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The original Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the pursuit of happiness, sovereignty of reason, and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
We believe those values never faded away and are, in fact, as foundational today as they were three hundred years ago.

A group of Canadian humanists have created a new website where people can freely discuss subjects of concern in civilized debate. The New Enlightenment Project website contains information on enlightenment principles and invites forum discussion about their application and modification.
While the sovereignty of empiricism and reason along with advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, and fraternity have universal application, what deserves to remain universal and what is best left to particular cultures is the raging debate of our time. This forum allows such discussion.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
James Baldwin 1924-1976
“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
― Margaret Atwood –
1939 –
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
Richard Dawkins – 1941 –
Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.
Steven Pinker – 1954 –
Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.
Hannah Arendt 1906-1975

What does it really mean for a state to be secular? When does neutrality mean protecting visible freedom of conscience and when does it mean limiting visible symbols in official roles?

Featuring Michel Virard of the Association humaniste du Québec and Leslie Rosenblood of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, this event will unpack how secularism can mean either the freedom to display conviction or the obligation to conceal it and what that means for the future of Canadian pluralism.

Join us for 2 Solitudes of Secularism, a live online Zoom conversation exploring two distinct visions of secularism shaping Canada today.

Register to Join the Debate
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