Josh Rosenau has a review of The God Delusion which is, I think, a little bit harder on Richard Dawkins than I. The comments are hopping, so you should check it out! Let me reiterate my general position re: Dawkins & The God Delusion:
My own personal assessment of the universe as it is resembles that of Dawkins
My own assessment of the nature of religious belief is similar to that of Dawkins, insofar as I believe it is a byproduct of proximate cognitive features which have their ultimate origins in our evolutionary history
My own attitude is one of general hostility toward religious fundamentalisms, particularly of the monotheistic stripe
But, I differ with Dawkins in that I tend to put more weight on the reality that religion is here to stay in some form, and as a matter of tactics am not willing to endorse a wholesale attack on religion qua religion as anything but a quixotic quest
Though I agree that religion is the necessary precondition for extremist religion, I see the difference between moderate and fundamentalist religion as less a difference of the magnitude of an essential religiosity as a modulation of underlying parameters which characterize the distribution of a religion. To use an analogy, I do not believe that democratic socialism is any less socialist that revolutionary socialism, it simply has a different attitude toward violence and democratic institutions as a means or barrier to social justice
Though I agree that individuals like Dawkins are essential in the marketplace of ideas, I do not see any remote possibility that humans will ever exhibit a Dawkinsian attitude toward the world around us
Unlike Dawkins I do not hold to the universal importance of truth for all humans. Unlike Christians I do not believe that all must know the Good News of scientific materialism, and I am not inclined toward giving a drowning man a life jacket
I tend to think that the good and evil in the name of religion is not ascribable to religion per se. I get the sentiment from Dawkins that he wants to decouple the good from religion, and yet still pin the evil on religion. I don't think this is plausible, if religion increases the magnitude of negative behavior it seems as if it should also increase the magnitude of positive behavior (unless one tautologically defines religion as evil behavior axiomatically)
