How the Diseased Mind of Christianity Sees New Discovery

On October 12, 1492 Christopher Columbus landed on an island that the natives called Guanahani.  He renamed it San Salvador (now part of The Bahamas) and wrote of the natives,

Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language. [...] I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased.

When told that the natives were being attacked and were probably being used as slave labour, rather than feeling their plight, Columbus thinks to himself, Those other islanders have a great idea!  These people would make great products for the Christian-driven slave trade!

Then, the absolute next thing, after personal gain of human property, he thinks about is how easy it would be to convert then to his own religion of Christianity.  He naively sees them as non-religious because nothing they do reminds him of his own religion and, with no respect for their own culture or beliefs, he kidnaps (you can’t get informed consent across a language barrier) six of the natives on a long ship ride back to Spain.

There is no awe at finding a new, undiscovered (by Europe) culture and land, nor is there respect for the newfound peoples and the desire to learn about them.  Columbus only wanted to use these people as slaves, force them to convert to Christianity and forcefully supplant their own government with a government of himself.

To borrow from Christopher Hitchens:  Once again, religion poisons everything.  Happy Columbus Day, everybody, and to those who actually celebrate it, go fuck yourself.