Following up on Heck: The church I attend (Episcopal) is quite welcoming to gays. The associate pastor (and for many years my confessor) is a Lesbian priest. There are substantial support groups for homosexual Christians in different denominations. While Richard Swinburne is a Christian philosopher who has serious reservations on the merits of homosexuality, his book Revelation provides a goof philosophical framework within which to take Dr. Heck's advice and see the meaning of the Bible / revelation as something that is on-going and progressive.

And I might commend my own Philosophy of Religion: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Press, Oxford) and Dialogues about God (Rowman and Littlefied) for a review of many of the arguments that seek to address the existence of God from the standpoint of evidence.

Contra Smith, I congratulate you on having an interest in philosophy of religion, one of the most exciting areas of philosophical inquiry. Actually, many who have been drawn to philosophy have often begun with a fascination with philosophical reflection on religion (Colin McGinn's autobiography notes his first being drawn to philosophy of religion by his encounter with the ontological argument). It is impossible to take seriously the history of philosophy without undertaking philosophy of religion or undertaking deep study of philosophical work on ideas that are religiously significant. For a history of philosophy of religion in the modern era, you might check out my book Evidence and Faith; Philosophy and religion since the seventeenth century. It provides a good sourse book for future study of this rich area of inquiry. As for logic, yes, I think modal argument is great.

Compare the Blackwell or Routledge or Oxford or Cambridge Companions to philosohy of religion with Brewer's Dictionary of Prase and Fable entry Fairy.

I agree with Professor Leaman. I might only add that today most theists do not traffic in "proofs" for God's existence. There are very few, if any, universally acknowledged proofs in philosophy. These days, we more often simply refer to good or bad arguments. It also might be added that hope is often identified as a virtue in some religious traditions, and hope may well serve as a sufficient ground for prayer, even when actual belief is not in play.

Interesting points. I take it that the most reasonable reply for a defender of the ontological argument to make is to claim that Prefoessor Smith's world is not in fact possible. If one can make a case for abstracta (properties or propositions necessarily existing) then there cannot be a world where only a single pencil exists. For a good case for such a Platonic position, see Roderick Chisholm's Person and Object. R.M. Adams also has a good discussion of the difficulty of imagining / conceiving of God's non-existence. I take this up in a modest book: Philosophy of Religion: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Press, Oxford) or in more detail in a discussion of Hume and necessity in Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and religion since the seventeenth century (Cambridge University Press).

I might add a modest point that could be helpful: It may not be helpful to see philosophy on the one side and religion on the other side of a great divide in terms of "final answers" and the offering of clear answers. Many philosophers today and in the past have adopted religious convictions, and many religious traditions (east and west) have either shaped or been shaped by philosohical inquiry. Within each of the great world religions there are multiple philosophically significant traditions that are experimental and speculative (non-dogmatic). So, for example, in Christianity there are materialists (Christian materialism is a new movement with philosophers like Peter van Inwagen and Lynne Baker) and dualists, nominalists and realists, utilitarians and virtue theorists, those who accept the static or dynamic theory of time (the so-called A series and B series), those who are libertarians versus compatabilists, and so on. And there is a similar diversity of views among philosophers in Jewish, Muslim,...

I agree with the two other replies, that neither theists nor atheists need be dogmatic. I would, however, like to offer a brief word on behalf of certain convictions that one seems to know (with or without argument) and such convictions are beyond negotiation. For example, I think all of us know that it is morally wrong (I am going to use a grotesque example) to skin and salt babies. However, I can imagine a utilitarian argument justifying this under extreme (though perhaps quite implausable) conditions. In such a case, I think a person might well retain her moral integrity by simply holding her position that such an act is wrong and not justified, even if she can think of no good objection to the utilitarian argument. By analogy, I think we can imagine the following: a person has had what she takes to be a compelling, even miraculous experience of God. I happen to think that there are good versions of arguments from religious experience (see work by Jerome Gellman, William Alston), but let's...

I actually think Craig is right: the philosophy of religion in the Anglophone world is booming,if you consider publications in the top presses (Oxford, Cambridge, Blackwell, Routledge), conferences and organizations --the British Society of Philosophy of Religion in the UK is very well subscribed to and the Society of Christian Philosophers in the USA is the largest society in the American Philosohical Association. Many presidents of the APA and officers in the APA have been SCP members: Phil Quinn, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, R.M. Adams, etc. I suggest that the case for theism, like the case for atheism and agnosticism, has never been more vigorously developed. Check out the current Blackwell companion to natural theology and the magisterial Oxford companion to natural theology,forthcoming next year. There will be a Routledge Companion to Theism also out in 2011. My colleagues mention William Rowe and the late J.L. Mackie, both very fine philosophers. But I would pair...

PS to the last positing. Here are just some of the theists who are active in the UK or are recently retired, who have impecable credentials philosophically: Oxford: Daniel Robinson, Brian Leftow, Tim Mawson, Brian Davies (now at Fordham), Keith Ward (now in London but formerly Christ Church), R.M. Adams and Marilyn Adams (just moved to UNC -Chapel Hill). Still affiliated with Oxford but retired Richard Swinburne, John Lucas, Michael Dummett, Basil Mitchell. John Foster died about two years ago, but he was a brilliant philosopher of the first rank, the leading exponent of idealism and a theist. Cambridge: Douglas Hedley, Brian Hebblethwaite, Sarah Coakley (I believe she is now in Cambridge, but not positive), Janet Soskice, others... John Cottingham (Reading), John Haldane (St. Andrews), Mark Wynn (Exeter), Victoria Harrison (Glasgow), Tim Chappell (Open University), Daniel Hill, and many more. Also, one should bear in mind that there are more categories than "cheerful atheists" and ...

This is an important question. Most philosophers today probably think that an overall metaphysical framework (theism or karma...) is not necessary to secure universal ethical codes or to preserve their authority and normative force. And assuming a stable world order in which there is wide agreement on what is just or unjust (and a willingness to enforce principles of justice with force), it may be thought than an appeal to a supernatural or sacred reality is not necessary. But in a case in which there are no human or natural guarantees that justice will prevail, matters shift. Consider Darwin's situation. He remained confident till the end that it will always be in our general self-interest to be kind and just, etc, but he did not think this was necessarily so and he also thought it quite natural that stronger races would seek to exterminate weaker ones. If one is a theist, one has an account of why such exterminations are wrong (they are cosmic sins, and contrary to the will and nature of the...