He is an ardent and outspoken atheist, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and vice-president of the British Humanist Association. He also writes for the Council for Secular Humanism's magazine Free Inquiry and serves as a Senior Editor. In his essay "Viruses of the Mind", he uses memetics theory to explain the phenomenon of religious belief and the various characteristics of organised religions, such as the punishments awaiting non-believers.
On the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould, Dawkins refuses to participate in debates with creationists on the basis that they will just use their proximity to a real scientist to gain legitimacy in the public eye.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins