I think the fact that Dawkins has become the very thing he so violently resists - a violent, intolerant fundamentalist who brooks no further questioning of his own authoritarian narrative - is evidence enough that there is still much, much to be discovered about the way life works. His is a cultural view, and we know for a fact that all culture is a lie which must be re-told in order to persist.
The more the human mind finds answers, the more questions it reveals - such is the nature of an infinite universe and our struggle to perceive it. If "God" doesn't exist we humans sure do spend a lot of time attempting to become one. "God" may not be a "he" sitting "on a cloud", but may indeed just be the New Question beyond every Old Answer. This fact seems to be rabidly overlooked by the Dawkins cult, which prefers to define God in its own, limited terms, in order to find fault in their chosen pariah cultures.
The jury is still out. On a scale of 1 to 7, 0.1 is just enough uncertainty to allow for yet more unanswered questions .. Dawkins, himself, has at least a little of the humility required to admit that.
Yeah, well maybe God is the sum total of everything, including your much-despised woo woo .. which, in my opinion, is the opposite of the kinds of totalitarian schools of thought that threaten our cultures, time and again.
Without the woo and whimsy and make-believe, what have we got left in our cultures? If we kill religion we may as well kill theatre and literature and all the other things which require this unmeasurable substance in order to be viable ..
I can't speak for what your parent poster is trying to say, but I can tell you what I mean when I say the same thing.
Let me use a specific example. I often say that capitalism is terrible for workers. Yet I work for a capitalist company that is--in my opinion--quite good to its workers.
Being a "realist" has told me that when looking for a job, I should be careful to avoid toxic cultures, exploitative management, and being underpaid relative to whatever I consider the fair market value of my labour.
But being a realist has also told me that toxicity, exploitation, and stinginess are unevenly distributed, and therefore it is a wise thing to shop around and negotiate for what I want.
I would NEVER say, "Toxicity is just how all businesses work. Demeaning and bullying people is just how company cultures are. Exploiting workers is what businesses do. If you can manipulate someone into working such long hours their health suffers, good for you. And negotiating is impossible, all companies push their workers around."
Being a realist means acknowledging what is in the universe, but it also means acknowledging that the universe contains variety and that almost everything is unevenly distributed.