People often criticise Dawkins (and Sam Harris, &c.) for his stance on religion and faith, and these criticisms generally seem to take two forms.
The first is that he’s arrogant and a bully, which is, of course, ridiculous. This argument is made by people who agree with him as well as people who don’t.
The people who disagree with him who use this argument are also the ones who apparently haven’t read his books at all. Their entire line of thought seems to be “you cannot be sure there is no God so you are arrogant to say there isn’t!”. This is generally followed by accusations of irrationality and fundamentalism.
Dawkins has been very clear on the point that while we must strictly speaking all be agnostics, in practice, we are all atheists, for the same reason that we are a-fairy-ists with regard to the existence of fairies.
There is nothing arrogant about pointing out when someone is making unwarranted leaps of faith. He even shows his own logic to demonstrate why he feels the way he does.
I’m not sure why anyone would regard him as a bully, except perhaps in the sense that if you have religious beliefs, you will be “forced” to examine them when you read his books.
There also seems to be a school of thought that agrees with the points Dawkins makes, but thinks he’s too confrontational about it.
It’s true that Dawkins cuts into areas traditionally regarded as “sacred”, but the entire point is that there is no particular reason those areas shouldn’t be cut into. Dawkins is a scientist, and to say religious faith should be free from any and all scientific examination just doesn’t make sense.
Because scientific examination does apply to it.
Gould can go on about NOMA as much as he likes, but a world in which God and the supernatural exist is clearly a very different world from one where they don’t. Science, in general, occupies itself with studying the world, so the question is very relevant.
You could say that if Dawkins were to pussy-foot around sensitive subjects he might get more “converts”, but it’s entirely impossible to talk about religion without offending at least some people, and quite frankly, it would do a disservice to intellectual honesty.
Dawkins is civil, and when he attacks he makes sure he’s done the research first. This is all anyone can reasonably expect from anyone.
And even if he only reaches one person, it will have been worth it, really. And he’s reached many, many more than that.
The other criticism is what PZ Myers has dubbed the Courtier’s Reply. Dawkins does not have a degree in Theology, so clearly he cannot speak on the subject of religion.
There are two things these people fail to understand.
The first point is that absolutely nobody bothers with “high theology”. The common believer doesn’t know Augustine from Luther. Theology is not relevant to anyone’s religious belief.
The second, and much more important, point is that theology doesn’t apply to what Dawkins discusses.
What theology does is assume there is a God, and then go on to debate whether or not he has blue eyes. Dawkins attacks the a priori assumptions of theology itself.
Arguments for or against the existence of a divine being aren’t the territory of theology, they’re the territory of philosophy, and Dawkins has most certainly studied these.
What it comes down to is this: none of these “criticisms” are a response to Dawkins’s arguments. They’re a way of avoiding having to address them.
Cowards~
On a somewhat but not quite unrelated note, Sam Harris writes about 10 myths and truths about atheism in the LA Times. Give it a read.
This seems to be a trend. Our current priest is relatively new. I can’t remember when he came here, but it can’t have been more than a few years ago. The one before that was ancient, and had been here for ages. He was a bit simple, but at least he was nice about the whole religion thing. He never really spoke on the subject of gay marriage, and I think he died before it got legalised here, but I’m pretty sure that he would’ve agreed with 
