Richard Dawkins: Against Harry Potter?

Er. The Daily Mail is a crank magazine.
You’re better off trusting Von Daniken’s crazy shit.

Dude. Been following news of him for a while. Still believe that if I can be half as charming as he is in his age, then I win. Still, the comment on Harry Potter is silly but regarding the air stewardess incident, we all think like that sometimes.

I say show us a picture of the British Airways employee so we can decide for ourselves.

I’d say dull looking, but then she’s trying for sympathy a little too hard which affects her looks.

I actually think that it would be interesting to see what effect fairy tale fiction has on rationality in later life. Mostly because I think it is none, but it would interesting to delve clearly into what makes such stories so relevant to us: because they are so very quaint and charming that we wish they were true, despite knowing very well that they are not. I know that pretty much every non-religious supernatural phenomenon I could think of was of interest to me when I was younger. Didn’t mean I thought that they were real, but still, it was entertaining to imagine the “what-if’s”.

But, it is clear that there many people who just can’t settle for “what-ifs” and demand that one particular romantic speculation into the unknown and unknowable should be viewed as ultimate truth, and every other similar account is inferior. I call it…fandom.

I wonder if Elles will have anything to say about these pictures here at the end of this post…

From the sound of it, Dawkins is only wondering whether fairy tales and mystical fiction have an adverse effect on rationality. He’s not outright dissing HP, nor is he saying that fairy tales undeniably affect rationality. Daily Mail is deciding to take his ambivalent words and make them say something they aren’t.

I don’t think fairy tales of magic are a problem at all for kids when learning rational thinking. My kids (ages 7 and 5) are just now getting to the age where we can talk about whether magic is real (they’ve been watching “Mary Poppins” and some episodes of “The Muppet Show” where some magical stuff happens).

My son Nico (7) was saying that it’s sad that magic isn’t real. I replied that it isn’t sad at all because he can imagine and invent any kind of magical stories he likes. That seemed to satisfy him, and he’s excited for the day when he’s old enough to make his own movies! 😀

Oh, I hope at some point Professor Dawkins does read the Harry Potter books. I think he might like them very much, as do my thoroughly skeptical children. The Potter books portray what a universe might look like in which magic actually works: magic is predictable, measurable, and follows rules. In other words, it’s “science”. The kids in the book have lab courses, mountains of homework, and practical exams in magic, and their professors do research and write scholarly papers. The ghosts aren’t mysterious fleeting apparitions; one can have conversations with them. Goblins are real and run the bank. There is no serious “woo” in the Potterverse; only one major character has “faith without evidence”, and she is considered a crazy eccentric for it. The fundies criticize the books for being about “magic”, but they really should fear them for their encouragement of rational thinking.

Right on, John Morales. Hasn’t everyone said someone looked stupid at some point in their life? We all must be douchebags, then.

It bothers me when atheists apply higher standards to other atheists than to fundies in an effort to demonstrate how unbiased they are. I don’t recall seeing any posts here slamming theists for calling someone stupid-looking. Theists do plenty of other waaay, waaay more significantly harmful things, and, frankly, in light of those things complaining about them commenting on people’s faces would seem pretty petty. But when Dawkins does it, everyone goes out of their way to register their disdain. Who do you think is impressed with your indignation? Not the fundies, that’s for sure. Your self-identification as atheists is enough to make them want to tell you to sit down and shut up, at the least. Maybe you could impress the moderates, but I agree with Sam Harris that they are the ones who pave the way for extremists, and pandering to them is a big mistake, IMO.

I mean, look at the comments. We have pinnacles of balance and fairness like noodleguy here who thinks that a biologist merely wondering if fairy tales could have an effect on rationality and then stating he actually doesn’t have an opinion on fantasy and fairy tales one way or the other is juts as scary as fundies trying to actually ban books and do everything in their power to obstruct access to those books. Really? Really?!?

*shock* Me? A pinnacle of balance and fairness? WHY THANK YOU! I feel just like Fox News!

Alright, Dawkins is not being as bad as the fundies that want to BAN the books. That’s just unacceptable.

But he’s still being frankly silly about it. They’re childrens books. This is something the fundies also fail to recognize. The purpose of the books is not to push some hidden agenda to make kids act irrationally (or to make them all satanists.) I, personally, read incredible amounts of science fiction and fantasy when I was younger and never was swayed to think that it was real. Actually when books didn’t have believable, consistant enviroments I never liked them.

I mean, really? Its Harry Potter. The only hidden agenda in it is that J.K. Rowling wanted to make a lot of money from minimal work and somewhat shoddy writing.

Also: the thing about calling the woman stupi looking was not acceptable. Its just not nice…

And why can’t we hold our fellow atheists to higher standards then the fundies? They expect anything up to and including satanism and bestiality from each and every one of us, and complete purity of eachother. We might as well hold our own up to high standards: Do we need more of a bad reputation? People already think that atheists are jerks, so Dawkins calling some girl stupid looking because she was wearing a cross is giving us all a bad name.

However, accusing him of “douchebaggery” is just rude. Also: I agree that this piece is a hatchet piece on Dawkins. I think maybe a scalpel was needed here, instead of the axe.

Oh, well there you go.

Then the above piece was really misleading, wasn’t it? Unnecessarily and unfairly harsh against Dawkins (as much as I love this blog) Seriously: not cool for misleading me about this.

I totally feel bad for Dawkins now.

Well, it really was pretty obvious from the article that Dawkins is not against Harry Potter or magical stories. It’s sad that now he has to write a response to acquit himself of being an enemy to the imagination. You just have to keep in mind that the media tend to try to create a controversy where there is none. Once you read what he actually said, there’s nothing even remotely shocking. Frankly, I don’t recall finding anything he’s ever said shocking. But people somehow still manage to get their panties in a bunch over his every comment.

As for higher standards, noodleguy, I guess I didn’t phrase it very well. Of course you can’t expect fundies to adhere to the same standards as people who are not so far removed from reality. What I meant is that we as a society are sort of willing to let fundies get away with things that an atheist can’t expect to get away with instead of having one standard for everyone. And like I said, you’re not going to do much about the people who think atheists are jerks. The real issue here is that they are unable to treat people as individuals instead of members of a horde, and until they are able to do so, prejudice is not going anywhere.