Anglican.net

Thanksgiving for Columbus

The 9th of October, Columbus Day, has formed a nexus of attacks on Christopher Columbus as a person, on US as a country, and on the West and Christianity as a whole.

Let’s discuss why his was a heroic achievement, which should be celebrated by all👇

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Was Columbus’ great expedition, discovering a hitherto unknown Continent, indeed a discovery, given that there were humans already living there?

Answered by this proverb: “Whoever was first to discover water, it wasn’t the fish.”

Or as Einstein put it: “Of what is significant in one’s own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?”

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2) On the subject of complexity of Columbus’ voyages, lest someone thinks they were “no big deal”, see this thread showing them to have been among the top achievements in all of world history:

https://x.com/newatlantissun/status/1579476276448231428?s=46&t=N-PFMMEcttFGlPP3qS-9kA

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579476276448231428.html

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3) “What about the American Indians?”

They were bloodthirsty nomads who periodically exterminated their fellow neighbouring tribes. Europeans were simply better at war, science, commerce, everything really; who mercifully gave them some land to live on:

https://twitter.com/ferryman4747/status/1708147180710899761/video/1

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Samuel Eliot Morison, “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” (1956)
-if you’d like to know more about the great explorer, without any revisionism, there is no better book