<p>The Book Of Norris..... Chuck Norris.</p>
<p>Regardless of their actions, both of them are atheists in the sense of denouncing the existence of the Judeo-Christian God/Buddha/Taoist deities, and propagated that belief throughout their respective counties. On the other hand, I can see no reason for your labeling Columbus as a missionary. He turned to Spain and the Church for the gold to pay for his trip, with the goal of personal glory. The Church's support of him was also based on political reasons (to suck up to the powerful Catholic countries, as the Pope supposedly held power to parcel out the New World to his good, Catholic countries [reason why only Brazil is Portuguese while the rest of Latin America is Spanish]). The reason for Columbus' voyage was obviously more for wealth and prestige than sharing ideas. Did he do any missionary actions such as preach the Gospel to the natives? I doubt it.</p>
<p>In truth, Mao, Stalin, and Columbus were surfing on their religious/non-religious-ness by convinience. If you wouldn't call the former "missionaries", then neither should you call the latter so.</p>
<p>The arguement that I made initially which it appears that all of CC exploits this is that relgion is a bigger trouble than it helps today.</p>
<p>The point is that there have been more that have tried to "convert" others than athetists. </p>
<p>Not to pick up a dead arguement, Columbus did attempt to preach upon landing. He deemed the natives as God's Slaves, etc. which he then decided it was easier to exploit them to believe they were God's slaves.</p>