt" something that doesn't exist. Nobody can doubt the idea of unicorns; that presupposes that unicorns might exist.
How can you say with certainty that at least one unicorn doesn't exist?
Geoff is going to shit if the existence of G-d is one day proved.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether G-d's existence can be proved or not. The question itself is an irrelevancy. The question to answer is the following, to wit:
Does following Torah and Mitzvot (Law and Commandments) make for better people or worse people?
That is the only question. This does NOT pose questions about politics, or the current nation-state known as Medinat Israel, or the region known in English as the "Palestinian Territories", or to anything even remotely related to that. Ignoring all of that for the moment, and all the emotional baggage that it carries, let us repeat the question, to wit:
Does following Torah and Mitzvot (Law and Commandments) make for better people or worse people?
Well, lets see. Lets look at the lives of Observant Jews and Secular Jews, and how they are perceived by non-Jews. Secular Jews all too often are perceived as controlling the media, being involved in unsavoury aspects of it, being behind some of the most distasteful aspects of society generally speaking. Now, I am not going to say that that is universally true. I have known some Secular Jews that are decent people, and all of those unsavoury things have Gentiles involved in them as well. Lets be fair.
Observant Jews, on the other hand, generally will not even
watch television and film, let alone be involved in the business of making it, whether it be wholesome or not. Generally, Observant Jews tend to try to be left alone for the most part. I'll admit there are exceptions to that in areas where there are large concentrations of them, where sometimes they affect the political decisions of a County or Municipality, or occasionally even a portion of a State. In their defence I can say that generally they are only trying to obtain benefits for their own community, and not usually harm anyone else, but from the other side, sometimes the other side does get affected, fairly or not.
But, aside from all that, again, just to answer the question, lets look at an individual, just one person who chooses to make Baal Teshuvah (The Master of Return), ie, a Secular Jew who becomes Observant, which is actually happening in quite large numbers throughout the United States and Israel today.
Does such a person have a better life or a worse life? Are they better people or worse people?
Well, it depends on how you define terms. But, certainly by social indicators, the Baalim Teshuvim and other Observant Jews have fewer divorces, fewer problems with issues like drug abuse, alcoholism, STDs, incarceration, etc etc, than Secular Jews in America. No, I do not have sources for this information, it is simply something a Jew knows because he knows his community.
Now, does any of this give a proof for the existence of G-d? No. Nor was that the intent. All I intended to do was indicate that living according to the Laws that we believe G-d gave us seems to result in decent people that tend to avoid getting into social or legal trouble more frequently than the general population, both Gentile and Secular Jewish.
So you know, even if G-d didn't exist, even if Moses was a complete fictitious character, (not that I believe either thought), the Torah is still full of pretty good advice on how to live one's life.
And let it be noted for the record, we are not talking about crime and punishment here. I am not suggesting that we kill homosexuals, or execute people for working on Sabbath, or etc. Following the rules is a wise idea, but I think we have evolved somewhat past the need for the rather interesting Bronze Age punishments that were issued to people. I'll leave that kind of savage crap to the Arabs. They still do that kind of thing. I mean, they are still in the business of chopping hands off for theft, and lashes for insulting religion, and other 7th Century punishments as dictated in the Qur'an.
I would hope that our society, Jewish or otherwise, is a bit beyond that.