Richard Dawkins vs. Harry Potter?

Why the author of 'The God Delusion' is writing a children's book

Apparently, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins thinks books like Harry Potter might have a negative effect on the emotional development of kids, said Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times. “Having sufficiently inflamed the passions of his adult readers with The God Delusion—his treatise on rationalism and atheism”—Dawkins has now decided to write a book that will “explore children’s relationships with fairy tales and encourage them to think about the world scientifically rather than mythologically.”

“This isn’t about Harry Potter at all,” said Harrison Scott Key in WorldMag.com. Dawkins has a beef with “Christianity and theism in general.” He believes that teaching kids about hell, for instance, is a form of child abuse. Will it make “Junior feel so much better to know the chasm of unfeeling blackness will envelope him upon death” instead?

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us