Are there reasons for belief in God that atheists can at least respect?

Answer 1

Can? Yes. Will they? It depends on their open-mindedness, as no amount of information can sway biased people.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument:

1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, The Universe has a cause.

From the necessity of the case, we can deduce that the cause was transcendent to (had power over) time, space, matter and energy, as it brought those things into existence. It also could not be just a set of necessary and sufficient conditons either, as if that were the case, the effect would be past co-eternal with the cause.