I spend more time reading
Philip Reeve than any other author. My two youngest boys (aged 11 and 9) still like a bedtime story each evening and at the moment, Reeve is what we read. It amuses me, reading the stories, because I feel my cyber atheist friend,
Ron Murphy, would heartily approve of the material. Especially in the forming of young minds and the avoidance of brainwashing (see
the comments here). Reeve has characters that continuously undermine and mock superstition and religion. In the current book, 'Here Lies Arthur'
our heroine is the magician's assistant, and the power of stories is unpacked. She is also the 'lady of the lake' and is amazed at the way their scam is believed. In the previous one 'A Web of Air':
the heroine is Fever Crumb and she knows that the only way to stifle progress in terms of flight is to invoke religion and pretend that the goddess has forbidden it. An outbreak of religious zealously occurs after she has done this, and the possibility of flight is put back a hundred years. I read a
comment by Reeve that "Fever Crumb is a fierce and vocal atheist who makes Richard Dawkins look like a country vicar". In fact, in the book Fever Crumb:
I felt that Reeve was exploring what it meant to be entirely rational and scientific. He seems to use lots of themes that the '
New Atheists' explore, but he seems to take it to a place where all the relationships become avoidant and emotions are suppressed. In the fist book we read, Mortal Engines:
the heroine, Hester Shaw is a very self-possessed young woman who is unmoved by allegiances to this or that. Again this had echoes of religion and how illogical religion can make people. Oh, and in Larklight:
the character Myrtle has a "19th century Onward-Christian-Soldiers type of faith which I was really trying to make fun of",
says Reeve. Goodness, we really have read lots of his books!
Why am I telling you this? Well because I think they are good books and they make me think. I am also with Ron, if my children grow up to have a healthy scepticism of superstition I will be happy. Of course, that is different than knowing God, imho.
