That hard work of doubting and looking is called science. All Dawkins asks you to do is to insist on evidence (which means a bit more than witness) for anything anyone presents to you as fact/truth. Yes, the stories and the customs and the fellowship are all nice - as long as you're in, of course. But don't try to oppose anyone else's customs and stories, etc., whatever you do!

Was that aimed at me, olddude? I don't think I know you, do I? I have no belief system, by the way. Believers like to characterise atheism as a belief system, which it patently isn't. I've never really worked out the motive for that. Don't forget, had religion never arisen, atheists wouldn't exist either! Would there still be an atheist belief system then, do you think?

"Shoving down throats:"

Group A: enforced signing-up to the club (christenings of tiny babies for example); severe threats of penalties for demurring (hell fire, social exclusion, etc); enforced participation in ceremonies; enforced indoctrination of children; mistreatment of women as second-class members of the faith; moralising standpoints about private matters such as abortion and contraception that precipitate thousands of people into misery; public showing-off of religious icons and symbolism irrespective of the faith, or not, of the captive bystander.

Group B: publishing of books that you don't have to buy and which don't get on school reading lists; an advert on the side of a bus that had the timid word "probably" in it; a few programmes on the telly (though nowhere near as many as Songs of Praise, etc.) that you don't have to watch (have I missed anything?)

Who exactly is ~really~ shoving things down whose throats?