MAY & JUNE 2010

REGULARS 5 Editorial Catholic crisis 6 Parish news 10 Yours sceptically Readers’

letters 31 Chris Maslanka’s Quiz 50 Endgame Laurie Taylor doesn’t get it

FEATURES 14 The abuse of scepticism From the Holocaust to climate change, denialism is rife. Keith Kahn Harris explores the syndrome 18 A star is born

Marking 20 years of the Hubble Telescope, Marcus Chown chooses his favourite shot 19 Work ethics Does a nurse have the right to wear a crucifix? Richard Rowson introduces a fair way to decide 22 Interview: Rebecca Goldstein

Laurie Taylor meets America’s cosy atheist novelist 26 On Tractor Street The Soviet

Union’s history is written all over its facades, finds Owen Hatherley 29 Q&A Daniel Dennett and

Linda LaScola, authors of “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” 32 Behind closed doors

Sally Feldman lifts the lid on the vulgar art of snooping 36 It’s immaterial What links esoteric Hinduism and quantum physics? Jay Lakhani explains 40 Divine image Aaron Rosen on what the godless can learn from religious art

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What can the godless learn from religious art?

[32]Exposed! Lifting the lid on snooping

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[29]Priests who don’t believe who don’t

COLUMNS 9 Diary Martin Rowson welcomes the death of The Novel 13 Opinion There are other skeletons in the Catholic Church’s cupboard, says Richard Wilson 30 Opinion To be happy be gloomy, says Roger Scruton 39 Thinker: Voltaire Ian

Davidson on the world’s first celebrity

BOOK REVIEWS 44 AC Grayling struggles with

Terry Eagleton’s On Evil 46 Stephen Howe goes inside

Hamas and Hizbullah 47 Francis Beckett finds out if

God is still an Englishman 48 Jonathan Rée says, gaffes aside, Hugh Trevor-Roper was a great historian 49 Poem “Josephine Baker

Finds Herself” by Patience Agbadi

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Bang up the pope? Results of our exclusive poll pope? Results of our exclusive poll