Thanks for your thoughts on the Dawkins review.   No, I have not read the book other than the brief excerpts (which, however, I think I limited my comments to).   Thanks for sharing more about Dawkins' argument from your reading.   I find his thought stimulating and fun to read and ponder, though I also find much of his thought greatly mistaken.

In what you posted about his argument (i.e. the claim that religion comes from children being brainwashed by adults and being unable to think outside orthodox bounds when they grow up, as a sort of evolutionary defect (i.e. atheists are more highly evolved than theists)), I agree with some of it and disagree with some of it.  I agree that children do in fact believe much without question, and that it is a helpful thing (though rather than ascribing this lifesaving trait to evolution, one could just as well ascribe it to a wise Designer).   I agree that it is hard for all of us to free our minds from what we've been taught growing up (even if we repudiate some things, it is difficult to know whether we've only scratched the surface and are actually holding on to the vast majority of our beliefs simply because we've been brainwashed/brought-up-that-way - parents, culture, media, peers, etc).   And I also would hold (as I assume you/Dawkins would agree) that it is a simple biological fact that youth in their 'adolescence' tend to become skeptical and to question the beliefs they've been taught.  It's actually a neurological development stage, etc.

Ok.  Where I disagree, then, is that "religion" is necessarily a false tale imposed by brainwashing.   In fact, if Dawkins talks merely about "religion" in the abstract I can hardly take him seriously.   Biblical Christianity, for example, is not an abstract religion at all... it is not primarily about ethics and morals and principles, but rather about certain verifiable historical events (which, of course, do have ethical/moral consequences).   If I had been taught since infancy that Jesus came to earth and lived as a man, then died and was raised, fine -- that's my 'brainwashing' training, if you will.   But when I become an adult, it's incumbent upon me to seek truth, and to believe in what is true, not merely what is nice or comforting or believed-by-all-my-friends etc.   And if after careful inspection I come to believe in Jesus as described in the Bible, I don't see how Dawkins' theoretical etiologies have any relevance anymore.