What is there to misunderstand? Religious folk talk to imaginary uber-beings, shamelessly making up stories about the universe. It is a mental illness.
"Arguably, the highest achievements of the human species have been motivated by that instinctive spirituality just mentioned. The great cathedrals, the precious heritage of religious art and music, are not only monuments to religious belief, but more persuasive testimonies to and arguments for faith than the disputations of theology. Have you ever read the story of the conversion of St. Vladimir, the founder of the Russian Orthodox Church? He was, as the account goes, a pagan prince of the line of Rurik; and an enthusiastic pagan, having built several temples. Yet he was not quite satisfied with his religion, and agreed to hear deputations of Muslims, Jews, and Christians each deliver their respective sales pitches. The presentations of the first two were rather arid, but the Christians (who had come from Byzantium) put on by far the best show, high mass with all the smells and bells, rich vestments, singing, the whole nine yards. Vladimir was convinced - any religion that was so beautiful had to be the right one (it also didn't hurt that it had the least restrictive dietary rules, and no ban on booze). Accordingly, Russia became Christian, and Vladimir a saint - all on the basis of his aesthetic judgment.
I suppose these anthropological and aesthetic reasons explain why many people remain culturally Christian despite an abundance of doubts and discontents. They aren't willing to dismiss the spiritual out of hand; they see more benefit than detriment accruing to society from religion in spite of their doubts (as did Jefferson and Franklin); and they find Christianity aesthetically appealing (as did St. Vladimir). They are therefore unwilling to discard it in favor of the barren and austere horizon offered by the crusading atheism of a Dawkins. For my part, I'll wait to see whether Dawkinsianity produces anything equivalent to Chartres, Handel's Messiah or Mozart's Requiem, the Pietà or the Sistine ceiling. When it does we may re-evaluate it to see if it offers anything worthwhile."
The quoted text has the opposite meaning, more like the Sistine Chapel exists because its creator(s) were inspired by God.
It's right there in fact: "the highest achievements of the human species have been motivated"
Plus, it is "arguments for faith than the disputations of theology", presented as a comparison, not justifying why people have faith.
Really, is my english that bad? I can't believe how someone could interpret this text the way Avshalom did.
That Russia is christian because of aesthetics, and aesthetics are an argument for the merit of faith implies that the christian faith is more meritorious than, paganism, judaism and islam because it's the prettiest.
I grew up with a literalist/fundamentalist version of Christianity, and when I discovered the atheistic/materialistic/scientific worldview it came as a shock - I implanted on it immediately, the world made much more sense almost overnight and I lost all interest in anything remotely spiritual. Later on I discovered the rest of religion, and the intellectual shock was similar, but not much else changed. I still find the purely materialistic worldview perfectly satisfactory and I fully expect that it will continue to conquer everything in its path, up to and beyond the mind-body problem, but until then, and maybe even after then, I have no problem characterizing my lack of personal commitment to faith, God, or the spiritual as purely aesthetic. I can appreciate, to some extent, why other people prefer to believe it, and I can appreciate, to some extent, why many people on each side either can't or won't believe that sensible people could hold such obviously stupid and wrong beliefs. Every time I start to think that the religious have a monopoly on lack of curiosity, some atheist pops up and makes a spectacle of their own righteous single-mindedness. I prefer to cultivate a certain amount of genuine curiosity about, and appreciation for, the aesthetic preferences of the other 80% of the human race.
My biggest pet peeve has got to be the misattribution of human excellence to the divine. So many times "thank god" should really be "thanks to millions of man-years of trial and error, science and engineering, hard work, and lives lost figuring this stuff out" (I'm thinking miracle on the hudson, car crashes, lifesaving surgeries, etc.).