Volume 119 Issue 5 September/October 2004
Cover Stories
- Assault on freedom
- Nick Cohen deplores the sinister absurdity of Blunketts latest proposal for dealing with religious hatred
Features
- Anarchist with attitude: Laurie Taylor interviews Linda Smith
- Comedian Linda Smith, who died last year, was the president of the British Humanist Association. In this interview from 2004 she talks to Laurie Taylor about atheism, authority and her passion for pricking pomposity
- The elephant bird's tale
- In an exclusive extract from his latest book, a Chaucerian pilgrimage to the remote past, Richard Dawkins roams the lost continent of Gondwana
- What kind of humanist are you?
- Join in our game of Poker Faces to find out. Your answers to the questions below will determine the value of your cards. Your hand will reveal who you are and what tricks you may have up your sleeve...
- One hellhole under God
- Christopher Lord explains why American conservatives suddenly care about Sudan
- Searching for secular Islam
- Ziauddin Sardar proposes new ways to separate religion and politics in the Muslim world
- Backlash in disguise
- Eliane Glaser wonders why so many level-headed nonbelievers are suddenly falling for white dresses, bridesmaids and solemn vows
- A woman's right to choose
- As a number of backbenchers prepare to table Private Members Bills on abortion in the coming term, activists demanding more stringent controls are now targeting women Labour MPs with hate mail. But far from pressing for a tighter law, argues Farah Reza, we should be campaigning for abortion on demand.
- Turbulent priests
- Lionel Fray Lewis reports from Spain on moves by the newlyelected socialist government to ex-communicate the Church
- Nowhere man
- Elia Zureik born Palestine, left Israel, lives Canada discovers under interrogation at Tel Aviv airport that he has lost his identity
Culture
- Where's the action?
- Jeremy Stangroom has enough of haçiendas
- Awkward Questions
- Andrew Tudor asks what makes a good documentary
- Utopian rallying call
- Stan Cohen salutes Edward Said's last book
- Diderot's triumph
- Haydn Mason consults the original humanist bible
- Secular spiritualities
- David Boulton meets a rational primate
- Gay gobbledegook
- Brett Lock doesn't recognise Queer Street
- Learning to think
- Jonathan Derbyshire gets thinking with David Papineau
- Writer's block
- Sally Feldman on a flawed portrait of Henry James
Columns
- Blue Period
- The reason its so tough being Tory leader, suggests Simon Hoggart, is that you just cant get the staff these days
- Class Action
- Marilyn Mason applauds the inclusion of humanism in the new Religious Education
- Getting correctness right
- Political correctness has gone mad, declared the Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard in a recent speech.
- Heavenly bodies
- Laurie Taylor finds himself at a feast thats impossible to swallow
- Blunkett's folly
- This might be one of the last issues of New Humanist you read. Our particular brand of God bashing could soon get us in quite a lot of trouble.
- Tales from the city
- Jon Binnie wonders whether gays really should be glad to be global