Is it wrong to use nuclear bombs against civilians?

[Sudsy]

We can't, but we can speak out about the evil. We can also decline to pay taxes for it.

Jesus said “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's” Why does that not apply to taxes ?

Recall that the purpose of the question was to trap Jesus and that the listeners were amazed at Jesus' answer.

To the pious Jews, the earth was the Lord's, and everything in it. The brutal occupation forces were due nothing. But to the Romans and their collaborators, everything that Caesar wanted was his. Jesus' answer satisfied both sides because they interpreted it as supporting their position. I support the biblical view of the pious Jews.

OK, thankyou. Then there is the Romans 13:6-7 text -

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Interesting text when it includes to give honor and respect to those in government as it says that they are God's servants. I suspect this too has some alternative ways of understanding it's application by Christians. Might be an interesting thread on it's own with regard to our critiquing the government. I suspect the little word 'if' would be an out for some regarding respect and honor.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Waging wars of aggression is the ultimate wrong here. And also the ultimate war crime. As the Nuremburg Trials concluded:

War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole

World War 2, which was launched primarily by acts of aggression on the part of Germany, Japan, and the USSR, resulted in the deaths of 70-85 million people or about 3% of the world population. Of that total, only about 0.25% were killed by nuclear weapons. The other 99.8% were killed though conventional means.

More recently, the Iraq War launched by George W Bush in 2003 killed between 300,000 and 600,000 Iraqis depending on how expansively you count. Or up to 3-times more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is really important here? The method of the killing or the fact that nations choose to go to war?

Note: I am not excusing nuclear weapons here. Not at all. I'm just pointing out that they really aren't the real issue when it comes to decisions about war and peace.

The USSR? Unless you are Finland, the National Socialists seem to have been the aggressor. While one could clearly question the wisdom of the Molotov-Von Ribbentof pact (Would you buy a used car from them, ask Nevill Chamberlin, he got a real lemon) the aggressor in the case were the National Socialists.

[Ken]

Waging wars of aggression is the ultimate wrong here. And also the ultimate war crime. As the Nuremburg Trials concluded:

War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole

World War 2, which was launched primarily by acts of aggression on the part of Germany, Japan, and the USSR, resulted in the deaths of 70-85 million people or about 3% of the world population. Of that total, only about 0.25% were killed by nuclear weapons. The other 99.8% were killed though conventional means.

More recently, the Iraq War launched by George W Bush in 2003 killed between 300,000 and 600,000 Iraqis depending on how expansively you count. Or up to 3-times more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is really important here? The method of the killing or the fact that nations choose to go to war?

Note: I am not excusing nuclear weapons here. Not at all. I'm just pointing out that they really aren't the real issue when it comes to decisions about war and peace.

The USSR? Unless you are Finland, the National Socialists seem to have been the aggressor. While one could clearly question the wisdom of the Molotov-Von Ribbentof pact (Would you buy a used car from them, ask Nevill Chamberlin, he got a real lemon) the aggressor in the case were the National Socialists.

The start of WW2 in Europe is traditionally marked by the German invasion of Poland which began on September 1st, 1939. Are we agreed on that point? That act launched the declarations of war by the UK and France, and active fighting in Europe.

What happened in the eastern half of Poland during that month? Hint. The USSR which had signed a secret pact with Germany invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939 with 800,000 troops or 33 armored divisions and the two countries jointly dismembered Poland. Look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland The Soviets captured 320,000 Polish prisoners of war and involuntarily made 13.5 million Polish citizens who fell into their occupation sphere into involuntary Soviet citizens, many of whom were deported to Siberian gulags. In one particularly gruesome episode, the Soviet NKVD murdered over 22,000 Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn massacre and dumped them into mass graves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre Sounds a lot like the USSR was busy starting WW2 on its side of the line.

This is what the start of WW2 looked like from the Polish point of view.



Two months later in November 1939 the USSR invaded Finland with Germany's blessing.

The fact that these two allied dictators started WW2 is historical fact. That they later fell out two years later when Hitler invaded the USSR in a surprise attack in the summer of 1941 doesn't mean these two dictators were not completely complicit in starting the war together two years earlier.

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

[ken_sylvania]

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

[Judas Maccabeus]

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

The term you are likely looking for is Revanchism.

That chain goes back to the Franco-Prussian war of the 1870s.

[Ken]

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

There has never been a single moment in human history when there were no groups or nations who felt some grievance or slight by others. Sometimes real, sometimes (as in the case of German) largely invented. Yet every corner of the planet is not in a constant state of war, and leaders do have options and choices other than starting wars of aggression. And political conflicts are not the same thing as war. The US has longstanding political disputes and grievances with China but we are not actually at war with China.

It is simply historical fact that actual war in Europe broke out in the fall of 1939 due to the joint actions of Germany and the USSR. We are all familiar with the actions of Germany. We are less familiar with the actions of the USSR which together with Germany decided to invade Poland in an aggressive war of conquest. And in the case of the USSR, followed up their successful invasion of Poland with invasions of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Four more independent countries that the USSR decided to invade unprovoked in wars of conquest.

The USSR and Russia have been very successful in re-writing THEIR start of WW2 to Operation Barbarossa when their former ally Hitler turned on them and invaded the Soviet Union. But the USSR was a very active participant in wars of conquest in Europe for the two years leading up to that point. Something they very much want the world to forget. And that is probably an example of how history is re-written by the victors.

[Ken]

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

The term you are likely looking for is Revanchism.

That chain goes back to the Franco-Prussian war of the 1870s.

Or Napoleon,
Or the 30 years war
Or Charlemagne
Or Roman-era conflicts between the Gauls and Germanic tribes.
And probably all the way back to the Paleolithic.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Russian historians like to mark the start of their WW2 with the German invasion in June 1941. But in truth it started in September 1939 when they cooperatively invaded and partitioned Poland together with Germany.

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

There has never been a single moment in human history when there were no groups or nations who felt some grievance or slight by others. Sometimes real, sometimes (as in the case of German) largely invented. Yet every corner of the planet is not in a constant state of war, and leaders do have options and choices other than starting wars of aggression. And political conflicts are not the same thing as war. The US has longstanding political disputes and grievances with China but we are not actually at war with China.

It is simply historical fact that actual war in Europe broke out in the fall of 1939 due to the joint actions of Germany and the USSR. We are all familiar with the actions of Germany. We are less familiar with the actions of the USSR which together with Germany decided to invade Poland in an aggressive war of conquest. And in the case of the USSR, followed up their successful invasion of Poland with invasions of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Four more independent countries that the USSR decided to invade unprovoked in wars of conquest.

The USSR and Russia have been very successful in re-writing THEIR start of WW2 to Operation Barbarossa when their former ally Hitler turned on them and invaded the Soviet Union. But the USSR was a very active participant in wars of conquest in Europe for the two years leading up to that point. Something they very much want the world to forget. And that is probably an example of how history is re-written by the victors.

I think you forget here how interwar Poland came to be in the first place. Under one of the "Minor" treaties of Versailles it was taken from Russia, the state that formed the USSR, who spilled much blood on behalf of the Triple Alliance. And how do the "big three" reward them? Striping them of territory. It may be helpful to, understand that from a Russian perspective, the Molotov-Ribbentroff treaty would have been seen as simply reversing an unjust treaty, and since leaving a rump Polish state after the National Socialists were through would have been absurd, especially since it was seen as territory that was theirs to begin with.

This is why Russians date the beginning of WW II from 1941. Understandable, from their perspective.

[Ken]

Why pick that as the start of the WW2 rather than also include the actions of the surrounding nations after WW1 including the land grabs and economic policies that fomented the economic difficulty and unrest in Germany?

There has never been a single moment in human history when there were no groups or nations who felt some grievance or slight by others. Sometimes real, sometimes (as in the case of German) largely invented. Yet every corner of the planet is not in a constant state of war, and leaders do have options and choices other than starting wars of aggression. And political conflicts are not the same thing as war. The US has longstanding political disputes and grievances with China but we are not actually at war with China.

It is simply historical fact that actual war in Europe broke out in the fall of 1939 due to the joint actions of Germany and the USSR. We are all familiar with the actions of Germany. We are less familiar with the actions of the USSR which together with Germany decided to invade Poland in an aggressive war of conquest. And in the case of the USSR, followed up their successful invasion of Poland with invasions of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Four more independent countries that the USSR decided to invade unprovoked in wars of conquest.

The USSR and Russia have been very successful in re-writing THEIR start of WW2 to Operation Barbarossa when their former ally Hitler turned on them and invaded the Soviet Union. But the USSR was a very active participant in wars of conquest in Europe for the two years leading up to that point. Something they very much want the world to forget. And that is probably an example of how history is re-written by the victors.

I think you forget here how interwar Poland came to be in the first place. Under one of the "Minor" treaties of Versailles it was taken from Russia, the state that formed the USSR, who spilled much blood on behalf of the Triple Alliance. And how do the "big three" reward them? Striping them of territory. It may be helpful to, understand that from a Russian perspective, the Molotov-Ribbentroff treaty would have been seen as simply reversing an unjust treaty, and since leaving a rump Polish state after the National Socialists were through would have been absurd, especially since it was seen as territory that was theirs to begin with.

This is why Russians date the beginning of WW II from 1941. Understandable, from their perspective.

All the aggressors in WW2 had some sort of perceived grievances. Germany did, Italy did, Japan did, and so did the USSR.

That doesn't negate the fact that the USSR together with Germany were complicit in launching Europe into war in 1939. And that the USSR invaded and annexed parts of Poland and Finland as well as the entire countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1939 and 1940 prior to their fallout with Germany. How many Poles, Fins, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians died or were deported/persecuted at the hands of Soviet armies in 1939 and 1940? The answer is in the millions.

In fact, many historians argue that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and Russia in August 1939 was the act that laid the stage for WW2 in Europe. In that pact Germany and the USSR secretly decided to divide up eastern Europe between them and then weeks later jointly launched a war of aggression to make it happen.