The world's most famous atheist has now come out against Harry Potter and all fantasy stories, saying that they could lead children to disbelieve science. In fact, he's writing a book to warn children off of fairy tales. You can't make this stuff up:
Prof Dawkins said he wanted to look at the effects of "bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards"."I think it is anti-scientific - whether that has a pernicious effect, I don't know," he told More4 News.
"I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research."
Alan Jacobs masterfully explores the mad scientist's descent into self-parody. As Jacobs points out, Dawkins' atheist fundamentalism is just as joyless and pinched as Christian fundamentalism.
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well, he's right to dislike Potter [utterly useless waste of paper], but he takes it too far in saying it'll make kids disbelieve science. Rather the opposite. Imagination is not only important, it's necessary to science and the innovations that come from applying the creativity and imagination found in fantasy to reality.
It's sometimes crossed my mind that perhaps Dawkins is a secret Christian, going round putting people off atheism. You know - in the same way that I sometimes wonder about televangelists and Jehovah's Witness door-to-door canvasers being secretly employed by the Humanist Association.
well, this quote says alot
"I haven't read Harry Potter, I have read Pullman who is the other leading children's author that one might mention and I love his books. I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales."
Pullman is a RAGING atheist who rails against JK Rowling for "indoctrinating kids" with the tenants of Christianity...pretty ironic that many religious won't even touch a Potter novel...so it makes sense that another atheist would uphold this sillieness
enjoy your blog Ron
Prof. Dawkins refers to “the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes” and wonders “whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality.”
Well, he does, in fact, believe that the frog did indeed turn into a prince, it just took millions of years!
As far as Pullman, he wrote a book about “killing God” but then attempted to water-down his purpose when he wanted dollars as well as pounds. See: Atheism’s Sales Pitch to Children.
This article is a gross misrepresentation of what Dawkins actually said, as usual.
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