Volume 122 Issue 1 January/February 2007

Editorial: We feel good: Secularism isn't on the wane, despite what you read in the media, says Caspar Melville

Cover Stories

Ban the Pope: The Vatican has power without accountability, an archaic structure and is launching an assault on secularism. Time to abolish it, says Fred Halliday

Thinker: Francis Crick: Matt Ridley unravels the humanist code of Francis Crick
End Game: Mixed feelings: Emotionally subnormal and proud of it. That's Laurie Taylor
Diary: Comic timing: Shappi Khorsandi reflects on the glamorous life of an atheist stand-up

We're all humanists now: A new opinion poll shows that the majority of British people trust science more than religion and do not base their morality on religious belief. Andrew Copson reports
Gentle rottweiler: Laurie Taylor interviews Richard Dawkins: Richard Dawkins' attack on religion has been hailed, revered and derided. He talks to Laurie Taylor about the mixed reception of The God Delusion
Sexual cleansing: Islamist death squads in Iraq are targeting gays and lesbians, reports Peter Tatchell
Natural truth: Marybeth Hamilton celebrates the passion of a record collector
Who turned off the light?: Abdelwahab Meddeb considers why radical thinking has failed to penetrate the Arab world
You must remember this: As Valentine's Day approaches, Sally Feldman warns that a kiss is never just a kiss...

Piss, shit and blood: In laying bare the entrails of 18th-century society, claims Martin Rowson, Hogarth was the first modern journalist
Love, life, Goethe: The great German writer was that wonderful contradiction, a romantic rationalist, says John Armstrong

Letter from Busota: New Humanist readers have raised £2,698 for the Mustard Seed school in Uganda. Headmaster Moses Kamya tells us what the money means
Women sold short: Rebeca Zúniga-Hamlin considers whether Ortega will tackle Nicaragua's dismal record on abortion rights
Sand for the thirsty: Conversion to Buddhism is no solution to the evils of India's caste system, says Sanal Edamaruku

Logics of Disintegration: Post-Structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory by Peter Dews: Daniel Miller reconsiders post-structuralism with Peter Dews
Genesis Machines: The New Science of Biocomputation by Martyn Amos: Bill Thompson investigates bio-computing with Martyn Amos
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers: Philip Womack is unilluminated by Richard Powers
Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum: Michael Binyon visits the Victorian spritualists with Deborah Blum
The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright: Jim Herrick dances the amalgamation polka with Stephen Wright