Protection of Conscience Project
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GENERAL

RELIGIOUS GROUPS

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Coalition’s religious discrimination bill goes far, but not far enough

  • Xavier Symons |  It is no surprise that the Religious Discrimination Bill is being criticised as too strong by aggressive secularists and too weak by people of faith.  .  . It is a religious discrimination bill with a narrow focus on a very specific set of issues. . .  a patchwork, jury-rigged, rickety scaffolding to placate religious critics without laying a firm foundation.
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What Is Religious Freedom?

  • Robert P. George"  |  In its fullest and most robust sense, religion is the human person's being in right relation to the divine. All of us have a duty, in conscience, to seek the truth and to honor the freedom of all men and women everywhere to do the same.
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Conscience and Community: Understanding the Freedom of Religion

  • Richard Garnett | "Religion," said Justice William Douglas in his Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) opinion, is "an individual experience." The opinion was a partial dissent, and this statement is partially correct. But, it does not tell the entire story.
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After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar's, What Is God's?

  • Frank R. Wolf |As we ponder, "What Is Caesar's, What Is God's?", I am reminded of a profound quote from one of Virginia's native sons. Founding Father James Madison once opined, "Conscience is the most sacred of all property." And as it relates to our discussion today, I maintain that conscience is most assuredly God's. In that vein, I'd like to begin with a personal story . . .
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The Illusion of Neutrality

  • Anthony Esolen | We have all heard what has come to be a liberal dictum, that the State must remain neutral as regards religion or irreligion. One can show fairly easily that the men who wrote our constitution had no such neutrality in mind, given the laws that they and their fellows subsequently passed, their habits of public prayer at meetings, and their common understanding that freedom without virtue, and virtue without piety, were chimeras.
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RELIGION, PLURALISM AND SECULARISM

Bioethics Intends to Destroy Catholic Healthcare

  • Wesley J. Smith | . . . Most bioethicists, it is fair to say, seek to destroy Catholic institutions' and professionals' medical conscience rights and force them (and other religious or conscience dissenters) to adhere to the advancing utilitarian bioethical imperative.
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Global Charter of Conscience: A Global Covenant Concerning Faiths and Freedom of Conscience

  • The Charter has been drafted by people of many faiths and none, politicians of many persuasions, academics and NGOs, all committed to a partnership on behalf of "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" for people of all faiths and none.
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Pluralism, Religion and Public Policy

  • Preston Manning  |  People of faith - and there are millions of such people in Canada - need guidelines on how to bring faith perspectives to bear on public policy in a winsome rather than an offensive way. And public policy makers in our pluralistic society - many of whom regard faith perspectives with suspicion if not outright hostility - need to learn how to incorporate such perspectives into their deliberations rather than exclude them. . .
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There Are No Secular Unbelievers

  • Iain T. Benson | Mr. Benson draws attention to the erroneous notion that "secular" means "faith-free". He argues that this error is transmitted through the culture and imposed by the courts, thus allowing the "implicit faith" of atheists and agnostics to dominate and displace all others. "Why," he asks, "should the opinions of those who don't know or refuse to articulate what they believe dominate those who can say what they believe in and why they think it matters?"
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Why 'public' should not mean 'atheist'

  • Iain T. Benson | . . .Nothing in our theories or history should support turning religious believers and their communities into second-class citizens when it comes to public involvement and funding. In short, atheism and agnosticism ought not to be favoured public claimants in Canada any longer. . .
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Making Room for All in the Public Square

  • Sue Careless | . . .Globally, religion is gaining clout, and the way we order our lives together politically is once again being forced to take into account the spiritual. So argued many of the speakers at a "Pluralism, Religion, and Public Policy" conference held Oct. 9-11 at McGill University. Citizens, they said, should not have to check their deepest beliefs at the vestibule before entering the public square. . .
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The Illusion of Moral Neutrality - Part IV

  • J. Budziszewski | . . .if religion is the practice of ultimate concern, then we have another problem. In the first place, even a secularism may be the practice of an ultimate concern. . . .In the second place, even among those secularisms that do not go so far as to identify ultimate concerns, none is without implications as to what could, or could not, count as an ultimate concern. . .What all this tells us is that "religious" and "secular" constitute a false dichotomy. . .
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The Need to Accommodate Conscience and Religion

  • Cristina Alarcon | I would like to address . . . a great flaw in our current code of ethics - the failure to provide for the accommodation of conscience and religion. [But first] I would like to touch on the international recognition of the dignity of the individual because such dignity is for all people whether . . . patients seeking medical services . . .or those who provide them . . .
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In Defense of Religious Freedom

  • Catholics and Evangelicals Together | .. .we offer this statement, In Defense of Religious Freedom, as a service due to God and to the common good. The God who gave us life gave us liberty. The God who has called us to faith asks that we defend the possibility that others may make similarly free acts of faith. By reaffirming the fundamental character of religious freedom, we contribute to the defense of freedom and to human flourishing, in our countries and throughout the world. . .
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Religion: A Public or a Private Right?

  • Susan Hanssen | Our public debate about religious liberty is missing a clear definition of religion. The absence of that definition has generated confusion, frustration, shrill voices, and short tempers.
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Criminalising Christian behaviour - legally enforced political correctness

  • Peter Saunders | This edition of Triple Helix highlights three possible changes in British Law that could lead to Christians receiving criminal convictions . . .
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Cooperation of Church and State Conference
Centre for Cultural Renewal, June, 2006: Calgary, Alta.
Separation and Cooperation: Perspectives from the USA, Canada & Europe

Establishment, Separatism and Religious Freedom: British and European Perspectives

  • Professor Ian Leigh
    Department of Law, University of Durham
    (Video)

Separation and Cooperation: Perspectives from the USA and Europe

  • Dr. Allan C. Carlson
    President, The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society
    (Video)     Paper On Line

Separation & Cooperation within Canadian Pluralism

  • Professor George Egerton
    Department of History, University of British Columbia
    (Video)    

Theocracy & Cooperation Through the Ages in Judaism, Christianity and Islam 

Theocracy and Pluralism in Judaism

  • Dr. David Novak
    J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor  of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto
    (Video) Paper On Line

Politics Between the Earthly City and the City of God in Christianity

  • Professor John von Heyking
    Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge
    (Video)     Paper On Line

State and Religion in Islamic History: Lessons for Pluralistic Polities

  • Professor Mohammed Fadel
    Assistant Professor of Law, University of Toronto
    (Video)

History of Cooperation & Implications for the Present

Panel Discussion

  • Dr, David Novak, Professor John von Heyking, Professor Mohammed Fadel 
    (Video)

The Role of Religious Beliefs in Developing Holistic Conceptions of the Person and Culture

Homo Socialis: The Rediscovery of a Forgotten Species

  • Dr. Paul Reed -
    Senior Social Scientist - Statistics Canada, Professor, Carlton University
    (Video)

In Image and Likeness: Individual Dignity and Societal Nobility

  • Dr. Terrence Downey 
    President, St. Mary's University College
    (Video)

Disease and Illness, Curing and Healing: Health Care in the Context of Church and State

  • Dr. David Kuhl
    Director of the Centre for Practitioner Renewal
    (Video)

Threats to Cooperation Between Religion & the State in Canada Today

Education, Health Care and the Media: Handling Cooperation and/or Separation

 Cooperation and Conflict Between Church and State in the Media

  • Rev. A. Logan Craft 
    Church and State with Logan Craft:  Exploring Religion and Politics - Santa Fe, New Mexico
    (Video)

Religion and Public Schooling at the Calgary Board of Education - A Case Study

  • Gordon Dirks
    President, Rocky Mountain College, Calgary Board of Education
    (Video)    

Medicine, Professionalism & Conscience: Is Pluralism 'One Size Fits All'?

When Beliefs Differ: Articulating a Framework  for  Cooperation

  • Iain Benson
    Executive Director, Centre for Cultural Renewal
    (Video)

CONSCIENCE AND MORAL REASONING

Conscience, authority and moral intuition

  • Alexander Pruss |. . . Our moral intuitions while being a genuine source of moral knowledge are often distorted by the desire to find excuses for our own faults or, more excusably, those of friends. Moral intuitions should not be glorified with the name "conscience". . .
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ECUMENICAL AND INTERFAITH STATEMENTS

Position Paper of the Abrahamic Monoetheistic Religions on Matters Concerning the End of Life

  •  The aims of this position paper are:  To present the position of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions regarding the values and the practices relevant to the dying patient, for the benefit of patients, families, health-care providers and policy makers who are adherents of one of these religions. . .
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2024 Jan 01