The year 1492 marks a watershed in modern world history. Columbus's voyage of discovery inaugurated a series of developments that would have vast consequences for both the Old World and the New. It transformed the diets of both the eastern and western hemispheres, helped initiate the Atlantic slave trade, spread diseases that had a devastating impact on Indian populations, and led to the establishment of European colonies across the Western Hemisphere.
This section identifies the factors--including rapid population growth, commerce, new learning, and the rise of competing nation-states--that encouraged Europeans to explore and colonize new lands. It explains why Portugal and Spain were the first to become involved in overseas exploration and why England and France were slow to challenge Spain’s supremacy in the Americas.
<span>Anthony Flew was an English philosopher, best known for
his philosophizing on religion. He represented the atheistic point of view,
moreover, he was the only philosopher who was called „the icon of atheism“. He criticized the religious ideas and beliefs, wrote many works with atheistic
attitudes, and denied existence of God on many public debates and lectures. The greatest controversy in his carrier appeared when he turned from atheism to
theism, and publicly admitted that he started to believe in God. Many atheists claimed that he didn't say that, so he wrote a book: There is a God. Even after
that, there were claims that this book hasn't been written by Flew, but by his
friend Roy Abraham Varghese, and that Flew was in state of serious mental
decline. But, Flew denied this claims too, explaining that Varghese was the one
too do the physical writing because Flaw was ill, and that all the
thoughts from the book are his own.</span>
