I do agree though that people should be curious about religion. (I actually wish the Bible was taught more in public schools–partly because so much of our culture does come from it, and partly because I think if people actually read the old testament most of them would flock to become agnostics.)

So I take your point about the Sistine Chapel and Bach.

As for the sincerity of the work…
Chomsky at one point was being challenged by Andrew Marr, who took objection to Chomsky’s view that the Media altered the truth. Marr said to him something like, “How do you know I’m being I’m being insincere. For all you know, I could thoroughly believe everything I’m telling you now.”
Chomsky replied, “I’m sure you are sincere. What I’m saying is that if you believed anything different from what you do, you wouldn’t be able to be in a high profile media position.”
(I’m paraphrasing as this is from memory, but you get the idea.)
I’m sure Bach did really believe in his music. But the reason Western tradition is so filled with religious music is that no one was paying for much else.

No, you haven’t, and your in my good books on that issue..

I guess my main point is that I don’t think a critic of the church should have to bend over backwards to address every variation. In a one on one debate it may be possible to tailor your philosophical arguments to your individual opponent, but when writing a book it would just be impossible to form any sort of a coherent argument. The dominant form of protestantism in Christianity believes the majority of the world is going to hell. I think it is fair to attack Christianity on this point. Same for the others. (Granted it’s always dangerous defending a writer I’ve not read as far as Ingersoll goes, but having read Dawkins and Hitchens, I support them on this one.)

Also, as I alluded to in the earlier comment, my subjective experience is that the church presents one face when they’re in control, and another face when they’re being challenged. When I go back and talk to Church leaders now about the various things I resent about my upbringing, I find them backpedaling on all kinds of stuff. That certainly wasn’t their attitude when I was a young naive child in their classes.
I don’t hold this against you, of course, but it is something I think about whenever someone says about Hitchens or Dawkins, “But that’s not what my church says.”–It is when the doors are closed and they know they don’t have to defend themselves against outsiders. They’ll put on a moderate face when they’re challenged on something, but just watch all the crap they’ll put into children’s heads when no one’s watching them.

My point in mentioning the Sistine Chapel was that it’s a bad thing to tell people not to even be curious about a force that sponsors so much of a culture’s history. If I were to make an ignorant comment about the people who built those awesome Easter Island heads, and then be critiqued for it by someone who actually knows something about that culture, I wouldn’t brush them off with the tooth-fairy argument. Nor, if someone says (for example) “Secular humanism tells us we’re all monkeys and leads to nihilism,” do I let them get away with that. Igrnorant caricatures=bad. That’s all I’m saying here.

(Also, I don’t know about Michelangelo, but many Bach fans seem to think that serious subjective belief, not just attraction to those big Lutheran paychecks, had a lot to do with the shape of Bach’s music.)