Volume 120 Issue 6 November/December 2005

Notes from the Blasphemy Depot: History is much on our minds this issue. This month we celebrate our 120th birthday.

Cover Story

The debunkers: India's rationalists are on the frontline of the battle between science and superstition. Caspar Melville reports on their fight to debunk "holy men"

United states?: Kalypso Nicolaïdis puts her faith in the idea of Europe
Viewing the body: Explicit media images of death perform a vital social function, argues Jean Seaton
After bombs and ashes: Moving back from Yale to the London School of Economics, Professor Paul Gilroy finds his home town changed but the people just as mixed up
Hermann Bondi, 1919 - 2005: Jane Wynne Willson remembers an extraordinary man

Is it time for humanists to start holding services?: We all need rituals, says Dave Belden
The blasphemers of Johnson's Court: New Humanist was launched under the title Watts's Literary Guide 120 years ago this month. Jonathan Rée digs in the archives
Are you being served?: It's the season of spending again. But this year you don't have to feel quite so guilty. Sally Feldman can now reveal that shopping is a humanist act
An extremely brief history of time: Dr Jonathan Swingler is head of the Engineering Department at the University of Southampton. He has been a creationist since he was 18, the same age at which he began studying physics. Richard Harris finds out what he believes
Line of beauty: Laurie Taylor interviews Edmund White: Edmund White, high priest of casual sex, tells Laurie Taylor why he's still glad to be a gay icon
...or is that just what we could do without?: We have all the rituals we need, counters AC Grayling

Demons for sale: A low budget film about exorcism has become a runaway success in the US, writes Solana Larsen
Ergo Mania: 'I shop, therefore I am'

Lies, all lies: Chris Paling visits Paul Auster's Brooklyn
Natty Dread: Lloyd Bradley assesses the eternal influence of Jamaica's finest
What is genocide?: An extraordinarily large part of modern legal, human rights and academic discourse is devoted to finding the 'right' definition of genocide, says Stan Cohen
The red death: Michael Binyon on the bloodiest and most costly war ever fought.
No doubt: Nina Power has some doubts about a new history of scepticism
Light reading: Candy Clarke on Nadime Gordimer's 14th novel