A friend to the friendless
In the July/August 2011 issue of New Humanist, Richard Smyth assessed the role of prison chaplains. Here David Silver, who is serving a life sentence in HMP Gartree, offers his…
Rationalism, Atheism & Humanism
Captive audience
Sympathetic ear or religious recruiter - what’s a prison chaplain for? Richard Smyth finds out
Slayer of religion
For critic James Wood the novel offers an antidote to unforgiving certainties, sacred and profane. Matthew Adams meets him
Freethinking in the Arab Spring
Expressing irreligious views can be dangerous in the Middle East but, for the region's largest group of online rationalists, the Egyptian revolution is a cause for optimism, finds Max Opray
Q&A: Marcus Brigstocke
Between the arrogant believers and the smug atheists stands a lone comic, with only a successful career for comfort.
Open hearted
Undergoing life-saving surgery Ronald Aronson realised that there is a force beyond ourselves giving our lives meaning. It just isn’t God
Editorial: Big books
Bibles, doubt and morality without God
Quiz: A lurgical problem
Quizmaster Chris Maslanka challenges you to sidestep death and defeat the dreaded lurgy
Book review: The Godless Boys by Naomi Wood
Philip Womack is uninspired by a dystopian debut
Book review: Blood Rites by Barbara Ehrenreich
Jenny Bunker finds a re-issued book on the passions of war more pertinent than ever