Speaking as a Christian, I am glad that more atheists/agnotics are open to the social value and human insights that can be drawn from religion. I'm very much convinced that part of the decline in western governance and civility has come from a decline in any notion of transcendental value. Everything has been reduced to the material and the empirical.

That being said, I wouldn't call debates about the facuality of religious claims sophomoric. Perhaps many people engage in the debates in a sophomoric way, but the debates are important. A philosophy that is not grounded in truth cannot survive forever (even if it can survive for a very long time.)