I am totally agnostic on this one - but as I say - what if, without belief systems (or indeed the ability to dispute them) we would be less of a race? This doesn’t prove the existence of God, but perhaps it could explain the need of many to believe in something, without knowing why.

Thinking about it, it should be provable - do there exist atheistic cultures that thrive without any additional/spiritual support? I maybe need to do some research

You remark, “Buddhists, Hindus and other non-Abrahamic religions got off pretty scot free”. I think that although this is correct and there is an overwhelming bias against the Abrahamic religions, Dawkins is careful to be explicit that the sort of God he is debunking is “a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them)”. He is also explicit in excluding a deist, non-interventionalist God and Spinoza’s God.

That, however, doesn’t explain why he concentrates on the Abrahamic religions so much. That bais is a direct result of the fact that it’s followers of Abrahamic religions, and specifically Christianity, that are attacking the scientific method, and the book explicitly hopes to deconvert them.

You then say, “Of course God is highly improbable, but then so is the human race, but then so is the human race, the latter fact one which Mr Dawkins felt proved itself by the presence of thee and me. The fly in the ointment is perhaps the assumption that we can only judge by what we can measure [...]“.

You’re right, but of course not only do we have tools that allow us to examine much more of the universe than we ourselves can experience, but also Theists are constantly insisting that God is interacting with the physical world that we can see. There is no evidence to prove this, and moreover, we do have falsifiable theories that consistantly do what is predicted upon testing that preclude their being a God of the nature proscribed by Theists. The fact is that we’re inprobable, but provably, testably in existance. God is improbable, undetectable and worst of all (for theists), unnecessary.
On a scale of 1-7 where 7 is total atheism, Dawkins describes himself as a strong 6; show him evidence and he’ll reconsider. On the basis of what we have now, God doesn’t do the business, and he’s getting more improbable all the time…

Bloody atheists, eh? Douglas Adams was one, of course, converted from agnosticism by his mate, Richard Dawkins.