oyoyoy, You make the point that today’s atheists are at a low level. I find that curious. Do you have any evidence for your assertion? Because if you have read Bertram Russel, or Christopher Hitchens, Jean Paul Sartre or Richard Dawkins, you will find that though they come to dramatically wrong conclusions, and when specifically addressing the issue of HKBH make several dramatically wrong assumptions, these are among the most articulate and informed non-Torah scholars of the last 100 years. Russel and Hitchens especially, because unlike Dawkins they write about much more than atheism, and unlike Sartre they avoid existentialist philosophy and the determinist outcomes it presupposes. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of 20th and 21st century writers who are more articulate than Hitchens. Maybe George Orwell, but he was likely an atheist as well, certainly an agnostic.
My point is that you don’t have to diminish an individual’s acumen in comparison to earlier generations to conclude that he is wrong. He can be brilliant and utterly wrong, too. He can even prophesy and be inspired by HKBH, as Bilaam was, and be utterly wrong.