麻豆约拍

Good morning. On this day, seventy one years ago an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed four days later by another on Nagasaki. Within ten days, japan announced its surrender.<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The dropping of those weapons marked an immense change in the history of the world and how nations went about their business. The controversy the attacks created has been going on ever since; the issue of possessing and possibly using nuclear weapons is still very much alive. It鈥檚 certainly not my purpose to rehearse the arguments of those who supported the use of atomic bombs against Japan and those who condemned it.

But it is almost impossible to quantify the effects of the Hiroshima bombing with any degree of accuracy. Six square miles of the city were destroyed, an estimated 60- 80,000 people killed instantly and tens of thousands more by the longer term effects of radiation. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the decision to use the atomic bomb , the results were truly horrific, almost beyond the power of words to describe..

Now there may well be circumstances when war is judged to be necessary but its results are inevitably terrible. War may occur for a great many reasons but a common cause is surely 聽human sinfulness- the greed for glory or the desire to expand territorially or the selfishness or obstinacy or megalomania of a few leaders of nations. They may not normally suffer directly as a consequence, those who suffer most are those far from the corridors of power as in Hiroshima or the battle of the Somme- or indeed any war

Lord hasten the day we pray when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks and nations shall no longer learn war聽 Amen