Abstract

In all world cultures, law and religion are considered practically and inextricably intertwined affairs; only in Western modern culture, on the contrary, law is less or more secularized, and religion become a matter of faith, belief and conscience. This paper is about religious freedom, conceived as freedom of religion and as freedom from religion too. In its first and more analytical part, three conceptions of religion are distinguished - comprehensive, thick and thin - depending of the larger or closer extension they attribute to religious sphere. In the second and more historical one, an historical sketch of the evolving law-religion relationship is provided. Finally, in the third and more normative or interpretive part, thin conception of religion and conception of religious freedom as liberty of and liberty from religion are applied to three constitutional questions, as it were, sensitive to religion: biological life, same-sex marriage, and life's end.