Christopher Columbus

Here is last year's Columbus Day post:

Columbus and Civilization

Some new articles (new to me, anyway) to add to that list:

Rediscovering Columbus - Prison Fellowship

Why Did Christopher Columbus Discover America? He Was a Postmillennialist

Finally, Bryan Caplan says of Columbus: The Far Left is Dead Right. The far left is nuts, as last year's post (and its links) attempted to show. But Caplan makes a gnat-like correct point while swallowing the left's incorrect camel: Columbus wasn't perfect.

The interesting thing is, Columbus in his own life is a microcosm of Christianity through history. Early Christians regrettably imported many false ideas from the Greco-Roman culture around them. Over the centuries, Christians have become more mature, wiser, more consistent with the teachings of Christ, and hence less statist. Christians abolished slavery, though it took far too long.

As I mentioned last year, Columbus saw the errors of his ways. At the end of his life, Columbus regretted his use of the sword against defenseless natives. He had bought into the myths prevalent in his day that justified the State and its use of the sword, and especially the view that certain people could be thought of as non-human and the State could choose to take their lives in order to advance its own material prosperity. Columbus repudiated his earlier championing of this "pro-choice" mentality, and became pro-life. Convicted of his sins in his later years, Columbus purposed never again to wear the costly garments of "the Admiral of the Ocean Sea" and assumed the brown habit of a Minorite friar as a symbol of his penitence. This remained his costume when in Spain for the rest of his life.

The modern world of Political Correctness has learned nothing from Columbus. Even the hysterically overstated estimates of "historians" like Russell Means (nearly a hundred million native Americans killed by Europeans) pale in comparison to the democide committed by 20th century Secular Humanists: an average of 10,000 people per day, every day of the week for 100 years; nearly half a billion people murdered in this century.

Columbus was an admirable man, as well as a product of his times. His times were Christian, but crippled by the myth of the Greco-Roman State. Our times are non-Christian, empowered by the myth of the Secular State, and therefore more enslaved and more violent by several orders of magnitude.

Happy Columbus Day!