New Humanist: Clarify your thinking
Cover of New Humanist Volume 122 Issue 5 September/October 2007

Volume 122 Issue 5 September/October 2007

Editorial
Those calling for partition in Iraq should remember the consequences of another attempt to carve up a diverse society along religious lines

Cover Story

Degrees of separation
This year, a record number of student activists have been found guilty of terrorist crimes. As the new academic year begins, Paul Sims assesses how universities are dealing with the challenge

Columns

Quack science
Award-winning crime writer Christopher Brookmyre explains why his latest book is dedicated to Dawkins, Randi and the debunkers of pseudo-science

Features

When worlds collide
Scientists must not indulge mysticism, argues Yves Gingras
Virtue rewarded
Virgins of the world unite, says Sally Feldman. You have nothing to lose
Forced labour
200 years since it was abolished, slavery is not only still happening, reports Rahila Gupta, it’s actually increasing all over the world
Secrets and lies
Survivors of child abuse at religious schools are finally making their case, reports Francis Beckett
Finger on the trigger
If Pakistan falls, Jihadis will have the bomb. Maruf Khwaja warns of his country’s deepening crisis

Regulars

End Game: Faking it
Laurie Taylor comes clean
Thinker: Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach was the man who brought religion down to earth, says Nina Power
Diary
Lucy Mangan is lacking put-downs for the pious

Culture

Native son
175 years after the death of Scotland’s most celebrated novelist, Murray Pittock asks if Walter Scott was an enemy of the Enlightenment, or its champion
God slot
Radio 4's Thought for the Day has for four decades infuriated humanists with its daily dose of religious platitudes. But, argues David Hendy, it could be a force for freedom
Out of this world
Why is fantasy taking over our TV screens? Natalie Haynes unravels a mystery
Only joking
Introducing our recent public debate on humour at London’s Royal Society of Arts, Laurie Taylor discovered that laughter can be a serious business

Book Reviews

The Art of Listening by Les Back
Stuart Sim is impressed by Les Back's approach to sociology
From Anger to Apathy: The British Experience Since 1975 by Mark Garnett
Stephen Howe is bored with apathy
Diary of a Bad Year by JM Coetzee
Stan Cohen reviews JM Coetzee's latest
A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward
Keith Kahn-Harris on a Jewish photographic history
The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong
Rev'd Dr Giles Fraser on why you should read the Bible
Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamic Turn by Asef Bayat
Sami Zubaida questions Islamic democracy
Rationalist Assocation
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