Volume 127 Issue 3 May/June 2012
- Editorial: Pork, alcohol and sex
- Leaving religion behind
Cover Story
- No more lies
- In his powerful new book, The Young Atheist’s Handbook, Alom Shaha challenges young Muslims to be honest if they don’t believe, and calls on organised atheism to broaden its appeal beyond an intellectual elite. Here he explains why he wrote it
Columns
- Against the credulous
- Modern spin and marketing have made us too easy to fool. It's time to get real, argues Eliane Glaser
- Reasons to be cheerful
- The eradication of polio is a sign of India's progress, says Angela Saini
- The flawed Olympic legacy
- The construction of the Olympic Park has transformed East London. But will the plush shopping mall and gated developments really benefit local residents? asks Owen Hatherley
- How I became the poster-boy for polygamy
- In their increasingly desperate fight against equal marriage, Christian campaigners will use any argument to mask their homophobia. Which is why they're holding me up as the figurehead of an unlikely cause, says Martin Robbins
Features
- Is your brain right-wing?
- Political differences have their origin in the way we are wired, according to research in cognitive neuroscience. It’s offering a whole new perspective on politics that we ignore at our peril, argues Chris Mooney
- Rites & responsibilities
- The appalling case of Kristy Bamu, tortured to death for being a witch, suggests belief in malign spirits is becoming widespread in Britain. Sarah Ditum explores what is being done to protect the vulnerable
- Cult following
- Exploitative religious fringe groups are on the rise in the UK. What should we do about it? James Gray reports
- The death of American secularism
- Who is America's leading secularist? Thats right, there isn't one. And if someone effective doesn't start speaking up for the seperation of church and state soon, it could be lost for good, argues Jacques Berlinerblau
- Never ending story
- Helen Bamber has been listening to the victims of torture, cruelty and genocide for more than 60 years, but she retains her faith in humanity. Caspar Melville meets her
- Q&A: Shazia Mirza
- Taboo-busting comic Shazia Mirza has combined an international reputation for close-to-the-bone gags with a belief in Islam. But now she faces her greatest challenge as she submits to New Humanist’s very own inquisition
- Curiouser and curiouser
- It means both inquisitive and odd, and drives human discovery. Philip Ball traces a curious history
- Saint for all seasons
- The front runners are men, but could a woman born more than half a millennium ago hold the key to the French elections? asks Sally Feldman
- The passion of the bishop
- After years of struggle with his faith and dispair at the church's in-fighting and repressive attitude to sex, fomer bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway left religion behind. Caspar Melville hears his confession
- Phony war
- A motley minority of moralists have launched an assault on British secularism. Bad move, says Paul Sims
Regulars
- Alien sunset
- It's dusk, but not as we know it. Marcus Chown explains
- Endgame: Whine dining
- Laurie Taylor has his very own euro crisis
Culture
- Purring sycophants with an agenda
- Gods, devils, self-centred ingrates? Ralph Steadman decodes the aloof allure of cats
Book Reviews
- Book review: Breaking Their Will by Janet Heimlich
- Richard Wilson on an important exposé of religious abuse
- Book review: Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach
- Stephen Sedley judges the memoirs of a jaded lawyer
- Book review: The Communist Manifesto
- Francis Beckett savours a new edition of a classic
- Books review: Rabbis behaving badly
- Liberals have a history of sparking controversy within British Judaism. Keith Kahn-Harris surveys new books by two trouble-making leaders
- Book Review: Seven Years by Peter Stamm
- As coldly stylish as a Corbusier apartment building, with a narrator who is a "pillock", it might be the best novel of the year. Will Wiles is torpedoed by Peter Stamm's latest.
