Richard Dawkins suffers stroke.

[scoobysnack]

You don't become known publicly as influential without being a voice of authority. The fact that many recognize him as being influential, means he must influence someone. He can be considered the high priest of the anti-God establishment. Of course I mean the previous sentence as semi sarcastic, but seriously he is someone that atheists push as a voice that speaks for them.

So in essence, you're saying that Dawkins should not be trying to influence people.  He should keep his beliefs to himself?  Why?

Not at all, I'm all for free speech. It was the criteria in the article to make the list and he made it to number one.

To make it on SuperScholar’s list of influential living atheists, an atheist can’t merely disbelieve in God but also must actively encourage others to disbelieve in God. But even that isn’t enough to make our list. Bill Maher and Penn & Teller, for instance, use their prominence as entertainers to promote atheism. But they do so mainly as popularists, not as scholars attempting to make a considered case against theism and for atheism.

Thus, to make it on our list, an atheist needs not only to be actively promoting atheism but also to do so as scholars in scholarly forums – this is, after all, SuperScholar! All the names below fit that bill. They are notable scholars in their own right and they use their scholarship to promote atheism explicitly or to promote forms of thought that make belief in God untenable.

http://superscholar.org/features/influential-atheists/