It's interesting that you think Dawkins didn't stand a chance in his debate with Lennox. I thought Dawkins destroyed him, to the point where I almost felt embarrassed for Lennox. Most of his arguments were essentially "I don't understand this, therefore God did it".
To provide another opinion to this thread, I thought The God Delusion was a fantastic book. Definitely worth the read in my opinion.
the main problem i found with it was its dismissive tone, which makes it hard to take it seriously. his thesis was all religion is bad and evil, and atheism is the only viable and reasonable "belief" (for those who haven't read it, i'm not exaggerating his views). for someone who eschews fundamentalism, it seems like he's quite the fundamentalist atheist.
it would've been better if his arguments actually matched the level of his claims, but they don't. for example, he admits that there is no equivalent to evolution in theoretical physics, yet he doesn't admit that his conclusions overreach - essentially, he says "i don't understand this [idea of the finely-tuned universe] yet, but science will eventually prove me right." very similar to the type of thinking as stated above.
i also found him to:
1.) mischaracterize his opponents' positions, or at least simplifies away any nuance. not all christians are right-wing radicals, and not all muslims are extremists either.
2.) be extremely biased, even to fellow atheists. he sings the praises of EO Wilson ("celebrated Harvard biologist") because Wilson agrees with him, but has no such adjectives for Stephen Jay Gould (another atheist) who doesn't fully agree with him, and actually calls Gould a bully.
3.) not once did he mention anything good that religion has done. no mention of the abolitionist movement, anti-eugenics, Bonhoeffer's resistance against Hitler, roots of non-violence, civil rights, modern-day efforts against sexual slavery, etc. it's fine if he believes those things aren't valid or aren't religious in origin, but he doesn't even bring it up, which is just bad scholarship.
-my 2¢
