Richard Dawkins has a new book coming out later this year, a children’s book titled The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (pre-order from Amazon US or Amazon UK). Beautifully illustrated by regular Neil Gaiman collaborator Dave McKean, the upcoming release features the 70-year-old vociferous atheist discussing mythical explanations for elements of the cosmos, and then countering with the ‘magic of reality’:
In other myths, the sun is not a god but one of the first creations of a god. In the creation myth of the Hebrew tribe of the Middle Eastern desert, the tribal god YHWH created light on the first of his six days of creation – but then, weirdly, he didn’t create the sun until the fourth day! ‘And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.’ Where the light came from on the first day, before the sun existed, we are not told.
It is time to turn to reality, and the true nature of the sun, as borne out by scientific evidence…
I’d imagine this book is the one we discussed a few years back, when Professor Dawkins started mentioning the possible “insidious effect on rationality” that fairytales could have with children.
Click on the image below to view a PDF sampler of The Magic of Reality (13Mb):
The Magic of Reality is due for release in the U.K. on September 15, and in the U.S. on October 4.
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