Word to the wise. It is foretold that Christmas is coming

Bring your loved ones godlessness, Frankenstein and mirth this year – buy them a gift subscription

Simply visit www.newhumanist.org.uk/subscribe or call 01371 851881 (you can choose when to start) SEPTEMBER & OCTOBER 2011

REGULARS 5 Editorial Big talk 6 Godless globe 9 Witness Austin Mackell,

PadraigReidy,KenanMalik, EbenezerObadare 12 Yours sceptically Readers’

letters 49 Chris Maslanka’s Quiz 50 Endgame Laurie Taylor finds it hard to say goodbye

FEATURES 13 Faith healers Can religious groups be trusted to deliver public services in the Big Society? asks James Gray 16 Repeat offender Ricky

Gervais on shock comedy and why God loves him really 18 Eye witness When

Vicky Simister was excommunicated from the Jehovah’s Witnesses she lost her family, her friends and her faith 22 I am bovvered Owen

Jones on tackling class hatred with his new book Chavs 26 Aftershock A

decade after 9/11 the reverberations continue, says Stephen Howe 31 Match made in heaven As the new football season kicks off Sam Delaney has a crisis of faith 34 Varieties of irreligious experience There are many ways not to believe, finds Jonathan Rée 40 Human folly Erasmus unwittingly ignited a secular revolution, says Matthew Adams 42 Apocalypse then Aaron

Rosen frames John Martin’s images of Armageddon

[42] Art at the end of the world

[13]Isthesecular state safe in his hands?

[18]Closingthedoor on the Jehovah’s Witnesses

COLUMNS

21 Briefing: Nine Lessons Adam

Rutherford looks ahead to Godless Christmas 2011 25 Sally Feldman Warning!

Susan Greenfield could rot your brain 30 Chown’s Cosmos Life in the oceans of Europa? 39 Pamela Haag A humanist defence of marriage

BOOK REVIEWS

44 Stephanie Merritt is spooked by MR James’s ghost tales 45 Poem John Burnside 46 Philip Womack is absorbed by AS Byatt’s Norse myth 47 Nina Power chooses The

Tyranny of Choice 48 Bill Thompson goes Barefoot

Into Cyberspace 48 Angela Saini is frustrated by

Steve Fuller

[16]

Meet the comedy messiah