Religion and Nuclear Weapons

[bananas]

From Martin Hellman's blog:

http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/religion-and-nuclear-weapons/

Religion and Nuclear Weapons
Posted on July 14, 2011 by Nuclear Risk

Someone recently asked me if any religious groups were working to bring change to our nuclear weapons strategy. Given the significant role that religion plays in American policy, I thought my reply might be of more general interest. So here it is.

1. As a Jew, and especially when talking at synagogues, I note that we say “never again” will we allow a genocidal holocaust. How then can we acquiesce to our nation having nuclear war fighting strategies that would make Hitler look like a schoolboy?

2. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is a young, Evangelical minister who has made this issue his life’s work. He describes his conversion experience on this issue in “A Merciful White Flash,” and an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists describes his Two Futures Project.

3. The American Catholic Bishops had a far-reaching 1983 “Pastoral Letter on War and Peace.” Here’s a short excerpt:

<snip>

3. A colleague of mine at Stanford, Materials Science Prof. Richard Bube, is an Evangelical Christian who has been very concerned with these issues for many years. In 1983, he wrote a wonderful article examining Christianity’s just war theory in light of nuclear weapons. Here’s a short excerpt:

<snip>

4. Father George Zabelka, the Catholic chaplain who blessed the Enola Gay before it dropped its atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Boxcar before its Nagasaki mission, later had an epiphany that he describes in a speech he gave to the Catholic organization, Pax Christi. Here’s an excerpt:

<snip>

5. On the other side of the ledger are groups with apocalyptic visions of The Second Coming, some of whom welcome even nuclear war as a sign, prophesized in the Bible, as preceding Christ’s return to earth. An example is a conference by Christians United for Israel. This is very scary, especially given that Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay starts it off! Senator Lieberman’s appearance is also disturbing. The video embedded there is also accessible on YouTube. Watch at least the first 30 seconds — that’s where DeLay drops a real bomb — but I suspect you’ll be hooked and watch it all.

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About Nuclear Risk
I am a professor at Stanford University, best known for my invention of public key cryptography -- the technology that protects your credit card. But, for almost 30 years, my primary interest has been how fallible human beings can survive possessing nuclear weapons, where even one mistake could be catastrophic.

[bananas]

1. Another group is Disarm Now Plowshares

Not mentioned by Hellman:

http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/about/

About

Plowshares breach nuclear weapon stronghold
at Naval Base Kitsap – Bangor, Washington State

Base on high alert and closed for 6 hours

Disarm Now Plowshares, November 2, 2009

Bill “Bix” Bichsel, S.J., of Tacoma, Washington; Susan Crane, of Baltimore MD; Lynne Greenwald, of Bremerton Washington; Steve Kelly, S.J., of Oakland , CA.; Anne Montgomery RSCJ, of New York, New York, were arrested on Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor at the largest nuclear weapon storage area in the US.

They entered the base in the early morning hours of November 2, 2009, All Souls Day, to call attention to the illegality and immorality of the existence of the first strike Trident weapons system. They entered through the perimeter fence, and walked through the base for four hours. During that time they made their way to the Strategic Weapons Facility – Pacific (SWFPAC) where they cut through the first chain link fence surrounding SWFPAC. They then walked to and cut the next double layered fence, both chain link and barbed wire, and entered the grounds of SWFPAC. This bunker area holds the largest nuclear weapon stockpile in the United States.

<snip>

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. A gem there:

The third is that Jesus was right, that He said what He meant, that He lived what He said, and that our difficulty is that His life and example are so incredible we cannot bring ourselves to accept their simplicity-much as we have difficulty with the simplicity of the Gospel of salvation by grace since it so completely appears to contradict our everyday experience.

There's a Maya Angelou quote I can't find, where she says something to the effect of people come to her and claim to be Christian, but really to be Christian, living that life where you denounce your possessions and forgiving your neighbor "not seven times, but seventy times seven" for transgressions against you, is something so hard you can only strive for it. Its alien to these times. In fact it took me awhile to find that "seven times seventy" quote on the net, so buried is this reality in these times, even though its so clear in the Bible. I'll never forget hearing a conservative explain to me that the "eye of the needle" (in the context of the bible quote "sooner shall a camel pass through the eye the needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven") referred to a gate called the "eye of the needle" that all the rich people rode through every day back then. What a joke! But for those who care to look, the power of that simple way has evidence even in modern times: it was also manifest in the life of Gandhi, and somewhat in MLK: And its ramifications with nuclear weapons are just as clear: Its better to be nuked than to nuke. Disarmament is the way to go. But we are still to this day unwilling to trust that mysterious force Christ gave voice to, so the threats will continue. So sad.