A child’s curiosity and natural desire to learn are like a tiny flame, easily extinguished unless it’s protected and given fuel. This book will help you as a parent both protect that flame of curiosity and supply it with the fuel necessary to make it burn bright throughout your child’s life. Let’s ignite our children’s natural love of learning!
December 16th, 2006
New Nukes
This article speaks of the development of new nuclear bombs in our country to replace an aged arsenal with newer, superior nukes.
In a day and age when the mere mention of “nuclear bomb” creates anxiety and worry, one wonders what the object of creating more bombs really is. In the name of maintaining military superiority our country is promoting the research and production of newer, cheaper, more devastating weaponry.
But why? For protection? For peace? For domination?
Pondering this proliferation reminded me of a BYU devotional by Elder Eyring titled “Blessed are the Peacemakers”. In the article, Elder Eyring speaks of this pursuit of peace through proliferation:
Now, if you listen carefully, in the debates about what to do to create peace, you will hear some common themes. Interestingly, the themes remain much the same whether the question is how to gain peace in the world or in your neighborhood. One theme is disarmament. Those who see danger in bombs or in guns take comfort when any country or any group of people give up weapons. But there are those, equally sure, who argue that the only safety is to have enough bombs or guns that no one will attack you.
After discussing negotiation and education as additionally tried paths of obtaining peace, Elder Eyring remarks:
That is why neither education, nor disarmament, nor armament, nor negotiation, nor all of them in combination are likely to create a world or a neighborhood of lasting peace. To do that, a change has to come into human hearts. The change must be in what people want. Almost everyone in the world has heard of what that change is, because it is common to religions and philosophies across the world and across the centuries. It is said differently in the scriptures and writings of others, but the words you will recognize best are these: “Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets” (3 Nephi 14:12).
In his remarkable April 2003 General Conference address, “War and Peace”, President Hinckley remarked:
I think our Father in Heaven must have wept as He has looked down upon His children through the centuries as they have squandered their divine birthright in ruthlessly destroying one another.
In the course of history tyrants have arisen from time to time who have oppressed their own people and threatened the world. Such is adjudged to be the case presently, and consequently great and terrifying forces with sophisticated and fearsome armaments have been engaged in battle.
The buildup of weapons—especially those with nuclear capacity—will only lead to the downfall of civilizations and destruction of mankind. One need only look to recent wars for depressing examples of the usage of mass weaponry on other nations. If our goal is peace, if our quest is freedom, if our aim is liberty, then there is only one thing we can promote, defend, and share to achieve these ambitions, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Prince of Peace is exactly that, and when He comes to rule and reign, all those deemed worthy to remain and live under His theocratic government will have peace, freedom, and liberty in the true and complete definition of the words. I look forward to that day immensely.
8 Responses to “New Nukes”
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I know that your post is highlighting the kind of peace that Christ brings, but I must comment on the nuclear issue here. I’ve got to say that it is most utterly hypocritical of the US to continue to follow this policy of nuclear weapon proliferation.
The whole rest of the world is apparently ok with a moratorium on the production and testing of nuclear weapons, while the US does something asinine like what we did Dec. 6 this year in the UN General Assembly where the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was again ratified by almost the entire world with the vote going 172-2. The two who voted against the treaty were the US and North Korea.
This sort of thing is very demonstrative of where the US stands on issues of peace and weapons of mass destruction, when we vote alone with North Korea against the entire rest of the world on nuclear weapons issues.
The temporal survival of the species is at stake here and yet it is more important for us to seek the capability of killing the rest of the world 5 times over instead of the current sub-par ability to kill the world 3 times over.
The UN vote thing can be found here:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10547.doc.htm
Robert Macnamara, the former Secretary of Defense under Kennedy has transformed into a nuclear non-proliferation advocate. He has some very chilling remarks on the US’s current course under Bush’s policies. He says:
“The Bush administration also announced that it has no intention to ask congress to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and, though no decision to test has been made, the administration has ordered the national laboratories to begin research on new nuclear weapons designs and to prepare the underground test sites in Nevada for nuclear tests if necessary in the future. Clearly, the Bush administration assumes that nuclear weapons will be part of U.S. military forces for at least the next several decades.”
He also said:
“The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes’ deliberation by the president and his advisors. But that is what we have lived with for 40 years. With very few changes, this system remains largely intact, including the “football,” the president’s constant companion.”
“The destructive power of nuclear weapons is well known, but given the United States’ continued reliance on them, it’s worth remembering the danger they present. A 2000 report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War describes the likely effects of a single 1 megaton weapon-dozens of which are contained in the Russian and U.S. inventories. At ground zero, the explosion creates a crater 300 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter. Within one second, the atmosphere itself ignites into a fireball more than a half-mile in diameter. The surface of the fireball radiates nearly three times the light and heat of a comparable area of the surface of the sun, extinguishing in seconds all life below and radiating outward at the speed of light, causing instantaneous severe burns to people within one to three miles. A blast wave of compressed air reaches a distance of three miles in about 12 seconds, flattening factories and commercial buildings. Debris carried by winds of 250 mph inflicts lethal injuries throughout the area. At least 50 percent of people in the area die immediately, prior to any injuries from radiation or the developing firestorm.”
It is in the interest of the survival of the human race that we use any influence we have to stop this madness.
One think Nixon did was end our biological weapons program. If your read “Biohazard” by Ken Alibek. He didn’t feel guilt about heading the Soviets bio-weapons program until coming to the US and realizing we had buried our weapons years ago. He then defected to the US.
Americans need to open their eyes and realize that USA has the worst weapons of mass destruction of any country. Why this is the case is easy to explain. We have learned it in the temple. Satan, as he was being kicked out of the Garden of Eden declared: “With gold and silver I will buy up armies and navies….and reign with blood and horror on this earth!” The furor to expand our arsenal of nuclear weapons is right now making Satan smile, perhaps even laugh with joy. We would be mistaken if we try to rationalize the build-up of weapons such as we have as anything but Satanic.
When our military budget exceeds the combined military budgets of all other countries of the earth combined, something is wrong. When our military budget exceeds the amount of all other social programs of the USA, something is wrong. If we would but open our eyes, we cannot deny that the USA is a militaristic country.
I suggest that honest Latter-Day Saints need to be more vocal in denouncing the extreme increase of our military to please the neo-cons and to fight against some guy in a cave that had nothing to do with Iraq. The neo-cons and the Carlyle group are the ones who are building up the military so they and their cronies can profit. If we use what we learn in the temple, can we then say that the neo-cons and the military/industrial complex are the embodyment of Satan as he declared he would use gold and siver to buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror? (Osama bin Laden was a creation of the CIA, and even the FBI admits that he had nothing to do with 9/11. see the FBI’s official website referencing what bin Laden is wanted for.)
Kelley,
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
J. Reuben Clark was a great proponent of peace and from his position in government as a legal aid to the Dept. of State, and Ambassador to Mexico, and from his position in the Church as an apostle of Christ and as a member of the First Presidency, he often spoke of it. On the issue of developing weapons he said, “Thus we in America are now deliberately searching out and developing the most savage, murderous means of exterminating peoples that Satan can plant in our minds. We do it not only shamelessly, but with a boast. God will not forgive us of this. If we are to avoid extermination, if the world is not to be wiped out, we must find some way to curb the fiendish ingenuity of men who have apparently not fear of God, man or the devil, and who are willing to plot and plan and invent instrumentalities that will wipe out all the flesh of the earth… [We] Americans wiped out hundreds of thousands of civilian population with the atom bomb in Japan… [Not] only did the people of the United States not rise up in protest against this savagery, not only did it not shock us to read of this wholesale destruction of men, women, and children, and cripples… it actually drew from the nation at large a general approval of this fiendish butchery.”
Curtis, wow, that is some quote from J. Reuben Clark. Where did you find it?
Kelly,
The quote is from bits and pieces a 1946 General Conference address by Pres. Clark, which can be accessed (as a PDF) here.
I also enjoy the second to last paragraph:
Kelley and Connor,
J. Reuben Clark had a lot of great words such as these on different topics. I’m sure he’d be interesting to get to know.
I have collected a lot of anti-war, anti-destroy the enemy, quotes over at this page:
http://www.signs-of-the-times.b-logging.com/war_and_the_gospel_of_jesus_christ_1.htm
There are a lot of good quotes there, especially from Brigham Young on the topic.
Connor, here is a website for you to check out concerning our use of depleted uranium as a military weapon:
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm
It’s probably one of the most effective weapons of mass destruction imaginable, and we’ve been using it against the people of Iraq, where we invaded, SEEKING OUT weapons of mass destruction! Depleted uranium, a nuclear waste product, is a very dense metal used as an armor piercing ammunition. It’s been found to be an excellent tank destroyer and a perfect weapon for killing lots of people on a long term scale. Not only has it killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, it has also killed thousands of veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. Over 11,000 of them are now dead! It’s the cause of the “Gulf War Syndrome.” Of 580,000 who served in that war, 325,000 of them were on disability by the year 2000. That’s a 56% disability rate! If anyone is guilty of murder on a grand scale, it is the U.S.!