He is a famed atheist, a disbeliever in the existence of an Almighty, and now an outspoken supporter of bringing Bibles back to state schools in England.

Richard Dawkins, the well-known British atheist, wrote in the Guardian that he supports education secretary Michael Grove's plan to send free King James Bibles to every school.

In fact, he said he would have even donated to the cause insisting that: "A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian."

However, Dawkins has an additional motive for supporting Secretary Grove's plan.

"People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality," Dawkins writes. "The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself."

"Whatever else the Bible might be – and it really is a great work of literature," Dawkins writes in The Observer blog, "it is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite."

According to the Christian Post, the Bibles are to be gifted on the 400th anniversary of the translation.