Now while atheists like Dawkins may state that religion is delusional as a belief, this has nothing to do with whether or not you should believe in them. Optimally, everyone would hold as many true beliefs and as few false ones as possible, but it doesn't look likely right now. On a personal level, there is not that much damage in religion, as long as one doesn't take the Old Testament literally and kill people for capricious reasons. There are people who do however: they are mostly Muslim fundamentalists, and this is the problem with religion, that these people can be theologically justified in their actions, because their holy book commands them to do it!

Here's where the delusional part comes back in though: if anyone were to write a book today which commanded wholesale slaughter of various ethnic groups, and someone proceeded to carry out those commands, no sane lawyer would work on a defense that the book told him to kill people. They would plead insanity.

And, you wrote a bunch of paragraphs over one simple phrase. Let me clarify by having the courtesy to give a clearer picture, instead of quote mining. Actually, checking the book I read, you seem to have misquoted Hawking. The quote is as follows:

"If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God."

So he was talking about God in a pantheistic way. He was talking about the wonder of finding a complete theory of physics, which makes sense because that's what the chapter is about.

Dawkins cannot be happy topping that list. The core if Dawkins' argument is that science lead to the great enlightenment and the greatest defence against ignorance and prejudice is science. Yet there is hardly a scientific book on the list.

Dawkins' own hero, and greatest atheist book, comes 10th, social scientists are also-rans and the greatest science fraudster of all time, Freud, ranks equal to Darwin!

Richard, you still have a mountain to climb!