Richard Dawkins and fairy tales

#909 for broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 15 Jun 2014.

Writing in Christianity Today magazine, Rachel Marie Stone recalls something that Christian apologist and children’s fantasy author C.S. Lewis once said:

Once about every hundred years some wiseacre gets up and tries to banish the fairy tale. It is accused of giving [children] a false impression of the world they live in. But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression.

Last week evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins remarked at a science festival that reading fairy tales to kids might be harmful. He later suggested that when kids discover it’s impossible for a frog to turn into a prince, they’ll be less inclined to place any trust in formal religious teachings.

But as Paul Harris, a researcher at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, points out, “the imagination is absolutely vital for contemplating reality, not just those things we take to be mere fantasy.”

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.