Our respectability among juvenile fans of Harry Potter may have just gone up a notch: Daniel Radcliffe has cheerfully declared himself to be an atheist.

I’m an atheist, but I’m very relaxed about it. I don’t preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch.

I understand that this same segment of society has also found a heightened interest in the works of playwrights like Peter Schaffer, so we know the Harry Potter effect can help. If only Radcliffe had an excuse to take his clothes off for atheism…

Of course there is also the complementary effect that the people who were convinced that both Harry Potter and atheism were the demon-spawned products of Hell have now had their suspicions confirmed.