The final point I want to mention is faith.  For Dawkins, faith is a 'process of non-thinking', similar to a virus caught at childhood and then passed on from generation to generation through education.

Again and again he resorts to Darwin for support.  One wonders, however, whether Darwin can offer the support he needs.  A Darwinian explanation often starts off from the status quo.  It deals, for instance, with why polar bears are white, or why rabbits have long ears.  Now consider humans.  Dawkins accepts that religious faith has been with us since the dawn of history, and that it's still going strong.  Doesn't this show that we are dealing here precisely with something related to an essential trait of Homo sapiens?

It seems reasonable to hold that, with the evolution of Homo sapiens, life on the planet reached a stage where a deep sense of questioning and self-consciousness became possible.  This is characteristic of humans.  Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard spells it out: human beings don't only exist but are infinitely interested in existing.  The human religious dimension therefore is not to be discarded or ridiculed, but managed properly.