Atom Bombs Save Lives! (And, Then Again, They Don't...)

Sixty-six years ago today, the United States dropped the first of only two atomic weapons ever used "in anger," i.e. for real, in battle, as weapons.

80,000 people died instantly in Hiroshima, with another 60,000 to die days, weeks, months, and even years later from the effects of the radiation burns they suffered that day. In total, it is estimated that 140,000 to 160,000 people died as a direct result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Another 90,000 would die 3 days later, when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The United States War Department estimated that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would result in 500,000 to 1,000,000 American casualties, and at least twice that many Japanese casualties. Ending the war quickly saved 1.5 to 3 million lives, so, in that sense, the atom bombs saved many more lives than they ended.

But, then again, almost everybody who would have died in the invasion of Japan is now dead. Within the next 10 or so years, the entire WWII generation will have passed away. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, wars do not increase death, since 100% of us will die. All war does is concentrate death into a smaller space and time. But children were born who would not have been, if their parents had died in that invasion, so their lives, too, were, in a sense, spared by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, in the light of history and the harsh math that a military planner must use, the atomic bombing of Japan saved a great many lives. But, also, in the harsh reality that, in a post-Genesis-3 world, everyone is under a sentence of death, the end of another war did nothing to stop the death toll that sin exacts.

The fact that all are sinners and that the just punishment for sin is death is the Bad News that makes the Good News so very, very good!

Have You Forgotten?

9/11 Nine Years Later

For most of my life, the New York skyline was dominated by the twin towers of the World Trade Center rising from the south end of Manhattan. It’s hard to believe that they have been gone for most of a decade.

A lot of things have happened in the last nine years, countries have been invaded, governments of men overthrown... many things. We could discuss mistakes that have been made, possible justifications for asymmetrical warfare, the totalitarian aspects of Islamic culture, or the mindless bigotry, hatred, and intolerance that derive from some people’s worldviews. But I think that is best left to another time. Today we need to remember. Remember the attack we suffered. Remember the Americans who died nine years ago today and the families they left behind.

Some people think the war’s over. Others never saw it as a war in the first place. Many have forgotten, and many more have chosen not to remember. Have you forgotten? Here’s a reminder of what happened nine years ago today.



”Have you forgotten, when those tower fell, we had neighbors still inside, going through a living hell?”


Have you forgotten? I have not.