JF Ptak Science Books Post 234
I’d like to say that this was a class-of-its-own sort of work, but as it goes this is hardly the case. If I cared a little I guess I could establish a collecting sub-category in the nuclear fission–atomic–nuclear weapon collection for the popular belief that god ordained and transmitted the atomic bomb. There are at least five other pamphlets like this floating around in the store, and I am certain that there must’ve been dozens of other grabby little publications like this proclaiming Almighty Influence in the creation of the atomic bomb. I can understand the reasoning behind the power grab: the bomb ended the war a week after its second use, sparing the lives, perhaps, of a million soldiers (American and Japanese) and years of societal/infrastructure rehabilitation by eliminating the need of an American invasion of the Empire. So the denominator was simply the “saved (American) lives” part.
Again, I can understand how this felt in 1945/6, but I still feel that getting the suspected creator of the universe involved in the making and use of the bomb was ill-advised. The author of the first pamphlet reached back into history and credited god with simple solutions to complex situations: employing the more modern political technique of controlling language in the Tower of Babel case (wher he also said that since Babel was only 105 years after the flood that Noah was still alive, and that certainly Noah “would’ve voted ‘No’” for the building of the tower); and using “Johnny Snowflake” to stop the “non-satanic” Napoleon from reaching “Britain’s doorstep (and obviousy not the Soviet Reds). Bennet also credits god with giving “Dr. Currie” (sic) the genius to “split atoms” in 1896.
The second pamphlet uses the atomic weapon a little more figuratively. The author, Mel Morris, published this in 1945, which means he must’ve worked a little feverishly to pump up his bible prophesy and history to include the new atomic weapon to replace whatever else he had been using as a prophecy for end of times. (As it turns out, “God’s Atomic Bomb” was more tempest and disaster in the bible, and not (whew!) the bomb itself. Though as we’ve learned from scientologists and the sort-of creative mind of Ron Hubbard, a civilization came to the earth thousands of years ago and pummeled it with “atomic bombs” and other nastiness, polluting humans for milennia to come. But that’s another story–suffice to say that Morris found many dozens of examples of “God’s Atomic Bomb” being used in the deep biblical past, and that the use of the real atomic bomb in 1945 was pre-ordained, and not without its figurative historical counterparts. I’m not sure why any of this was necessary outside of proving to some small minority that these preachers could at least be contemporary and topical.
