George,
Thank you for your comments. About Kant, I guess I had in mind the way Barth had to base his theology on the Word of God in order not to fall under the Kantian prohibition on empirical knowledge of God. However he was a functional atheist if not a formal one and he did reduce Christianity to morality.But you are quite correct.

I had misgivings about the comment about Mary. She is of course the model of faith and deserves her place. I think I read in Feuerbach that he thought the elevation of Mary was an example of projection. I may be wrong.

For me the big insight Westphal gives is the move from evidential atheism to the suspicion of the believer. We get examples of both these on these pages. I think the former is easier to deal with while the latter is embarrassingly true!

Sells,

Thanks for a well balanced look at the balances between scepticism and suspicion, however I suggest that it does not address the necessity for belief in any supreme being in the first place.

Mankind is totally responsible for the result of his thoughts, words, and actions.
Some are fortunate enough to be able to recognise the link between causation and result, others less so.

The latter could just be the people who seek some sort of refuge in a divine being, so as to have an external object of approval or blame for whatever happens to them in life.

I tend to support your comment that Neitzche regarded Christianity as producing a slave race that refused to grasp its own power. Many religions have this as one of their outcomes.

As you go on to say, "what we are dealing with here is folk religion that is uninformed by either biblical texts or critical theology."

We just could be dealing with the God of bargains.

Phillip, For a religion to be effective it is not necessary that it is true, only that sufficient people believe it to be true. I have noticed that for many belief systems (not just religion) that those least informed are those more likely to accept the veracity of a belief. Those closest to the authority or seat of power of that belief are more likely to have realistic views concerning veracity of a belief. With respect to Christianity, and especially Catholicism, I wonder just how strong are the unspoken beliefs of the bishops, cardinals and pope. They derive great power from the Christian belief system whether it is true or not and I at any rate cannot help thinking their own private beliefs might be quite different. I note the Archbishop of Canterbury and/or Westminster etc has received much publicity for his downplaying of some christian tenets.

Ponder,
I think that I was fortunate to come to Christianity as an atheist. This meant that I had to deal with the questions you raised from the beginning. It was not that I was convinced that a supernatural being existed but rather the realisation that the discourse of theology powerfully described my situation. This power extended to a critique of naive belief. It allowed me to work in science and then to proceed to theological studies. It also lead to much conflict with my student colleagues as well as the church at large.

One of the reasons I write these articles for Online Opinion is that I think that the role of public theologian is essential, preaching to the converted is not enough. Christianity should not be tribal. In our time, as a link offered by Craig Minns in this thread explains, it is atheism that is becoming tribal to the extent that we have to have arguments over the same things forever.

My aim is to show that faith is possible in our time and that none of the criticisms levelled against it is fatal and furthermore, that faith is worth the candle.

Craig, 7 day creationist should be mocked, they have nothing to offer except foolishness. When we are done with them we move on to the old earth creationist.

The 'shape' of God has always changed: The Christian era is, overall, one of the more persistent themes but, even then, there has been re-shaping with the Reformation and subsequent development of various Denominations.

The Christian god is a syncretic one - a confluence of Judaism and other then concurrent religions such as Isiacism and the cults of Serapis, Osiris, and Isis. Just internet-search for the image of Serapis.