This being said, I have always been appalled by Dawkins' deeply ironic crusade against religion. The simplest explanation for the widespread phenomenon of organized religion is best described by none other than Dawkins himself: Religion is a vestigial extended phenotype.
Dawkins popularized the idea of an extended phenotype. This theory postulates that the phenotypic effects of genes are not restricted to a single organism. In effect, certain gene expressions could result in behaviours which affected the said gene's rate of survival. This is a profound theory, because it posits a very strong evolutionary foundation for human socialization and behaviour. As discussed in Robert Wright's "A Moral Animal", and Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen", among many other works, recent evidence has made Dawkins' extended phenotype theory extremely plausible.
Thus, if we are to analyse religion from the view that it is a set of behaviours which maximizes a set of genes' reproductive success, everything begins making a great deal of sense. Paradoxically, if Dawkins used his his own theories to explain the phenotypic phenomenon that is organized religion, he'd have the vast support network of evolutionary scientists around the globe who would provide endless empirical examples[1] to validate his theory. Yet, Dawkins continues to treat religion as a philosophy, and attempts to tackle it philosophically. As many philosophers have pointed out, this is not Dawkins' strong point and he comes off sounding like an extremely misinformed amateur at best, and an inflammatory pundit at worst.
Furthermore, it is the scientific explanation of religion which is likely to be the most useful and profound, and as Ridley, Wright, and many others have demonstrated, what we can learn from these insights are far more pertinent to the human condition than Dawkins' misplaced philosophical crusade.
I sincerely hope Dr. Dawkins sees the unbelievable irony in his approach, and addresses it promptly. As one of the most popular scientists in media today, he could reverse a great deal of enmity that various religious groups have developed towards scientists and the scientific community. Scientific illiteracy is the greatest enemy of our time, and I do believe Dawkins is making the issue much worse by inflaming the public with his misinformed rhetoric.
Science has explained every natural phenomena known to man, and its explanatory power is only growing as we gather new empirical evidence. There is a growing body of research which demonstrates that all human behaviour is guided by a deep evolutionary purpose. This is especially true of religious behaviours which are widespread and have severe fitness costs. Religious behaviours are thus best understood as a vestigial extended phenotype, and not as an ontological philosophy.