The moment I saw the word "Templeton" I knew religion was involved and I stopped reading.

OK so he has set up the usual straw man of a hard atheist, so what. There are a couple of million people in that line ahead of him. And he is kind of in a round about way saying that that represents all atheists, without actually saying so, which is not new either. And then he is kissing the feet of a few theists for a massive cash prize. Even I would do that. Then it seems he is letting everyone thing that the prize he won was for physics, not the Templeton prize. So it seems that he may not be great at physics, but he is very good at dishonesty.

I read this back in March. I think most atheists would agree with "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, but that's not the whole story.

(this is not the whole story either)
[en.wikipedia.org]