Volume 123 Issue 5 September/October 2008

Editorial: Something to believe in: With so much to choose from, what do you believe in?

Cover Story

Sex appeal: America’s Religious Right has devised a seductive new recruitment strategy, reveals Dagmar Herzog

What lies beneath: Even godless humanism needs a sense of the spiritual, says Paul Heelas
Without illusions: Doug Ireland welcomes a passionate and practical approach to secularism
Speak up: Why do women screech when men shout? Sally Feldman explores the sexual politics of the voice
Unmasked: Paul Sims finds out what’s behind the anarchic anti-cult group Anonymous
Origin of the specious: AC Grayling dissects Steve Fuller's defence of Intelligent Design
'Follow God, work & provoke no one': That’s the philosophy of a unique Muslim sect. Richard Dowden traces its spread across the diaspora
Fathers under fire: Elizabeth Wilson on the new scapegoats
How do I look?: Richard Gregory died on 17 May 2010. Here is something he wrote for us in 2008. Seeing is believing, it is said. But, asks Richard Gregory, could it be the other way round?
Faith healers: Peace through religious understanding is an admirable goal, argues Edna Fernandes. But who should be paying for it?

Diary: Heard the one about the ex-Muslim?: It's fine to laugh at religion, just don't pander to the knee-jerk bigots, says Nick Doody
Endgame: Walk on by: Laurie Taylor tries a bit of continental drift

The Ten Commandments: In his new book, New Humanist cartoonist Martin Rowson sums up the history, and future, of the world in one word
Cold flesh: From interior designer to poet of the grotesque – Owen Hatherley traces the evolution of a tortured artistic humanist

God's Executioner by Micheál Ó Siochrú: Stephen Howe on a new history of Cromwell's Irish adventure
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd: Philip Womack wonders why Peter Ackroyd has meddled with a classic
Manifestos for the 21st Century: Caroline Moorehead reviews an impressive new series on censorship
Stop Me If You've Heard This by Jim Holt: Natalie Haynes is not amused by a new study of humour
The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life by Austin Dacey: Jenny Bunker is at ease with a secular conscience