Consider the verses of the Gitanjali, the Messiah, the mosque of the Alhambra, the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Should we take to task Tagore and Handel and Sultan Yusuf and Michelangelo for not thinking? For believing in nonsense, to use Dawkins’s language? Reaching beyond art to the world of public affairs, should we label as nonthinkers Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela because of their religious beliefs, because of their faith in some things that cannot be proved? Can we not accept their value as powerful thinkers and doers even if we do not agree with
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