>had Europeans been atheists Silly counterfactual. A more interesting one would be if Europe had remained firmly Pagan instead of substantially Christianizing

>had Europeans been atheists Silly counterfactual. A more interesting one would be if Europe had remained firmly Pagan instead of substantially Christianizing in the first millennium AD. In that case, one could imagine that no great religious alliances would oppose the Ummayad and Ottoman caliphates, nor would Byzantium hold out as long as it did... eventually we might be looking at an Islamic colonization of the New World, as the well-regarded Islamic traditions of science and scholarly inquiry ultimately discovered America. A big question would be whether colonization and conquering would proceed at the same pace without the Spanish efforts, and if not, whether smallpox resistance and the like could have taken root and afforded the native American peoples a better fighting chance. And would the same ethnic groups be represented among the colonists? What slavery practices would we have seen?