You’re projecting post Enlightenment values where they don’t belong. The Greeks and Romans also had “blasphemy” laws regarding their own religions.
Exactly. Only a bad historian judges people of the past based on a modern understanding of things of which they did not know of, and judging them without possibly knowing the exact situation they were at the time.
Very good point. History ought to be judged by its own standards and its own context, and in that respect, VdG’s voyage of discovery was just that - a great historical maritime accomplishment opening up a channel between the East and the West, that had been previously blocked by Islam.