not sure where I said christians are entitled to a special status in society
It was the "No one comes to the Father except through Me" quote from Christ. For everyone on the planet who believes that - assuming all Christians actually do - there are more than three people who believe something else.
As for Canada, for about 15,000 years there was no Christianity. In 1604, when the First Nations population was somewhere between 200,000 and 2 million, a French Catholic colony was set up, and its population grew to about 70,000 by the time the English took over in 1763, bringing a flood of Anglican and Protestant Christians.
It looks like the European immigrant population grew larger than the First Nations sometime in the early 1800s, and certainly Christian sects were in the majority for about 200 years. They weren't particularly loving to the First Nations, were they?
Anyway, Canada is a multifaith country these days. Christianity is ahead by a few percentage points, but 45% of its citizens aren't Christian, so the government shouldn't tie itself explicitly to one faith.
No. I gave you one free pass for research already. If you are interested in why people think there was no Christianity in Canada for the 15,000 years prior to contact with Christians you'll have to do some reading on oral traditions in Canadian First Nations.
and were the first nations loving to the europeans?
They were at first. A lot of settlers would have died without them.
200k - 2 million. show me the records
An interesting request given that you haven't provided any sources for your statements. Five minutes on the Internet seems to confirm 200,000 as the low end of the estimates for Canada (sample link below). Just for interest I'll add that if you read the footnotes in Charles Mann's book "1491" the (much disputed by most academics) upper estimates for the indigenous population of the Americas prior to contact with European diseases is 200,000,000. It's almost guaranteed to be wrong, but just the fact that people who have spent a lifetime studying the subject can defend this statement against their colleagues. is food for thought.
It was the "No one comes to the Father except through Me" quote from Christ. For everyone on the planet who believes that - assuming all Christians actually do - there are more than three people who believe something else.
As for Canada, for about 15,000 years there was no Christianity. In 1604, when the First Nations population was somewhere between 200,000 and 2 million, a French Catholic colony was set up, and its population grew to about 70,000 by the time the English took over in 1763, bringing a flood of Anglican and Protestant Christians.
It looks like the European immigrant population grew larger than the First Nations sometime in the early 1800s, and certainly Christian sects were in the majority for about 200 years. They weren't particularly loving to the First Nations, were they?
Anyway, Canada is a multifaith country these days. Christianity is ahead by a few percentage points, but 45% of its citizens aren't Christian, so the government shouldn't tie itself explicitly to one faith.
No. I gave you one free pass for research already. If you are interested in why people think there was no Christianity in Canada for the 15,000 years prior to contact with Christians you'll have to do some reading on oral traditions in Canadian First Nations.
They were at first. A lot of settlers would have died without them.
An interesting request given that you haven't provided any sources for your statements. Five minutes on the Internet seems to confirm 200,000 as the low end of the estimates for Canada (sample link below). Just for interest I'll add that if you read the footnotes in Charles Mann's book "1491" the (much disputed by most academics) upper estimates for the indigenous population of the Americas prior to contact with European diseases is 200,000,000. It's almost guaranteed to be wrong, but just the fact that people who have spent a lifetime studying the subject can defend this statement against their colleagues. is food for thought.
https://www.google.com/search?q=first+nations+population+in+16th+century
India
Google is our friend.