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People like this only care about their religion being imposed on to others and seeing their holiday
I suppose you didn't bother to read the article.
No one is forcing Christianity on Iraq - these are Iraqi Christians who are celebrating their faith in peace in many years. They are not forcing their faith on muslims in Iraq.
The government of Iraq has seen fit to honor their fellow Christian citizens with a day set aside for them - I'd say that is truly astounding.
Why is the liberals get so incensed with such a topic - are they truly so intolorant and hateful?
Between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers lies Baghdad, a city of five million people. Iraq itself is a country of twenty-three and a half million, of whom about five percent, or one and three-quarters million, are Christian. It may come as a surprise, but under Saddam Hussein's regime, Christians enjoyed a measure of religious freedom not often found in the rest of the region.
Five percent is enough to support six major Christian denominations in Iraq, and several smaller ones. The largest is the Chaldean Church of the East, a Catholic sect believed to have been founded by St. Thaddeus, who is credited with spreading Christianity to Mesopotamia, India and China. The Holy Apostolic and Catholic Assyrian Church of the East have written records dating to the late second and even first century, the time of the Apostles. The Syriac Orthodox church is another ancient denomination, and is believed to have been founded by the Apostle Peter in Antioch in 37 A.D. There is also the Syriac Catholic Church, founded by Syriac Orthodox Christians who reconciled with Rome in 1781; the Armenian Orthodox Church, and a small grouping of Protestant denominations.
In Baghdad alone, there are forty-seven Christian churches of various denominations. At least thirty of the forty-seven were built after the Baath Party took power in Iraq in 1963. Before the Baaths, there were no Syriac churches — now there are six. In the same window of time, the number of Chaldean Catholic churches nearly tripled. Clearly the secularism of the Baathist regime did allow Christians to practice their faith with a freedom remarkable in that part of the world. Notably, only one Christian church (The Rising) was built in Bagdahd after the U.S. imposed sanctions in 1991.
Christmas Past
Christians in Iraq have been politically prominent. Saddam Hussien's Foreign Minister, familiar to Americans as Tariq Aziz, is a Chaldean Catholic who was born Michael George Yohanna. On the other side of the fence are Christian Iraqis like Mowfaq Fattohi of the opposition Iraqi National Congress.
Psst...what does that have to do with the fact that Saddam allowed Christians to worship in Iraq?
It has to do with the fact that conditions are different in Iraq right now then they were over a year ago - or a year-and-a-half ago, when they would have gathered the information for that article.
People like sanrene will not see that. They just see whatever they want. Not the important things like how badly our country is doing.
People like this only care about their religion being imposed on to others and seeing their holiday celebrated which is stupid! If these people cared about the country as a whole, we would be doing better.
Once again, you're wrong.
Christianity is NOT being imposed on anybody in Iraq. Period.
So you are saying that there was religious freedom under Saddam???
Aside from Saddam's brutality, he actually ran a secular government for the most part. That changed after our invasion. Extremists (Al Queda Sunni's?) killed many Christian leaders and many Christians fled due to persecution and in fear of losing their lives. I'm glad to see the news that Sanrene posted, and I hope it keeps getting better for everyone in Iraq. But before our invasion, there was little or no persecution or violence between the religious groups.
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