Just following orders...

[Aquila]

I found this interesting. What would you have done?

Seventy-one years ago, on Aug. 9, 1945, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki City, Japan, instantly vaporizing, incinerating, irradiating and otherwise annihilating tens of thousands of innocent civilians, men, women and children. Very few Japanese soldiers were affected.

In a nation whose citizens are historically non-Christian (Shintoism or Buddhism are the major religions), a disproportionately large number of the Nagasaki victims were Christian (see below for the history of that reality). The bomb mortally wounded uncountable thousands of other victims who succumbed to the blast trauma, the heat trauma and/or the radiation trauma.

In 1945, the U.S. was regarded as the most Christian nation in the world. The bomber crew, as were the two Christian military chaplains of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki crews, were products of the type of Christianity that failed to teach what Jesus taught concerning violence (that it was forbidden to his followers) – which has been the case for the vast majority of Christians, both clergy and laity, for the past 1,700 years. For the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity was a pacifist religion.

Ironically, prior to the bomb exploding directly over the Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan, and the massive cathedral had been the largest Christian church building in the Orient.

Those Christian airmen, following their wartime orders to the letter, did their job, and they accomplished the mission with military pride. Most Christian Americans would have done what they did if they had been in the shoes of the crew.

And, if those Christians had never seen, heard or smelled the suffering humanity that the bomb caused on the ground, most of them would not have experienced any remorse for their participation in the atrocity – especially if they had been blindly treated as heroes in the aftermath.

Some of the crew did admit that they had had some doubts about what they had participated in afterwards. But none of them actually witnessed the horrific suffering of the tens of thousands of victims up close and personal.

“Orders are orders” and must be obeyed, and disobedience in wartime was known to be severely punishable, even by summary execution. So the bomber crew had no alternative but to obey the orders. Even the two chaplains had no doubts before they finally understood what they had participated in.

…………………..

And here is one of the most important ironies: What the Japanese Imperial government could not do in 250 years of persecution (i.e., to destroy Japanese Christianity) American Christians did in mere seconds.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/08/0...nagasaki-bomb/

[aegsm76]

A - here is an interesting sidebar to the story.
link
https://www.hprweb.com/2010/08/the-c...saki-why-lord/
snippets

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

A - here is an interesting sidebar to the story.
link
https://www.hprweb.com/2010/08/the-c...saki-why-lord/
snippets

Interesting history.

[Jito463]

Were you aware that the US blanketed multiple cities with flyers, urging citizens to leave because they were going to drop a bomb on one of them? I long had conflicted views of the retaliatory attack on Japan with the nuclear bomb, as well. However, this video revealed something I'd never heard taught in school or anywhere else.

[Aquila]

Personally, I've come to believe that Christians shouldn't kill for the sake of any earthly state. We should serve by paying for peace and offering aid and relief to all involved, especially civilians.

No King but Jesus.

[Esaias]

In high school I was part of a debate team debating the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was assigned to the "prosecution" of "President Truman" for the "unnecessary atrocity" of nuking Japan. I was part of a three student prosecution team, working against a three student defense team and a student role playing Truman. We spent several weeks doing research, and then went to "trial" in front of the school.

I actually wrang a confession of guilt out of the "defendant".

But my research into the subject actually convinced me that the nuking was justified.

A few years ago I revisited the subject, and I am now of the opinion there never was a nuking, rather a massive firebombing and selected media representations as part of a war-time psyop.

But that's another subject.

[jediwill83]

Love to hear your reasoning on the bombing not being a nuke. Genuinely curious.


Aquila have you heard of the Milgram Experiments?


According to this, people are much more capable of being pushed into commiting horrible acts than we'd like to admit...and only using verbal prompts a guy in a labcoat with a clipboard was able to convince people to administer "electric shocks" to someone out of view.


No one was actually harmed but the person being tested did not know that...over 60% progressed to the point of "death".


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment