The Western Hemisphere

I periodically collect postings about similar subject matter and combine them together into one compound posting. This is a new such compound posting about the western hemisphere. 5) MEXICO AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH is new. It has not been posted until today.

1) THE LONG VIEW OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

2) THE COLUMBUS FACTORS

3) INDIA AND COLUMBUS DAY

4) CHINA'S GREAT REUNION

5) MEXICO AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

1) THE LONG VIEW OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

The way that we see relationships between historic events depends on our time perspective. At the present time, for example, we see the two world wars as separate conflicts. But in the future, that may change and historians may see the two as one conflict with a break in between which, in many ways, it was.

With that in mind, I would like to offer some perspective on two major issues in America today. Although this applies to the entire western hemisphere. These two major issues are immigration and the "drug war". But if we could take the long view of things, we might see how these two issues are part of the entire unfolding scenario of Europeans being in the western hemisphere.

The clash of civilizations between white Europeans and the native Indians of the western hemisphere is really a centuries-long saga that is very much still in progress. But we tend to see this clash just as the initial direct conflict phase.

The present "War on Drugs" is very much a part of this clash of civilizations. Dangerous addictive drugs can be used as weapons. When a country is conquered, and direct resistance is no longer possible, the game isn't necessarily over yet. The next strategy might be to turn the occupation force into drug addicts.

The Inca of South America were conquered by the Spaniards. But it came at a price, in fact a heavy price. The conquerors had been introduced to the insidious white powder known as cocaine.

Likewise, the European conquerors of North America were introduced to tobacco. The white Europeans had superior weaponry and ultimately prevailed. Or did they? What if we were to count as casualties of the conflict everyone who has died of any illness that was related to smoking? There were massacres on both sides, but nothing remotely compares with the Tobacco Massacre.

White Europeans built great civilizations on what had formerly been native Indian land. But now those civilizations suffer so much from drug abuse and have prisons full of people who were involved in the illegal drug trade. The opioid crisis, while not stemming from illegal drugs, still fit with this scenario. This is part of the clash of civilizations which has been going on for centuries and is far from over.

The second of the two major issues is immigration. Probably the most troubled border in the world is that between the U.S. and Mexico. But what happened is that the native Indians that have inhabited the region for thousands of years were at least semi-nomadic, meaning that they moved around. White Europeans came along, some speaking Spanish and some English. They drew a border between them and expect the native Indians to comply with the border as well.

The immigration issue in America revolves around Hispanic would-be immigrants to the country. There is relatively little immigration of white Europeans anymore. But the majority of Hispanics are of mostly native Indian ancestry. Their "pushing back" is very much a part of this centuries-long clash of civilizations. The conflict consisted of a relatively quick conquest by the Europeans, with superior armaments, but then a long and slow rebound by the native Indians.

While the drug issue is the native Indians indirectly continuing the conflict, even if unintentionally, the mass immigration of Hispanics represent the native Indians rebounding and eventually absorbing the white Europeans. That is what this continuing conflict is about, not conquering the white Europeans and regaining their land, but gradually absorption of them by a Hispanic population with higher birth rates.

When one nation conquers another, it may seem better to be the conqueror than the conquered. But the view might seem different over the long term. In the ancient Middle East, there was a warlike people known as the Hyksos. They even conquered Egypt. But the Hyksos seemed to have disappeared from history.

What happened, of course, is that the Hyksos vanished into the people they had conquered. 

In medieval Europe there was a conquering people called the Normans. The king of France ceded some land to them on the north coast of the country, which is today called Normandy. From there they conquered far and wide, but then disappeared into the people that they conquered. Aside from their extensive building in stone the only significant trace of the Normans remaining today is the division between those with "original" Irish names and those with Norman Irish names.

Being a conqueror can actually be perilous, especially when a smaller nation manages to conquer a larger one. When occupation troops begin marrying local women, the conqueror may simply disappear into the conquered.

The native Indians of the western hemisphere are gradually on their way to absorbing the white European civilization with which their ancestors began the clash that is still ongoing today. It would be much further along today if the native Indians had not suffered such catastrophic population loss due to new diseases to which they had no immunity. This is what it looks like when seen over the very long term. The major advantage that Hispanics have is simply a higher birthrate.

One early sign of this reemergence of native Indian civilization, and it's eventual absorption of white European civilization was, as I see it, was the term of Benito Juarez, a native Indian, as president of Mexico in the Nineteenth Century. Unlike in days past, so many nations in the western hemisphere today have presidents that have mostly, or all, native Indian ancestry.

China today is very much involved with the nations of South and Central America. But this fits perfectly with the idea of the native Indians gradually absorbing the white Europeans. Remember that the ancestors of the native Indians came from Asia. During the ice ages, extensive glaciers form on land when it gets cold enough that the snow from one winter hasn't melted yet when the following winter begins. But this takes water out of the oceans, meaning that sea level drops during the ice ages. A land bridge formed between Siberia and Alaska and the ancestors of today's native Indians were able to walk across.

This drop in sea level is also how people got to Japan. When China forms bonds with the nations of the western hemisphere and Peru has president Fujimori, of Japanese ancestry, and there is a strong Japanese community in Brazil, it is only a matter of distant relatives getting back together.

The native Indian civilization in the western hemisphere will never be like it was prior to contact with the Europeans. It will be forever changed by the absorption but now with all of the knowledge and technology that came with meeting the outside world.

One of the greatest ironies of all involves India. There have been so many invasions of India down through the centuries but what has always tended to have happened is that India ends up absorbing the invaders and making them part of the mix. How ironic that the native Indians of the western hemisphere are so-called because Christopher Columbus, who initiated this great clash of civilizations, thought that he had landed in India.

To really understand the issues of today it helps to have a look at the longer-range view. Things that seem to be separate are really connected in the overall picture.

2) THE COLUMBUS FACTORS

Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, and the generally most famous name from the Age of Discovery. His idea was to reach the east by sailing west. Columbus was not the first European to reach the western hemisphere but was the one that established permanent contact between the two.

The results would change the world forever. The reason that the native people of the western hemisphere are called "Indians" is that Columbus thought that he had reached India, and apparently died without ever realizing that he had found new continents. The far-reaching interchange between the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean is known as the Columbian Exchange. Corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate and, tobacco were brought to Europe. Wheat, rice and coffee were brought to the western hemisphere.

We know that one factor that motivated Columbus to make these epic journeys was his interest in Bible prophecy, as we saw in the recent posting on this blog "The End Of The World As We Know It". He considered the results of his journeys as being related to bringing about the Last Days of the world, before the return of Jesus to earth to set up His promised Millennial Kingdom. Christopher Columbus later wrote a book about his own prophecies.

But what I want to write about today is other possible factors that might have motivated Columbus to try to reach the east by sailing west.

THE ST. GEORGE FACTOR

The first of these other factors involves St. George. This was the patron saint of Columbus' native Genoa. The flag of Genoa was the red-on-white St. George's Cross.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoa#/media/File:Flag_of_Genoa.svg

This is the same as the flag of England, whose patron saint is also St. George..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_England#/media/File:Flag_of_England.svg

England's St. George's Cross is the central red cross on the British Union Jack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg

It is also the flag of the nation of Georgia, which was named for St. George.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#/media/File:Flag_of_Georgia.svg

Although the cross is not on the Portuguese flag, St. George is also the patron saint of Portugal, and there is a St. George's Castle in Lisbon.

The reason that this is important is that, before finally sailing for Spain, Columbus first approached Portugal and sent his brother to approach England, the sailing nations that shared Genoa's patron saint. I conclude that St. George was certainly a factor in inspiring the journeys of Columbus.

THE VENICE FACTOR

Two centuries before the journeys of Columbus, a native of Venice named Marco Polo had made a famous journey to the east, not by ship but by land. Columbus had a copy of the story of his adventures. This must have been a factor in inspiring Columbus.

But Venice and Genoa had been long-time enemies. Venice was famously devoted to it's patron saint of St. Mark. They had even brought the bones of the Apostle by that name from Egypt to Venice.

Maritime powers like Genoa and Venice had long ruled the Mediterranean. But times were changing. The sailing of Portugal's Vasco Da Gama around the southern tip of Africa to India had opened up an entirely new frontier. The balance of power was shifting away from the Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic. Older maritime powers like Genoa and Venice were being eclipsed by better-positioned nations like Spain and Portugal, both now free from long-time control by Moslems.

Columbus' native Genoa had been an ally of Byzantium. In our visit on this blog to "Istanbul", We saw the Galata Tower that the Genoese community in Constantinople had built. But now Byzantium was no more, Constantinople had recently been conquered by the Moslem Ottomans, and renamed Istanbul.

I consider it likely that Columbus was motivated, at least in part, by Genoa's traditional rivalry with Venice. St. George vs St. Mark. Both powers were being eclipsed by the new frontier of sailing out into the Atlantic, but at least Genoa was the closer of the two to that frontier.

Genoa had lost it's traditional ally of Byzantium but might now replace it with England or Portugal, sharing the patronage of St. George or, with the lack of interest in those two, nearby and newly-united Spain. There had been maritime rivalry with Aragon, but it was now part of the united nation of Spain. St. George was from what later became Byzantium, the eastern half of the former Roman Empire.

Columbus would make his first trans-Atlantic voyage in 1492, the very year that the Catholics had finally regained complete control of Spain from the Moors.

Ferdinand and Isabella, the first king and queen of Spain, were likely inspired to accept Columbus' proposal of reaching the east by sailing west by stories of another traveler. The century before, a Moorish traveler named Ibn Battuta had visited so much of the known world. There was also rivalry with neighboring Portugal, which had been completely freed from Moorish control long before Spain had.

Vasco Da Gama had sailed right around the southern tip of Africa, and continued on to India, and this radical idea might give Spain something to match.

3) INDIA AND COLUMBUS DAY

Here is something that has really got to be written, that everyone has got to know about, but that seems to have been forgotten.

Columbus Day is the holiday commemorating the landing of Christopher Columbus in the western hemisphere in 1492. This was not the first time that Europeans had landed in the western hemisphere but it was the landing of Columbus that established permanent contact between the two hemispheres.

Columbus correctly believed that the earth was spherical and was trying to reach the east by sailing westward. What happened is that he ran into the western hemisphere along the way.

Columbus was seeking India. He thought he had landed in India and referred to the native people where he had landed as "Indians". The native people of the western hemisphere are still called Indians today.

Columbus Day has become a controversial holiday. Whether the landing of Columbus is something to be celebrated, or to be mourned, depends on one's point of view. It opened up a new world but the native people of the western hemisphere suffered tremendously.

In all of the controversy over Columbus Day, between those of white European and native Indian backgrounds, the thing that gets almost completely forgotten about Columbus Day is that the voyage was motivated by India, and thus without India the western hemisphere would never have developed as it did.

Sooner or later some other ship would certainly have come across the western hemisphere, but the whole purpose, at the time, of finding a shorter route to the east was to reach India. The west had long known about India because of trade along the Silk Road. It may be that the rise of the Ottomans, in the eastern Mediterranean, prompted the search for another route to the east.

But the reason for this great effort to reach the east was India. Spain, having finally gained complete independence from Moorish control, commissioned Columbus to try to reach the east, specifically India, by sailing westward. Portugal took the opposite approach and sailed around southern Africa, with Vasco da Gama succeeding in reaching India.

So while it was Portugal that reached the objective of India, Spain established contact with the previously-unknown western hemisphere. Some time later, a Portuguese ship on the way around southern Africa would happen to reach the coast of Brazil, which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese today. It is not quite certain whether the Portuguese discovery of Brazil was accidental or not.

Columbus was not on a colonizing journey, even though it was his voyage that initiated the Age of Imperialism. He had only three ships and was not heavily armed. Columbus was on a mission to explore and trade.

But what could India possibly have that was so valuable, that made it so important for western Europeans to reach it? Nations commissioned voyages and sailors risked their lives to reach a nation on the opposite side of the world. The question is "why"?

It couldn't possibly be gold, or other minerals. There was gold to be found in places all over the world and India is no richer in minerals than many other places.

There is one simple and obvious answer what India had to offer that started a rush to reach the opposite side of the world, that drastically changed the world in the process. It was India's food, specifically spices.

This means that Indian food is the reason the nations of North and South America are what they are today. 

The two continents could have been named for curry, North and South Curry. America could have been named for biryani the United States of Biryani.

Thanksgiving, the following month after Columbus Day, is celebrated with a feast centering around turkey. It parallels Columbus Day in that it is a harvest festival celebrating the first permanent English settlement in what is now the U.S.

But the turkey is a myth that was invented much later. I think it would make more sense to remember the reason for Columbus' voyage that so changed the world and to celebrate Columbus Day, and especially Thanksgiving, with a feast of Indian food. I celebrate Thanksgiving with chapati, rather than with turkey.

For something else India has contributed, that is essential to the modern world, remember "The Zero Hypothesis".

http://markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/2009/06/zero-hypothesis.html?m=0 

4) CHINA'S GREAT REUNION

Here is something that I am greatly surprised to be unable to find anything written about. I cannot find anything written about this in English. I am unsure if there is anything written about it in Chinese.

It concerns China's ever-increasing economic relationship with the countries of Latin America. 

The vast majority of the ethnicity of Latin America is native Indian. There is white European ancestry and, in countries on the Atlantic side, African ancestry, but native Indian is still the vast majority.

We know that the native Indians of the western hemisphere originally migrated from east Asia.

An ice age begins when the temperature drops to the point where the snow of the previous winter has not melted when the snow of the following winter begins to fall. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The process is accelerated by the fact that the white snow reflects away the sun's heat.

The weight of the snow above compresses that below into ice. The vast sheet of ice stops growing upward only when it reaches the altitude of the clouds from which the snow falls. A glacier can thus be 1-2 kilometers in height.

This process is what forms the glaciers of the ice ages. The spin of the earth pulls the glaciers southward, and they leave their imprint on the landscape. Glaciers typically move everything out of their way except mountains.

But the formation of glaciers on land means that a lot of water is taken out of the oceans, and sea level thus drops during the ice ages. One result of this was the "land bridge" that formed across the Bering Strait, known as Beringia. The ancestors of the native Indians came from east Asia migrating from Siberia to Alaska, and then to the rest of the western hemisphere, during the ice ages.

Another result of the drop in sea level was that people could walk from east Asia to populate Japan.

But what this means is that the people of China and the majority ethnic group of the Latin American countries that China is building increasing economic relations with are distantly related.

That is why I think it would be fitting to call this major world development "China's Great Reunion".

5) MEXICO AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

This week was the five hundred year anniversary of the conquest of the Aztecs that we saw in the first six sections of "The Aztec Prophecy", on this blog.

In Mexico there is mixed feelings about this event, even though is was the beginning of Mexico as a nation. I see it as showing that Mexico has a very special purpose, directly from God.

Mexico learned Christianity from the encounter and Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, is now the most-visited Catholic shrine in the world. 

The Aztecs originally migrated from a place called Aztlan. They had a prophecy that they would encounter an eagle, perched on a cactus, devouring a snake. This is where they were to build a city.

They saw this happening on an island in Lake Texcoco. They founded their city there, in the year 1325, which was called Tenochtitlan. Nearby was the long-abandoned ruins of a city called Teotihuacan.

The Aztecs had begun their calender with the brilliant supernova that resulted in what we now refer to as the Crab Nebula. What I had never seen pointed out, as explained in "The Aztec Prophecy" is that this supernova, which lasted about two years and was easily visible during the day, began just as the meetings were taking place that would result in the Great Schism of the Catholic Church, in the year 1054. It began just before the split actually took place.

The Crab Nebula is usually the first example of a supernova that is cited today. We now know that our Solar System actually began with such a supernova. Every atom in your body was once part of a star that exploded. This gives the Crab Nebula even more cosmic significance.

This can be seen as a warning from God about the long-term consequences of the pending split. It would result in the Eastern Orthodox Church splitting away from the Catholic Church. The modern secular implications of this split have been Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, the eastern fronts of both world wars, and the Cold War.

While no record has been found that Europeans paid any attention to this sign from God the Aztecs, on the other side of the world, actually began their calender with it. We know how brilliant the supernova was because there are Arab, Chinese and, Japanese descriptions of it.

The Aztecs didn't know what was happening on the other side of the world, or even that there was another side of the world, but they are the ones who paid the most attention to the supernova. When the migrating Aztecs came across the eagle, perched on a cactus and devouring a snake, what they didn't realize was that the snake was their own chief god, Quetzalcoatl, which was depicted as a serpent or snake. I am not necessarily claiming that this prophecy was from the Christian God but, knowing how important it was to them, He could have made use of it.

The ultimate purpose of the conquest that took place five hundred years ago is that God had a very special plan for the people who had paid so much attention to His sign in the sky that the intended audience, European Catholics, had not noticed or had ignored. But first they had to learn Christianity.

Large ships were seen off the coast of Mexico. The sails of the ships resembled the wings of the eagle in the prophecy. The Aztecs do not seem to have developed sails. The Spaniards from the ships, with a lot of help from other native Indians who felt subjugated by the powerful Aztecs, conquered Tenochtitlan.

Stone from the destroyed Aztec temple and palace was used in building what is now the cathedral of Mexico City and the National Palace. The central square of Mexico City, Zocalo, is where the center of Tenochtitlan had been. This is represented in the Aztecs' prophecy by the flesh of the snake, which we see represents the chief god Quetzalcoatl, going to build up the flesh of the eagle that devoured it.

But it turns out that the most important part of the Aztecs' prophecy is actually the cactus on which the eagle is perched. What is believed to be the first native convert to Christianity took the Spanish name Juan Diego. He claimed to have seen several visions of Mary, and her image was miraculously inscribed on his tilma, or cloak.

The tilma was woven from cactus fibers, just as the cactus in the Aztecs' prophecy. Clothing made from plant fibers usually doesn't last very long. But this tilma, with the inscribed image of Mary, has not decayed or deteriorated at all in nearly five hundred years. The tilma is displayed at the site of Juan Diego's visions of Mary in what is the most visited Catholic shrine in the world, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The cactus in the Aztec prophecy thus represents God and the eagle is able to devour the snake, which represents the chief Aztec God Quetzalcoatl, because the eagle is perched on the cactus, while the snake isn't.

Just as the supernova that resulted in the Crab Nebula took place at the time of the first major split in Christianity, the Schism of 1054, and was what the Aztecs based their calender on, the conquest of Tenochtitlan took place at the time of the second major split in Christianity, the Protestant Reformation.

At the time of this writing the Catholic Church, in recent years, has been through scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal. It is difficult to see how it is going to survive. But now the majority of the world's Catholics, as well as it's most visited shrine, are in Latin America. I notice that relatively few of the people involved in the scandals have Hispanic names.

Is it maybe time for a new era in the Catholic Church by moving it's center to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City? God knew that the church would struggle in the future and had prepared for it. There is already a pope from Latin America.

EVENTS FORETELLING THE SHIFTING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Could the relocation of the Catholic Church to the western hemisphere have been foretold by events?

Something that I had never seen pointed out was how the destructions of the Jews' Temple in ancient times amazingly reflect the major splits in the Catholic Church in more modern times.

Shiloh was the early religious center in the central highlands, what would today be called the West Bank. It was destroyed by the Philistines in 1050 B.C. Shiloh was never rebuilt because it was replaced by Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Solomon's Temple was destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem that began in 587 B.C.

The time between those destructions is 463 years.

Closer to modern times there has been two major splits in the Catholic Church. What became the Eastern Orthodox Church broke away in the Great Schism of the year 1054. The Protestants broke away in the Reformation, which began in 1517.

The time between those two splits is also 463 years.

Chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel prophecies that there will be seventy "weeks of years" from the command to rebuild the Temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, to the death of the Messiah. This is 70 x 7=490 years. One of these "weeks" is explained to be reserved for the seven-year reign of the Antichrist. This leaves 69 x 7=483 years.

Ezra is the one who was sent to reinstitute worship being done correctly in the rebuilt Temple. Ezra was sent in 457 B.C. The most widely-believed year for Jesus' Birth is 7 B.C. He is believed to have been crucified at age 33, which would be the year 26 A.D. Sure enough from 457 B.C. to 26 A.D. is 483 years.

( For a detailed explanation of this see the compound posting, "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy", October 2016, section 10) THE BIBLE'S SEVENTY SEVENS ).

So the Reformation began in 1517 and the 69 "weeks" of years is 483 years. If we add 483 years from 1517 it brings us right to the new millennium, the year 2000.

Going by this scenario there should thus be another split, or major change, in the Catholic Church in the new millennium. Indeed there is and it is the shift of the church to the western hemisphere. Although, like the two splits, it is actually occurring gradually, rather than all at once.

The demographic was passed that the majority of Catholics are now in the western hemisphere. Another demographic was passed that Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, became the most visited Catholic shrine in the world, surpassing the Vatican. The new millennium saw the first pope from the western hemisphere. Meanwhile the Catholic Church is so embroiled in endless scandals that countless millions have left and many have wondered how it is going to survive, although Hispanic names are mostly missing from those involved in the scandals.

It looks inevitable that the primary focus of the Catholic Church will have to shift to the western hemisphere. This fits perfectly with Mexico being prepared for this, as we saw in "The Aztec Prophecy", and also what we saw above in "The Long View Of The Western Hemisphere".

There is a visit to "Mexico City" showing the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, October 2020.

There has already been a relocation of the papacy, when it moved to Avignon, but the relocation wasn't permanent. We saw this in the posting, "The Third Split":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-third-split.html?m=0 

Five hundred years ago was a very eventful time. The conquest of Tenochtitlan came a few years after the beginning of the Reformation, which we saw in, "The Reformation At 500":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-reformation-at-500.html?m=0

Here is a link to the compound posting, "The Aztec Prophecy". The first six sections are about the Aztecs and Mexico City. The rest is about similar prophecies:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-aztec-prophecy_28.html?m=0