In an article appearing at stream.org entitled "World's Most Famous Atheist Now Sees the Value of Christianity" (see here), Jonathon Van Maren notes that British scientist Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheist, has recently acknowledged that eliminating religion would actually not be a good idea. This is because, according to Dawkins, "people may feel free to do bad things because they feel God no longer is watching them" (as quoted by Van Maren). This is quite an extraordinary admission, given that in the past Dawkins has been quite adamant that religious belief needs to be eliminated because it is so dangerous, even telling The Irish Times in 2015 that "children need to be 'protected' from the religious beliefs of their parents," according to Van Maren.
Dawkins' new-found appreciation for the benefit of religious belief, is, however, problematic for his atheism. First of all, by stating that "people may feel free to do bad things because they feel God no longer is watching them," Dawkins is essentially admitting that atheism is, by itself, unable to inspire people to act morally. Second, if belief in God is desirable because it promotes conformance to certain moral norms, then, arguably, promoting atheism is actually harmful to society as a whole. Consequently, Dawkins himself, by seeking to undermine theism, is actually doing a "bad [thing]."
Third, Dawkins' concern about people "[doing] bad things" because they don't believe in God is logically inconsistent with his atheism. If God does not exist, then there are no objective moral laws--since objective moral laws presuppose a Lawgiver. If there is no objective morality, then nothing is "good" or "evil"; nothing is "right" or "wrong." They just are. In short, if Dawkins' atheism is true, then it follows that he has no reason to be concerned about people doing "bad things" since there are no "bad things" that people can do!
To conclude, I suppose that we who are theists should feel somewhat vindicated that even Richard Dawkins admits that belief in God is not an entirely negative thing. However, it seems obvious that Dawkins has yet to appreciate how damaging his admission is to the atheist project. Moreover, Dawkins clearly is still far from acknowledging that theism (more specifically, Christian theism) is not only socially useful, but also intellectually compelling.
Image of Richard Dawkins from Wikimedia Commons