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mjdonnelly
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And Japan was not prepered to surrender, it’s military was still ready to fight till the end.
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HagiaSophia
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GMTA – when I first read that line, I said to myself, “talk about propaganda” – I think post #151, and the blurb about the emperor hiding in a dark palace trying to hide himself from his own war party who refused to let him sign a surrender said it all.
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mjdonnelly
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romano said:
Maybe his father was scheduled to be on the first invasion wave if it came to that. If mine was, I would be happy for the dropping of the bomb also.
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HagiaSophia
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The one who lives at my house tells me that when he was stationed there post surrender, as they landed and came into the city, the paople lined both sides of the street with their necks bent and looking at the ground. When later he asked someone why, he was told, they thought you guys were going to behead them all because that is what we would have done had things turned out differently. As anyone who has studied the Nanking entry of their troops or watched the existing film understands exactly what he meant.
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mjdonnelly
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They thought our troops were going to eat their kids, all sorts of stuff. Their military must have had great public relations reps to get everyone to follow their emperor to their death. Imagine, trying to fight a war with suicide tactics. It’s just crazy.
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HagiaSophia
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Nope - we see it today going full tilt – when you have the number of population that these countries have and the fanatical dedication to something higher than oneself - you can get them to do it and population wise you can “afford” it. Remember the Japanese believed that the occupant of the Chrysanthemum Throne was a god, a true divinity. He was worshipped.They thought our troops were going to eat their kids, all sorts of stuff. Their military must have had great public relations reps to get everyone to follow their emperor to their death. Imagine, trying to fight a war with suicide tactics. It’s just crazy.
BTW have you ever read the Emperor’s General by J. Webb? An absolutely fascinating book about the immediate aftermath of the invasion and MacArthur administration told from the viewpoint of one fictional officer with the MacArthur staff. I’ve never forgotten its underlying premise .
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mjdonnelly
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Doesn’t mean they’re not crazy for believeing it. Even today.
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pnewton
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Late comer here.
Let me ask a hypothetical. Let us say that Lions club extremists have have decided they needed to destroy the hole world. To this in they have developed a device to turn the atmosphere into, say, tofu. (do not be concerned it is only hypothetical) They have located there operations outside of Peoria, wherever that is, and are about to activate it wiping out most of North America, if not the world, and thus ending the Senate deadlock on the Supreme Court nominee confirmation.
The military has determined that to be totally sure of stopping them, it must use a device big enough to wipe out half of Peoria, albeit the half that needed renovation anyway. Would this be a morally permissive act?
Why would this not be an acceptable application of the law of double effect?
We can not define indiscriminate as meaning that some civilians will be killed or we invite their use as human shield. As long as the targets remain military and the evil of the incidental deaths do not exceed the good done, the law of double effect should apply.
In my opinion, in the case of the WWII bombings, without question the good far eclipsed the tragedy of the deaths. Many more lives of Japanese and Americans were saved.
As to the choice of targets, I may have an issue with this, in that I do not know the options available. Were the best military targets were selected or were they targets of vengence?
Let me ask a hypothetical. Let us say that Lions club extremists have have decided they needed to destroy the hole world. To this in they have developed a device to turn the atmosphere into, say, tofu. (do not be concerned it is only hypothetical) They have located there operations outside of Peoria, wherever that is, and are about to activate it wiping out most of North America, if not the world, and thus ending the Senate deadlock on the Supreme Court nominee confirmation.
The military has determined that to be totally sure of stopping them, it must use a device big enough to wipe out half of Peoria, albeit the half that needed renovation anyway. Would this be a morally permissive act?
Why would this not be an acceptable application of the law of double effect?
We can not define indiscriminate as meaning that some civilians will be killed or we invite their use as human shield. As long as the targets remain military and the evil of the incidental deaths do not exceed the good done, the law of double effect should apply.
In my opinion, in the case of the WWII bombings, without question the good far eclipsed the tragedy of the deaths. Many more lives of Japanese and Americans were saved.
As to the choice of targets, I may have an issue with this, in that I do not know the options available. Were the best military targets were selected or were they targets of vengence?
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HagiaSophia
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A crime against humanity if I ever heard one.
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HagiaSophia
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The links below show that they were chosen for military reasons.
www.dannen.com/decision/index.html
(see TargetCommittee)
zog.typepad.com/annotated/2004/08/1945_truman_and.html
"…As documents formerly classified as “Top Secret” have been declassified, a better look at the end of the war with Japan is becoming clear. In the spring and summer of 1945, plans were made and finalized for Operation Downfall, the attack of the Japanese homeland. This operation was a two phase operation, that included Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu in November 1945, and if the timetable held, Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain in March of 1946.
These two operations would involve more than 1.5 million combat troops, with 3 million more troops in support roles.All total, there would be almost 5 million troops involved in the invasion of Japan. Just for the island of Kyushu, the casuality estimate was 250,000, with over a millions casualities expected by the fall of 1946. With information that is now known concerning the Japanese defenses of the home islands, it is now realized that the casuality rate would have been much higher, and that if the invasion had of occurred, and the atomic bombs not used, Japan may have very well been able to call for a peace on it’s terms."
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pnewton
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Thanks for th links. That’s interesting stuff. As far as the invasion plans, I have no doubt that the good exceeding the evil part of the equation is well documented.
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Philip_P
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Vern is right, your example is irrelevant, and you can’t put God and humans at the same level. That sort of thing gets you thrown out of gardens, with the bouncer given a flaming sword and strict orders not to let you back in.
You might as well to measure the sea with coffee spoons. Ask Job how attempting to understand God worked out.
Still, even if we set precedent and warnings aside, we don’t get too far. You’re claiming a specific interpretation of a scriptural passage, one that seems to be in conflict with Church teaching. When two authorities seem to clash, it’s wiser to side with the higher authority. I’ll stick with the Church documents I cited over an isolated passage from Scripture.
But let’s pretend that we’re Protestant and have no Church authority to refer to. Your example is still irrelevant. Was Truman God, that he had any authority to destroy a city? Did he have knowledge of the state of the souls of the cities’ inhabitants, so that he knew that not even ten innocent people could be found, for whose sake he should have spared the cities? No. So, as Vern said, clever, but irrelevant.
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wabrams
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romano said:
Yeah right. I’ve studied more history in my free time than most people with a B.A. in the subject did in or out of the classroom. So stop and think before you accuse someone of being ignorant.
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A really bold, but empty statement.
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The Japanese wishe to surrender, huh? Where did you get this tid bit of info that that has always been proved otherwise? Your ignorance of Japanese history show you know very little of their history which shaped their way of thinking, and more importantly, their fighting.
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Oh yeah, a bunch of scientist were just extremely thrilled they helped punish the Japanese. So happy that they kept most of their work secret for another 30 or 40 years.
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???
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I don’t know what you’re smoking to make that kind of silly statement, but can I get some of that? I have a delusion that nuclear weapons won’t be used against me? Give me a break, you know nothing about me, and obviously, little about the real world.**
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Brendan
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Philip P:
Follow the logic here and tell me where humans are put at the level of God.
From there we can conclude that the desctruction of city is sometimes, in Justice, necessary.
Justice is, by definition, a moral act.
And since it, in Justice, is sometimes necesarry, we can conclude that it is not, by defintion, intrinsically immoral. Which violates your premise.
Note, I am not conculding in anyway here that a particular instance in Just or Unjust, only that your premise is wrong.
You will also accept, I am sure, that God does not maintain a different Moral Law for Himself than He command of His creatures (namely God does not violate His own Moral Law)
For example, we accept fully that Christ honored Mary in accordance with the 5th Commandment, correct?
Or that Christ did not steal, in accordance with the 8th.
If one would follow your and Vern’s logic, it would be possible for Christ to be a thief, because we could not apply ‘human’ moral principles to God. Anything God does, by definition, would be moral, including theft, dishonoring parents or even adultery.
Church Doctrine is the reverse, God, by His Nature, performs only Moral Acts, the act itself in not justified by God, God performs only Justified Acts.
God has a single Moral Law, that binds both Himself and His Creation to. (ST I 6:4).
And that Moral Law allows for the destruction of cities under certain circumstances.
As a side note, if you guys ever take a Moral Theology course, one of the first things you will (or should) get drilled into you, is that Moral Theology is want we want or wish it to be, it is what God has Revealed it to be. God reveals Moral Law to us, both in His direct Commandments and by His actions (example)… We don’t have to like it, but we do have to accept it.
But where Vern and you are wrong is that this example does not put God and humans on the same level. In fact, if you notice, he agreed with my premise, that the destruction of a city is not inherently wrong.
Follow the logic here and tell me where humans are put at the level of God.
- God performed an action.
- Humans witness the action
- Humans learn from God’s example what constitutes a Just action.
From there we can conclude that the desctruction of city is sometimes, in Justice, necessary.
Justice is, by definition, a moral act.
And since it, in Justice, is sometimes necesarry, we can conclude that it is not, by defintion, intrinsically immoral. Which violates your premise.
Note, I am not conculding in anyway here that a particular instance in Just or Unjust, only that your premise is wrong.
You will also accept, I am sure, that God does not maintain a different Moral Law for Himself than He command of His creatures (namely God does not violate His own Moral Law)
For example, we accept fully that Christ honored Mary in accordance with the 5th Commandment, correct?
Or that Christ did not steal, in accordance with the 8th.
If one would follow your and Vern’s logic, it would be possible for Christ to be a thief, because we could not apply ‘human’ moral principles to God. Anything God does, by definition, would be moral, including theft, dishonoring parents or even adultery.
Church Doctrine is the reverse, God, by His Nature, performs only Moral Acts, the act itself in not justified by God, God performs only Justified Acts.
God has a single Moral Law, that binds both Himself and His Creation to. (ST I 6:4).
And that Moral Law allows for the destruction of cities under certain circumstances.
As a side note, if you guys ever take a Moral Theology course, one of the first things you will (or should) get drilled into you, is that Moral Theology is want we want or wish it to be, it is what God has Revealed it to be. God reveals Moral Law to us, both in His direct Commandments and by His actions (example)… We don’t have to like it, but we do have to accept it.
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Philip_P
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The action here is that **God **destroyed a city. I won’t pretend that I understand what that means. If you want to say that “It is just for God to destroy a city” I guess I’ll give you that, but since we are not God I fail to see how that has the slightest bit of relevance to human moral theology. An interesting question of theodicy or Christology, perhaps, but completely unrelated to this thread.
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Philip_P
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BTW, Christ is also fully human, so no, he could not steal any more than it would be licit for you or I to steal. And since he is also fully God, not only would it be illicit for Christ to be a thief, but he also would not be one.
Again, though, I’m interested in human moral decisions here, not a presumptuous attempt to discern the nature of God.
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Brendan
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Philip P:
It is just God’s commandments that define Moral Theology or is it God’s example as well?
Does God maintain different Moral standards for Himself that for Us? (Aquinas says No, how about you)
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It is just God’s commandments that define Moral Theology or is it God’s example as well?
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Brendan
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Philip P:
So Christ in His Human Nature could not licitly destroy a city, but Christ as God could, is that your premise?
Ah, but the Nature is God is Justice and Morality, not just a root concepts ( Platonic Ideals) but is actual being. By decerning the Nature of God, we descern Morality itself, do we not?
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Wolseley
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romano said:
I see someone hasn’t read Post #151, and has chosen instead to believe the liberal/revisionist propaganda he’s been spoon-fed since birth.
I don’t know whether his father was, but mine was. And if he had actually had to wade ashore, I doubt very much that I would be here right now.
Hiroshima’s primary value as a military target consisted of the fact that it was the Headquarters of the Japanese 2nd Army; the entire army was engaged in calisthenics on a parade field in the city center on August 6th when the bomb exploded almost directly overhead. The entire army was vaporized, the equivalent of the entire United States Marine Corps vanishing in a split second. (William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1974, pp. 383-384.)
Nagasaki’s primary value as a military target consisted of the fact that 90% of the city’s labor force worked in a huge complex of manufacturing plants owned by the Mitsubishi company, making torpedoes for the Japanese Navy and small arms for the Japanese Army; all the plants in the city were operating at full production on August 9th when the second bomb exploded. (William Craig, The Fall of Japan. New York: Galahad Books, 1967, pg 88.)
Another excellent book on the subject is Code-Name Downfall, by Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar; Simon & Schuster, 1995, ISBN 0684804069.
The Japanese leadership was split into two factions, basically divided between the military and the diplomats; Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and the Premier, Admiral Kantoro Suzuki, headed one faction that wanted to end the war immediately, and they had the ear of Hirohito. The other faction included the Minister of War, General Korechika Anami; Army Chief of Staff, General Yoshijiro Umezu, and Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, who wanted to fight to the last man.
It is known that even after the surrender was accepted, the pro-war faction was still making plans to carry on the war. On August 28th, the USS Missouri sailed into Tokyo Bay for the surrender, and Japanese pilots were warming up at the Atsugi airfield, with orders to dive-bomb the Missouri until she sank, and then strafe the harbor until everyone aboard was dead, including both Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur. Fortunately, a pro-surrender faction came along and managed to get them to abandon the plan.
Bearing in mind that at the time, Pearl Harbor was still very fresh in everyone’s memory, and it was still regarded as an unprovoked stab in the back, it is extremely fortunate that this plan failed. Had it gone through, and such an event had taken place after the word had gone out that the Japanese had surrendered, the body count of Japanese would make the atomic bomb fatalities look pathetic. Manchester put it best: “Had they succeeded, the venegeance of the American people, confronted with what they would certainly have regarded as a final act of treachery, is terrible to contemplate.”
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vern_humphrey
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God cannot sin. His laws are His laws – He may do with them as He will.
Certainly He sets His laws aside when He chooses – we call the results a miracle.
Try that on a pro-abortionist and they will piously tell you “Nothing happens on this earth but by the will of God.”
God created man. Is it therefore moral to clone a human being?
There is no god above God. God’s laws are His laws – does He bind Himself as He binds man? Has He made Himself subject to Himself?
All correct – which indicates that we cannot use an act of God to justify acts of man.
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