Posts by JeffT

108

Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

sorry for such a depressing question, but i was moved by a picture i saw of the consequences.

( a woman carrying her child) and i realised:-.

a) it was a civillian population.. b) i don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.. c) they could have bombed tokyo where all the generals lived but chose hiroshima.. d) the irony after the bombing america conceeded to many of japans terms.. your opinion would be valued..

JeffT

A question I have always wondered, is why didn't they surrender after the first bomb?

Then again why did they so quickly surrender after the second? Did they really think we had the ability or the will to nuke the entire island? I heard we had maybe one more oporational weapon and then would have taken months before we could make more.

They didn't surrender right after Hiroshima because they didn't know quite what had happened to the city, only that something American destroyed it. Truman announced the attack sixteen hours later, I don't know if the Japanese believed what he said. Somewhere in this time frame (it may have been after Nagasaki) a captured American pilot told them told them we had hundreds of bombs just like it.

Probably the factor that really forced the surrender was the fact that the bombs knocked Hirohito's head out of his butt, and he recognized that he was cult leader not a God. His decision to end the war, and actions to bring that about were THE factor in the Japanese surrender. It's worth noting what he said in the Imperial Rescript announcing the decision " the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest." Understatement to say the least, but it illustrates the Japanese viewpoint at the time. Incidently, he read the speech in an anachronistic court Japanese, most of his subjects had no idea what he was saying. They also had never heard his voice before.

108

Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

sorry for such a depressing question, but i was moved by a picture i saw of the consequences.

( a woman carrying her child) and i realised:-.

a) it was a civillian population.. b) i don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.. c) they could have bombed tokyo where all the generals lived but chose hiroshima.. d) the irony after the bombing america conceeded to many of japans terms.. your opinion would be valued..

JeffT

We should learn from history and not do things that excuse or strengthen dangerous ideologies.

Of course, but who gets to decide what constitutes a "dangerous ideology?" Hitler (and many ordinary Germans) beleived Judaism, Communism and western liberal thinking to be dangerous. Mao and Pol Pot saw themselves as fighting Western ideas destroying their counties. Currently we're watching ISIS trying to destroy what it sees as dangerous ideologies.

Robert Heinlein put it very well: "No one sees himself as the bad guy."

108

Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

sorry for such a depressing question, but i was moved by a picture i saw of the consequences.

( a woman carrying her child) and i realised:-.

a) it was a civillian population.. b) i don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.. c) they could have bombed tokyo where all the generals lived but chose hiroshima.. d) the irony after the bombing america conceeded to many of japans terms.. your opinion would be valued..

JeffT

OK a few points.

Roughly 10 million chinese civilians died at Japanese hands during the war ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties ). This averages out to Hiroshima or Nagasaki every month from 1937 to 1945. If you can stomach it, read "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chan for details.

The idea of demonstrating the bomb was dismissed for the simple reason that nobody thought the Japanese would pay much attention to it. If they wanted to know what the US could do to them, they needed only to look out the window. Fifty-seven square miles of Tokyo had been destroyed by the time of the atomic bombings. (Source "A Torch to the Enemy" Martin Caidin)

It is hard to sort out the so-called peace feelers. Some attempts were made, but the US could not determine if they were individual efforts or officially sanctioned. There was a sizable military faction that wanted to continue the war, one group even tried to overthrow the government after the atomic bombings and after Hirohito recorded his surrender message (source "The Last Mission" Jim Smith and Malcolm McConnell)

Was the bombing an atrocity? I don't know, everything that happened between 1937 and 1945 was an atrocity, its hard to apply in sort of logical scale to what went on during those years. It seems very probable that, had the war with Germany continued long enough, Dresden would have been the first A-bomb target, that's why it wasn't bombed until late in the war. I'm looking for sources on that, I picked it up from a friend that works in military think tank.

PS: Neither Chruchill nor Roosevelt wanted war with Japan. England had its hands full with Germany and and Roosevelt wanted to help. If Hitler had not delcared war on the us on Dec 11, 1941 England and Russia would have been fighting him alone. Had we known the Japanese were coming we would have ambushed them, that would have been a better outcome for both Roosevelt and Churchill. (source "Roosevelt's Secret War" Joseph E. Persico)

21

What did ants evolve from?

by Pinku in

an ant's brain is very minuscule when compared to a chimpanzee, yet it is capable engineering!

(not to mention its ability to support 5,000 times their body weight before losing their heads.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5970/20140210/ants-support-5-000-times-body-weight-before-losing-heads.htm).

JeffT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/science/key-to-ants-evolution-may-have-started-with-a-wasp.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/evolution/digging-up-ants-evolutionary-origins/

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that only God could do it.

10

What do you get when you remove all the viruses from Windows 8?

by JeffT in

a blank screen.

.

JeffT

A blank screen.

13

A catholic court ordered to attend jehovah's witnesses kingdomhall???

by EndofMysteries in

i just saw this news piece, http://www.onenewsnow.com/legal-courts/2014/08/25/catholic-workers-ordered-to-attend-jehovah%e2%80%99s-witness-services#.u_uee_ldv8e.

the ninth u.s. circuit court of appeals has issued a ruling that workers at a home for the disabled must attend a jehovahs witness worship service with patients who wish to attend.. in 2009, california instructed san gabriel/pomona regional center to have staff escort a jehovah's witness patient to services, but two catholic employees objected and sued on the grounds that their faith requires they only attend catholic services.. brad dacus, founder of pacific justice institute, says it's an interesting case.. we have the rights of employees under title 7, which requires reasonable accommodation for the sincerely held religious beliefs of employees, he says.

in this case, arguably that would mean not requiring these particular employees to have to sit in and attend a jehovahs witness church service.. the attorney says employers should do everything they can to meet employees faith needs, but also cannot forget the needs of the disabled in this situation.

JeffT

How about we petition the court and have it ORDER the Witnesses to provide reasonable accomodation (like rides and caregivers) to their own members.

23

How would you summarize the basic message of the Watchtower versus the Bible?

by Fernando in

for me personally:.

watchtower - don't sin, don't question, don't think, don't reason, don't leave, or god will kill you in hell the big a.. bible - all dysfunction aka the "bad news" has been legally defeated by the "good news".. (i believe we are therefore free to begin naturally and progressively transitioning from a primitive type-0 civilisation if and when we choose to and when consensus reaches critical mass.

we will become a more advanced type-1 civilisation in the next 100 years according to michio kaku in "physics of the future".).

JeffT

Cofty: for me "imperfect" means we all make mistakes.

If you want to get into morality, sometimes for some reason we do things we know we shouldn't do, or fail to do something we know we should. It's part of being human.

5

evil thought about jw.org

by JeffT in

jw
friends

so what happens if we start posting links on porn sites and the like?

i don't usually suggest this sort of thing, but it would sure give somebody at hq pause for thought when he realizes where all their hits are originating.

.

JeffT

Not so far fetched, a significant number of the hits on my blog have originated with a porn site in Russia. Somehow they get advertising credit for it.

5

evil thought about jw.org

by JeffT in

jw
friends

so what happens if we start posting links on porn sites and the like?

i don't usually suggest this sort of thing, but it would sure give somebody at hq pause for thought when he realizes where all their hits are originating.

.

JeffT

So what happens if we start posting links on porn sites and the like? I don't usually suggest this sort of thing, but it would sure give somebody at HQ pause for thought when he realizes where all their hits are originating.

23

How would you summarize the basic message of the Watchtower versus the Bible?

by Fernando in

for me personally:.

watchtower - don't sin, don't question, don't think, don't reason, don't leave, or god will kill you in hell the big a.. bible - all dysfunction aka the "bad news" has been legally defeated by the "good news".. (i believe we are therefore free to begin naturally and progressively transitioning from a primitive type-0 civilisation if and when we choose to and when consensus reaches critical mass.

we will become a more advanced type-1 civilisation in the next 100 years according to michio kaku in "physics of the future".).

JeffT

Bible: God knows you're imperfect and loves you anyway, he will help you try to be better.

Watchtower: We're the same as God, we don't like you, don't think you can be good and have to have one of us holding the other end of your leash. You're probably going to die anyway.