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atheism,darwin,evolution,god,faith,belief,lincoln,religion Adam Gopnik - Darwin, Lincoln, and the New AtheistsAdam Gopnik - Darwin, Lincoln, and the New Atheiststags:Adam Gopnik, author of Angels and Ages, discusses how Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin differed in their approaches to atheism, and contrasts their views with those of modern atheists such as Richard Dawkins.
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1. Religion-associated art is not an argument for the truth of religion.
2. In certain periods of European history the church was the only institution paying for significant quantities of art, and if the artists had different patrons they might have produced equally good non-religious art. Clearly the artist for hire tailors his work to suit his patron.
3. Since good art can be produced without religion, good art that happened to be religiously inspired because of the time and place in which it was produced does not contribute to the value of religion itself and should not be abused as a reason for promoting religion.
It's likely that Gopnik (consciously or unconsciously) parroted views from people who also reviewed the book without carefully reading it, in the same manner that people say all sorts of crap about the bible that is unsubstantiated by the text. They plagiarize each other's interpretations without much attention to the source, and a myth about a book propagates that is only tenuously connected to the content of the book because the overwhelming majority is too busy or too lazy to read it thoughtfully.
Thus everything religion has created, for example the by product of religious art and poetry is also wrong and should be cast out. That's a narrow way of looking at things, because historically back then even with your argument that religion funded art, there was devotion because there was a lack of evidence of anything other, due to the underdevelopment of scientific theory.
Likewise I disagree with Dawkin's argument that peoples spiritual needs can be met with philosophy and science. I do agree with his arguments against indoctrination and the subversion of reason through literal readings of religious texts.
People's psychological needs (a term I use interchangeably with "spiritual needs") are met without religion in many individuals.
Yes to you and me perhaps but I doubt that can apply to everyone else. I mean religion is not all indoctrinated across the board to everyone many seek it out and become religious.