Volume 126 Issue 4 July/August 2011

Editorial: School for scandal: Education is a fundamental concern for humanists – so it's no surprise that AC Grayling's New College is dividing opinion

Cover Story

Demonising Muslims: When does criticism of religion cross the line into racism? Paul Sims investigates

God & Devil: Country Songs: Five tracks about God, and five about the Devil. Selected by Andrew Mueller
Trouble at Grayling Hall: Its difficult not to see the New College of the Humanities as misguided and anti-humanist, says Sally Feldman
Preying on sadness: Psychics do have special powers – turning grief into money, says AL Kennedy
Just say 'No' to Nadine Dorries: The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is pushing abstinence and attacking abortion rights. What young people really need is proper sex education, argues Zoe Margolis
A Fatah-Hamas truce is good for Palestinians: The Arab Spring is aiding political reconciliation in Gaza, explains Sami Zubaida
Briefing: Assisted dying: It’s time the government gave us the right to end our lives, says Terry Pratchett
Q&A: Marcus Brigstocke: Between the arrogant believers and the smug atheists stands a lone comic, with only a successful career for comfort.

Moon dance: More than just a pretty face, our closest companion in space could be the reason we are here at all, argues John Gribbin
Undiscovered: A misreading of science has persuaded us that we are no more than our evolved brains. But, argues Raymond Tallis, a more expansive philosophy of humanity is mounting a fight-back
Diagnosis evil: Simon Baron-Cohen wants to redefine how we think of human cruelty. Caspar Melville meets him
No doubt: Since there is nothing useful about the God hypothesis, we can happily discard it. Physicist Mano Singham makes the scientific case for atheism
Captive audience: Sympathetic ear or religious recruiter - what’s a prison chaplain for? Richard Smyth finds out
Ways of seeing John Berger: Marxist, novelist, art historian, farmer, philosopher, artist, object of reverance, provocateur: Laurie Taylor looks at the 85-year-old polymath from every angle
Different angle: Andrew West's photos of the Mustard Seed Secular School, Uganda

Quiz: Come on, you've urn-ed it: It's pot luck for bankers' bonuses with New Humanist quizmaster Chris Maslanka
Chown's cosmos: Spiders from Mars: What causes the dust devils on the Red Planet’s surface? asks Marcus Chown
Endgame: The wrong note: In which Laurie Taylor takes up a new hobby
New Humanist Cartoons July August 2011: Cartoons from the July?August issue of new Humanist magazine

Slayer of religion: For critic James Wood the novel offers an antidote to unforgiving certainties, sacred and profane. Matthew Adams meets him

Book review: The Matter With Us by John Rawles: Richard Norman explores the matter of the human predicament
Book review: A God of One's Own by Ulrich Beck: Keith Kahn-Harris discovers religion in modernity
Book review: Crooked Talk by Jonathon Green: Michael Bywater finds that Jonathon Green is the aceman of lexicographers, and that's no honey-fuggle
Book review: Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason Stearns: Richard Wilson is impressed by a new book on the collapse of the Congo
Book review: How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran: Jenny Bunker enjoys Caitlin Moran's flippant feminism