One of the most violent attacks on the Church in the Soviet Union was under Kruschev when, during a period of economic and political liberalization, he attacked the Church to demonstrate to old Party members that he hadn't lost it.

But, inevitably, as he [Kierkegaard] approaches what we might call his Christocentric climax many readers drop off. Many scholars just leave that part of his authorship alone.

I'm not sure that I 'am' a philosopher - but I do engage with questions that are generally recognized as philosophical questions, such as the character of human existence and what makes for a good human life.

Ethics arises in the recognition of our obligation to care for others as beings, like us, exposed to mortality - that is, beings who need our help. Buddhism, not wrongly, extends this to 'all sentient beings'.

Ultimately, we live in the face of an irresolvable mystery about our origin and, for that matter, about our end. And what Schleiermacher would have us do is (a) acknowledge that this is the case and (b) accept it as something positive, a point of departure for a life of trusting joy.

However, in brief, I think the connecting of 'God' and 'Being' is one of these things for which there seems to be a natural impulse in human thinking but it can also lead to confusions. Religious believers mostly want to see God as the epitome of what is most really real and in some non-theistic contexts, people talk simply of 'Isness'.

Essentially I see the new atheism as largely part of the crisis of the left. Having failed to carry through its agenda in relation to political and economic life it's rounding on religion, ignoring the fact that, in some key respects, many believers are likely to share leftist aspirations.