The God Delusion Jr.? Dawkins Is Working on a Children’s Book

[cynatnite]

Having sufficiently inflamed the passions of his adult readers with “The God Delusion,” his treatise on rationalism and atheism, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, left, has said he is writing a book for children. In an interview with Britain’s Channel 4, Dr. Dawkins said he was working on a book that would explore children’s relationships with fairy tales and encourage them to think about the world scientifically rather than mythologically. “I would like to know whether there’s any evidence that bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards and magic wands and things turning into other things — it is unscientific, I think it’s antiscientific,” Dr. Dawkins, left, told More4 News. “Whether that has a pernicious effect, I don’t know.” No publisher or release date for the book has been announced.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/arts/31arts-THEGODDELUSI_BRF.html

[immoderate]

1. I have always been an atheist. Yet...

One of my favorite first books as a child was a book of bible stories. I also liked comic books. I didn't believe in Samson any more than I believed in Superman or the Green Lantern. A lot of my reading as a child and young adult was mythology, fantasy and eventually science fiction. I think the point is not to discourage fantasy but to understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

--IMM

[cynatnite]

2. Right now I'm struggling with whether or not to talk to my 9 year old...

or if I should wait until he's older when his mind is more developed.

I let him go to church on Wednesdays with my mother. He is not allowed to go on Sundays because I feel it would be too much. The stuff was crammed down my throat as a kid and I came to really despise it. I don't want him to go through what I went through.

For me, Christianity was not a positive experience at all. It was about fire and brimstone, going to hell and all that. I grew up southern baptist.

Some of the things I was told should never be inflicted on a child.

[immoderate]

3. I think I would wait until he has questions. Conditioned on...

whether he has access to input about rational thinking, and reasonable science education. Sounds like fifth grade. Fourth? A good age to be experimenting. At that age I was firmly an atheist, but knew that there was no vig in flaunting that. I spent plenty of time in synagogues. Forced time. Of course, your results may vary. Has he said anything about his personal beliefs?

I'm a Jewish atheist. Most of the Jews I grew up around were kind of secular. Lots of atheists. The Jewish god, to liberal Jews, is a lot more abstract. Jews don't really think god intercedes in mundane matters, or that souls cavort in heaven after death. The only reference to the dead in the mourning prayer is to the memory of somebody. That's why Jews like to get their names on buildings. Also the real punishment for the immoral, evil, and rotten, is that anybody who is alive enough to remember them, thinks they're a piece of shit. That makes sense to me. I guess that's why I'm a Jewish atheist.

--IMM

[YankeyMCC]

4. I talked to my son at that age

even earlier actually. I did not stop him from going to church with his mother on occasion (the 'on occasion' was her doing not mine) and in fact while I was still going with them just to keep them company at that point, I would talk to him about anything I heard in the sermon that I thought was a good message or a bad message, occasionally I would make a point of saying something was clearly a myth - like the few times a priest would talk about a 'devil'. But most of all I just made sure he knew what I believed and kept listening for any questions he might have and teaching him morals as best I could.

It may be time for a pointed, if simplified discussion, at 9 but of course that depends on the child. I think it as long as you continue to be open to letting him experience things and remain open and ready to answer questions you'll do well by your son.

[funflower]

5. Believing in magic is a normal part of human development.

The problem is when people resort to all kinds of emotional blackmail (hell, anyone?) to pressure people to continue to believe magical stories when they should have outgrown them. Our approach is to gradually move the discussion more and more into the realm of evidence-based reality as the child matures.