Yeah, Turkey is right on the cusp between the ME and the West. Attaturk came in to power & did a massive secularization of Turkish society. But I have no idea what it's like there, now. Saddam was trying to secularize Iraq but I think all of that is gone now.
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Iraq has pretty much been secular since the time it was a kingdom right until the 90s when Saddam had a mass campaign to spread religion. That aside, he has always been an atheist hiding behind Islam.
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I stand corrected. I thought Saddam and the Ba'athists were attempting to secularize Iraq. My bad. Thanks for the correction. I had gotten the impression Saddam was brutal against any kind of religious extremism and would stamp out any kind of uprising.
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You are partially correct Saddam was against religion most of his rule. After Gulf War I & his invasion of Kuwait he began the religious campaign in the 90s where religion was taught in schools (but of course it was Sunni Islam), Shias were still suppressed.
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Tariq Aziz was a Roman Catholic & he was Saddam's right hand man. But, yeah, after the 1st Gulf War, Saddam was probably getting desperate. I remember him pretending he was Muslim and trying to rally support. Plus, the war with Iran was long & brutal.
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Most of Saddam's private chefs were Assyrian Christians - he was paranoid abt ppl poisoning his food. I was friends with an Assyrian guy on here + he told me Saddam supposedly had Christian roots (not sure if its legit), Iraqis were either Christian, Jewish or Pagan before Islam.
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The Qur'an is pretty much a mixture of Judaism, Christianity and pagan ideas. The Ka'aba was an ancient pagan center long before the Muslims came along.
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I'm not anything. And I've tried almost everything. I did the pagan thing, Wicca & occult stuff. I tried Islam, Xtianity, Buddhism. Not just read about it, but I would participate, get involved. But nothing ever stuck. It's all like a mirage; ephemeral.
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People will worship anything. Right now, in the US, people believe in the government. I've never seen such submissive, obedient sheep in all my life. Whatever the govt & big corporations tell them, they follow blindly, willingly. It's scary.