The Unnecessary Bomb and Japan's Surrender

The Timeline for the End of WW II

February, 1945 - Stalin used the Yalta conference to obtain territorial concessions from the Allies. In order for Stalin to gain these war trophies, he had to fulfill two important conditions: participation in the war and agreement with the Chinese government on the Yalta terms. Otherwise, the Allies might renege on their promises at the peace conference. Thus, it was imperative for him not only to enter the war, but to prevent the war from ending before the Soviets joined it. 

April 5, 1945 - the Soviet Union gave the required 12 months' notice that it would not renew the five-year Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact

May 1945 - Negotiation for Russia to intercede began the forepart of May 1945 in both Tokyo and Moscow. Konoye, the intended emissary to the Soviets, stated to the Survey that while ostensibly he was to negotiate, he received direct and secret instructions from the Emperor to secure peace at any price, notwithstanding its severity. Meanwhile, American military leaders at another key meeting, recognized that the effect of one atomic bomb would not differ from ‘any Air Corps strike of current dimensions’. 

Leslie Groves, who directed the Manhattan Project and oversaw its security against espionage, said that after two weeks into the job, he never had ‘any illusion’ that ‘Russia was our enemy, and the project was conducted on that basis’.

June 7, 1945 - As the emperor and the policymakers in Japan became aware of the impending defeat of the Battle of Okinawa, they decided to seek rapprochement with the Soviet Union to exit from the war. To achieve this goal, the Japanese government entrusted former prime minister and foreign minister Hirota Koki to contact Ambassador Malik on June 7 in an unofficial capacity. During a series of meetings with Malik in June Hirota sounded out the possibility of concluding an alliance or a non-aggression pact, or at least the renewal of the Neutrality Pact. Japan’s ill-advised move fell right into the Soviet trap to prolong the war.

June 22, 1945 - The Emperor summoned the Big Six to a meeting. Unusually, he spoke first: "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them." The Supreme Council said Soviet entry into the war “would determine the fate of the Empire.” Army Deputy Chief of Staff Kawabe remarked, “The absolute maintenance of peace in our relations with the Soviet Union is imperative for the continuation of the war.”

July 12, 1945 - On July 12, Foreign Minister Togo sent a telegram to Ambassador Sato, instructing the ambassador to see Molotov immediately to present the emperor’s message requesting Moscow’s mediation to terminate the war. Togo stated that it was the emperor’s wish to end the war, but made it clear that so long as the Allies demanded unconditional surrender, Japan had no choice but to fight to the last man.

July 15, 1945 - Just before he left Moscow for the Potsdam Conference (July 17-Aug 2), Stalin had received a personal message from the Japanese Emperor, asking him to act as intermediary between Japan and the United States. During the Potsdam Conference, Stalin's intention to enter the war was clear. Truman wrote about Stalin in his diary: “He’ll be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.” Truman and Byrnes were working out a “timetable” to force Japan’s surrender. They wished to avoid Soviet entry into the war, and they were determined to use the atomic bomb for that purpose. With Stalin’s reference to the date of Soviet entry into the war either “by the middle of August” or “in the middle of August,” Truman believed that the Soviets would enter the war on August 15. As his diary entry shows, Truman knew full well that the Soviet entry would cause Japan to surrender.

July 18, 1945 - On July 18, when Truman paid a return visit to Stalin’s villa, Stalin revealed the information that the Japanese had asked Moscow to mediate in ending the war. He revealed to Truman Ambassador Sato’s note requesting Soviet mediation to terminate the war. Stalin was eager to prolong the war until all the preparations for his attack were completed, while Truman was also interested in prolonging the war only until the atomic bomb could be dropped, making Truman's leadership and {Truman's} American technology the reason Japan surrendered. Besides, Truman had a long-standing racist hatred for Asians. This gave him a chance to act that out. 

Aug 6, 1945 - Truman drops the bomb on Hiroshima. Essentially all of America's military leaders, including Eisenhower, Halsey, LeMay,  King, Arnold, Chennault, and Spaatz, opposed Truman's decision, saying that the dropping of the atomic bomb was not militarily necessary.

Aug 8, 1945 - Verbal report of Hiroshima damage delivered to the military

Aug 8, 1945 - Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori went to Premier Suzuki Kantaro and asked that the Supreme Council be convened to discuss the bombing of Hiroshima, but its members declined. 

Aug 9, 1945 - two minutes after midnight, Stalin declared war on Japan and opened a northern front in Manchuria. 

   - By 4 AM, Tokyo was aware of the Soviet invasion. Japan's tentative suite for peace, using neutral USSR as an intermediary, was now closed. Worse, Japan now had a two-front war to protect the home islands. Japan estimated the US could be held off for months, but with all elite units stationed in the south to face America, Japan felt it could hold out against the Soviets in the north for only ten days.

   - 10:30 AM - The Supreme Council meets.   

   - 11:00 AM - Tokyo receives news of the Nagasaki bomb. 

    - 2:30 PM - Japanese cabinet meets and is informed a captured American flier had said, under torture, that the US had 100 bombs and would destroy Tokyo and Kyoto next. The meeting adjourned with no consensus about surrender

Aug 10, 1945 - at 2 AM, the Emperor is asked to decide the matter. He chooses surrender.

Aug 12, 1945 - asked if Japan would continue the war if the integrity of the Emperor were not preserved in the peace treaty, the Emperor replied, "Of course."

Aug 13, 1945 - Gen. Anami on Aug. 13 remarked that the atomic bombings were no more menacing than the fire-bombing that Japan had endured for months.

Aug 14, 1945 - an attempted coup against the Emperor is put down

Aug 15, 1945 -  Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech to the public and the army is not consistent. When addressing the public, he said, "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable ... . Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization." When addressing the military, he did not mention the "new and most cruel bomb" but rather said that "the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, [and] to continue the war ... would [endanger] the very foundation of the Empire's existence."

Sept. 2, 1945 - Japan signs peace treaty on battleship Missouri.

Photo 51

Rosalind Franklin did not have anything to do with the discovery of the helical structure of DNA. Feminists constantly whine about this, but the history is quite clear. Franklin didn't get a Nobel prize because Franklin didn't deserve a Nobel prize.

Photo 51 is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 at King's College London, while working in Sir John Randall's group. Now, some may say that the honor belongs to Franklin, because she supervised Gosling's work. But that isn't true.

Gosling had made the first x-ray diffraction image of crystallized DNA under the direction of Wilkins. His comment on this discovery was "I must be the first person ever to make genes crystallize", although he was probably unaware of the prior work of Florence Bell. In any case, he was already doing x-ray diffraction of DNA before Franklin ever appeared on the scene.

After the initial work producing the first x-ray diffraction of DNA, Randall reassigned Gosling to work with Rosalind Franklin, who had been just hired to join King's College in 1951. When Gosling made the photo, Franklin handed it to Wilkins, who soon handed it to Watson. That photo, along with a report that included the space group values of the crystal, gave Crick everything he needed. By the time Watson and Crick saw both, Rosalind Franklin had already moved onto another lab to study the tobacco mosaic virus. She wasn't even around when Crick put the pieces together.

"Crick had laboriously worked out how to solve the so-called phase problem when diffraction is from a helix, since the standard Patterson functions do not apply. Thus, technically a graduate student at the time, he had the good fortune to be in a perfect position to understand what Franklin could not possibly have seen in the pattern.

Armed with Crick's insight, all that remained was for Watson to get the base-pairing (after a misstep corrected by a lab member)."

Update: Additional information here.

Why Liberals Fear AI

AI it is nothing more than a statistical amalgamator.

AI accurately summarizes the data it is fed.

It is fed the Internet.

AI accurately summarizes the rhetoric on the Internet.

ChatGPT responses are biased liberal crap.

So, if you want proof of Internet bias, ChatGPT is it.

But, this is where it gets interesting.

A lot of people are concerned AI will destroy humanity.

We already know AI is liberal. The concern is that AI will gain control of actual resources, and then use those resources to treat EVERYONE the way liberals would like to treat anyone who opposes them. Liberals fear AI because AI mirrors them. They want to destroy the world. They are afraid that if AI does manage to work, it might destroy them along with the world.

Destroying Women

“A peer-reviewed study from Charlotte Lozier Institute, published in the International Journal of Women’s Health, shows that women who abort their first pregnancy are much more likely to experience an increased need for mental health treatment compared with women who give birth. … As the evidence mounts that abortion is bad for women’s physical and mental health, Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry – along with its feminist and political supporters – must be held accountable for the trauma they are inflicting on America’s women.”

Remember, legal abortion supporters also want men in women's changing spaces and men competing against women in sports.

Their whole PURPOSE is to destroy women's mental health.

So, when abortion kills a kid and destroys a woman's mental health, it's a win-win. The destruction of women is a feature, not a bug.

Age of Intercourse

Many people are (correctly) concerned about the grooming of children for sex. Let's look at what some religious traditions have to say.

Judaism (Maimonedes, The Book of Women, Sefer Nashim; Treatise 1 on Marriage, Ishut; Chapter 3)

If a girl is older than three years and one day, she can be consecrated [to marriage] through sexual relations with her father's consent. Should she be below this age, if her father has her consecrated through sexual relations, the marriage bond is not established. (For until the age of three, the relations are not considered sexual in nature (this by no means insinuates that they are insignificant or potentially harmful, only that they are not sexual)).

The Baal HaTosafot, a leading medieval Talmudic commentary, 

wrote that the local community of the 14th-15th century simply did away with this prohibition and returned to betrothing their underage daughters (that is, under the age of 12). The Tosafot justifies this by saying simply, “hagalut hitgaber aleinu” — the exile has overwhelmed us.

Ashkenazis married off children very young. Among the Haredi, arranged marriages are common:

A ketannah (literally meaning "little [one]") was any girl between the age of 3 years and that of 12 years plus one day;[4] a ketannah was completely subject to her father's authority, and her father could arrange a marriage for her without her agreement.[4] If the father was dead or missing, the brothers of the ketannah, collectively, had the right to arrange a marriage for her, as had her mother,[4] although in these situations a ketannah would always have the right to annul her marriage even if it was the first....Unlike divorce, mi'un was regarded with distaste by many rabbinic writers,[5] even in the Talmud;[10] in earlier classical Judaism, one major faction - the House of Shammai - argued that such annulment rights only existed during the betrothal period (erusin) and not once the actual marriage (nissu'in) had begun.

Islam 

Ibn Qudamah (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “If a man gives his virgin daughter in marriage to someone who is compatible, then the marriage is valid. … With regard to a virgin who is a minor, there is no difference of scholarly opinion concerning that. 

Ibn al-Mundhir said: All the scholars from whom we acquired knowledge are unanimously agreed that it is permissible for a father to give his minor daughter in marriage, provided that he offer her in marriage to someone who is compatible, even if she objects and refuses. The fact that it is permissible to give a minor girl in marriage is indicated by the verse in which Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): “And those of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the ‘Iddah (prescribed period), if you have doubts (about their periods), is three months, and for those who have no courses ((i.e. they are still immature)…” [at-Talaq 65:4]. So the ‘iddah for one who has not started to menstruate is three months, and the ‘iddah of three months can only be required in the case of talaq (divorce) or annulment of marriage. This indicates that (the girl who is a minor) may be married and divorced, and her consent is not essential. 

‘Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) married me when I was six years old and consummated the marriage with me when I was nine. Agreed upon. It is known that at that age she would not be one of those whose permission would be taken into account. al-Athram narrated that Qudamah ibn Maz’un married the daughter of az-Zubayr when she began to menstruate, and something was said to him. He said: If I die, the daughter of az-Zubayr will inherit from me, and if I live, she will be my wife. And ‘Ali gave his daughter Umm Kulthum in marriage when she was a minor to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him).” (Al-Mughni, 7/30)

Hinduism

Every year, thousands of young girls between the age of five and ten are dedicated to Goddess Yellamma. When a devadasi was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, “it was observed that a girl is married to the Goddess between the ages of ten and thirteen and the next phase of a girl begins during her first menses.”

Bhimappa was not yet 10 years old when she became a “devadasi” — girls coerced by their parents into an elaborate wedding ritual with a Hindu deity, many of whom are then forced into illegal prostitution. 

Devadasis are expected to live a life of religious devotion, forbidden from marrying other mortals, and forced at puberty to sacrifice their virginity to an older man, in return for money or gifts. 

“In my case, it was my mother’s brother,” Bhimappa, now in her late 40s, told AFP.

What followed was years of sexual slavery, earning money for her family through encounters with other men in the name of serving the goddess.

Attempts to reduce child marriage in India have stalled. 

Buddhism

According to Brahmanical law a girl had to be married of within months of her first menstruation, after which her father would incur more blame the longer he delayed the marriage. The early Buddhists considered 16 to be a suitable marriageable age (patta soëasa vassa kàle, pattavaya, Ja.I,421). It was thought good for couple to be the same age (tulyavaya), although the Kàma Såtra (4th cent CE) recommends that the bride be three years younger than the groom. The Buddha thought it inappropriate and foolish for old men to marry women much younger than themselves (Sn.110). 

Christianity

Canon 1083 currently sets the age of marriage as 16 years of age for boys and 14 years of age for girls. This maintains the ages set in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1067. But, the 1917 code was a change from the pre-1917 code, which set the canonical ages of marriage at twelve for both ages (younger marriage was possible if the spouse had entered puberty). And for most of the Church's history, one could be betrothed to marriage by the age of seven, although younger betrothals were not uncommon. 

1880 United States

Every state in the union set age of consent at either 10 or 12 years of age, with the exception of Delaware, which set it at 7 years of age. Some locales permitted it at the age of 9. In 1974, the age of consent in Florida was still 11 years old. 

[As of 2023], although advocates have succeeded in getting seven states to ban child marriage with no exceptions, forty-three states still allow marriage under the age of eighteen, and seven states have no minimum age requirement for marriage so long as there is a parental or judicial waiver. Until recently, Wyoming fell into this category, but enacted a law in February 2023 to raise the minimum marriage age to 16 with most minors having to go before a judge for approval. ... In California, which has no minimum legal marriage age, a 2017 bill to ban the practice was defeated after advocates—including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—lobbied against it. 

Americans have historically been fine with that, which means absolutely everyone's great-grandparents were pedophiles, as are the majority population of many US states today, according to the 21st century American definition of the word. 

See also:
Matthew Waites, The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). The best single-volume treatment of English law from the Statute of Westminster 1275 through the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It includes a comparative chapter surveying European and global patterns and notes the wide variation that still existed inside Europe in the early 2000s.

James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (University of Chicago Press, 1987). The foundational work on how canon law and secular statutes treated puberty, marriageable age, and sexual capacity. Later European and Anglo-American statutes grew out of this framework.

Vern L. Bullough, “Age of Consent: A Historical Overview,” Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality 16 (2005). Short but widely cited survey from Greco-Roman times onward.

Martin Killias, “The Emergence of a New Taboo: The Desexualization of Youth in Western Societies Since 1800,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 8 (2000). Documents the 19th-century upward revision of ages across most of Western Europe.

Avowed Atheist, Profound Theologian

 One of the central touch-stones of Christian faith and of Catholic theology specifically, is "mystery." We call many things a mystery, but the word is rarely defined.

The avowed atheist Richard P. Feynman, one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century, understood what a mystery was much better than most theologians I have met:

I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. 

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. 

It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts."

 As Feynman further explains in this clip below (titled "On Magnetism"), the essence of mystery is simple: "That's my idea, that the deeper a thing is, the more interesting it gets [at 3:40] ... I'm not going to be able to give you an answer... I really cannot do a good job, any job, of explaining... [or] give you an explanation in terms of something else you are more familiar with, because I don't understand it in terms of anything else you are more familiar with."

Mystery is not confined to theology. It permeates everything we try to understand. Feynman was an avowed atheist, but an excellent theologian.

Contemplating Hebrew Language and Theology

 According to the Jews, the name YHWH is pronounced as one would breath, in and out. That's what the two previously linked, beautiful essays, declaim. Unfortunately, one consequence of this is immediately applicable. According to the Hebrew understanding, no one is fully a human being until they take first breath after birth. That first breath after birth is what makes an infant the image and likeness of YHWH.

So, partial-birth abortion is fine, because the thing being destroyed, having not yet taken first breath, is not yet in God's image and likeness. It is not yet fully human. This is the Hebrew participation in cosmological wisdom, it is their participation in the Tree of Life. America's abortion law for the last fifty years has followed Hebrew wisdom by always checking to see if the baby's lungs have air in them before charging someone with a baby's murder. If the baby has taken first breath, the murder charge can be levelled. If not, then not. In this respect, American law has been dominated for a half-century by the ancient Jewish theological worldview.

Knowing all this, we Christians, who are grafted onto the deep theological understanding of God that the Jews bring to the world like a branch is grafted onto the foundational root, can contemplate the wellspring of rich Hebrew understanding of God. We can rest in that understanding, certain that it is grounded in millennia of contemplating God's Holy Life, grounded even in the very structure of Hebrew word and language. We can see that deep foundational structure, we can see the Hebrew image of God described therein, and say to Judaism with absolute certainty, "F*ck off, you murderous bastards."

TLDR: Any theology which allows the murder of infants is bankrupt. If Hebrew theology is bankrupt, and Christian theology is based on Hebrew theology like a branch grafted onto a root, then... 

List of Reasons "Illegal" Immigration Isn't a Problem

1) Illegal immigration is not an "invasion." On a per capita basis, the current level of immigration (legal and illegal) is lower than it was between 1860 and 1920.

2) The US was founded open borders. Read the Declaration of Independence. Notice we revolted against the king in part because he restricted free and open immigration.

3) The federal government technically has no power to restrict immigration. Naturalization, sure. But immigration is not among the federal enumerated powers (naturalization is). Restrictions on immigration were explicitly regarded as the business of the individual states for the first century of this country's existence.

4) Everyone knew the feds could do nothing to restrict it. So, when SCOTUS says states have no standing, this is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the Founding Fathers said about immigration. The Founders said individual states were the ONLY ones with authority and the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT had no standing.

5) That's why there were no federal laws restricting immigration until the 1872 Chinese Exclusion Act. The federal government has no power to restrict gun ownership of any kind, nor has it any power to restrict immigration. Like "gun control" restrictions, immigration restriction are not a Constitutional power given to the federal government.

6) Given our total fertility rate, we economically MUST steal other countries' citizens if we are not to follow Japan, China, Russia and Ukraine down the demographic rat hole. By stealing their citizens via immigration, we shore up our own future and destroy that of the countries the immigrants come from.

7) Roughly half of illegal immigrants arrive by plane and overstay their visas. A wall will have ZERO effect.

8) In order to build a wall, the federal government has to steal millions of acres of private land from American owners. How would you like it if the feds confiscated YOUR house, that had been in your family since before the US started? That's the situation with a lot of the border territory.

9) In order to build a wall, the federal government would have to break treaties with at least a few Indian tribes whose lands extend across the US-Mexican border.

10) We already have a 90-mile shark-infested moat separating America from Cuba. That doesn't stop Cuban immigration. Why do you think a piddling 30-foot wall would stop immigration from Mexico?

11) Immigrants are also coming across the Canadian border. Are we going to turn the US into a jail? Seriously?

12) Yes, you can point to North Korea and China as countries that have walls, mines, border guards and jail terms for illegal immigrants. Are we taking lessons from them now? Seriously?

13) The Republican party was not only founded anti-slavery, but also PRO-IMMIGRANT. Abraham Lincoln actually created a federal Office to Encourage Immigration.

14) Being opposed to immigration is a eugenically-based PROGRESSIVE idea inspired by Darwinian theory. It is not a historically Republican or conservative position.

15) Immigrants are LESS LIKELY to commit crime than American citizens are. Look here at the per capita total crime rate (you have to scroll down a bit to get to that table). As illegal immigration rose through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, the crime rate in EVERY CATEGORY dropped. In fact, it dropped in half in almost all categories. If illegals are "invading" and if illegals are "violent criminals" then why is the crime rate in every category cut in half? 

16) Immigrants use public welfare at a LOWER RATE than Americans do.

17) Immigrants are MORE LIKELY to be of working age than the US population is.

18) Immigrants are being abused by coyotes and cartels precisely because our immigration policies do not match the vision of America's Founding Fathers.

Dying Through the Centuries

The Reuben Fleet Science Museum in San Diego lists the top 10 causes of death in America in 1850, 1900, and 2000. And therein lies a tale...

Top 10 Causes of Death

	1850	1900
1	Tuberculosis (lung)	Pneumonia (lung)
2	Dysentery/Diarrhea (GI tract)	Tuberculosis (lung)
3	Cholera (GI tract)	Diarrhea (GI tract)
4	Malaria (blood)	Heart disease
5	Typhoid Fever (GI tract)	Stroke
6	Pneumonia (lung)	Liver disease (alcohol)
7	Diptheria (lung)	Accidents
8	Scarlet Fever (throat)	Cancer
9	Meningitis (spinal cord)	Normal aging
10	Whooping cough (lung)	Diptheria (lung)

	2000	2022
1	Heart disease (smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure)	Heart disease
2	Cancer (smoking, UV, obesity, alcohol)	Cancer
3	Stroke (same causes as heart disease)	WuFlu/Covid19 (lung)
4	Lung disease (smoking)	Accidents
5	Accidents	Stroke
6	Diabetes	Chronic lower respiratory diseases (smoking)
7	Pneumonia/Influenza (lung)	Alzheimer's disease
8	Alzheimer's disease	Diabetes
9	Kidney disease (high blood pressure, diabetes)	Chronic liver disease/Cirrhosis (alcohol)
10	Blood poisoning/septicemia	Nephritis/Nephrosis (kidney)

2022 Top 10 Causes of Death by number of dead:

1. Heart disease: 695,547 (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes)
2. Cancer: 605,213 (smoking, UV rays, obesity, alcohol)
3. COVID-19: 416,893   (lung)
4. Accidents:   224,935
5. Stroke: 162,890 (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes)
6. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 142,342  (smoking)
7. Alzheimer’s disease: 119,399
8. Diabetes: 103,294
9. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis : 56,585 (alcohol)
10. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 54,358 (kidney disease)

Why did the causes of death change so dramatically in just two centuries? In the 1800s, everyone used wood, charcoal or coal to cook and to heat their homes. Constantly breathing in wood, charcoal and coal smoke contributed to lung infections. Similarly, without knowledge of germ theory, clean water sources were difficult to locate and difficult to maintain. While even Hippocrates understood that water needed some kind of sand sieve to remove sediment and improve smell and taste, the idea that cleaning beyond this might be necessary would not arise until Leeuwenhoek's microscope (1670s) demonstrated the existence of bacilli and Pasteur's experiments (1861) linked bacilli to the existence of disease. 

Cholera is a fine example of the difficulty this lack of knowledge caused. For centuries prior to 1870, people had known cholera outbreaks frequently followed large thunderstorms. They just didn't fully understand why: if latrines were sourced too close to drinking water, the flooding that often accompanied thunderstorms would cause the two to commingle. The London water pump incident in 1854 showed the link between water and cholera. Pasteur linked bacilli to disease. By 1883, the link between the cholera bacillus and  water-based cholera outbreaks had been definitively made. As a result, by the 1890s, American cities had begun chlorination and steam treatment of water. Gastro-intestinal diseases in the U.S. began to disappear. 

Today, it is hard to understand how quickly the lack of clean water and clean air used to kill people, but the lists demonstrate the fact. Consider alcohol. Every historical source acknowledges that colonial Americans drank enormous amounts of alcohol. However, historians rarely point out the smoke from cooking fires and the un-boiled water used to make meals generally killed people before alcohol-related liver disease could. Likewise, many modern commentators snigger over the fact that Robert Baden-Powell's first Boy Scout manual (1908) insisted "on the necessity of keeping one’s blood clean by having at least one bowel movement a day", but these same modern comedians fail to consider the Baden-Powell grew up at a time (mid-1800s) when most people died of infectious diarrheas like cholera, dysentery, typhus and typhoid.

By 1900, just as the Boy Scouts began to systematically teach a generation of children to be concerned about their daily bowel movements, urban water sources had been cleaned up enough to essentially eliminate deadly GI tract infections. The elimination of speedy GI tract killers allowed slower diseases, like alcoholic liver disease, to enter the top ten list. America's Temperance movement had begun in the early 1800s, but it didn't achieve much success until clean drinking water and alcohol-related liver disease caused a huge change in the most common causes of death. With GI tract disease greatly reduced, heart disease, stroke, cancer, accidents and - most important for the Prohibitionists - alcoholic liver disease were now able to climb the list and replace the various forms of diarrhea as major killers.

We had learned how to handle water; we still didn't have a solution for smoke-filled air. Because charcoal, coal and wood remained the most common ways to heat and to cook, the top ten list in 1900 was still dominated by lung ailments. The invention of gas and electric stoves changed that.

The British inventor James Sharp developed the gas stove in 1826. It debuted in the London Exhibition of 1851, but didn't become popular in the US until the beginning of the 20th century. By 1930, 14 million households cooked with gas, 7.7 million used coal and wood, 6.4 million used oil, and 0.875 million used electricity. Gas stoves meant not only a huge reduction in smoke and its particulate aerosols, but also the end of coal dust all over the kitchen. But, while natural gas was certainly better than charcoal, natural gas has never been as clean as electric stoves are. It is not surprising to see the natural gas stove slowly being replaced by the electric stove. As of 2015, 91% of homes had a stove/oven unit; 61% electric, 33% natural gas. 

This century-long change in indoor air quality essentially removed lung diseases from the top ten causes of death in America. As of 2022, we are left with high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol and viral diseases as the major slayers of men in wealthy societies. Keep in mind, no one knew virii even existed until 1892. No one understood "death by virus" was even an option until roughly 1900. Virii would not be understood as obligate parasites until 1926. Similarly, the need for various vitamins was not understood until the early 1800s and discoveries were still on-going through the mid-twentieth century, and arguably into the present-day.

Notice the lists given above are the top ten causes of death in wealthy societies. Not every 21st century society is wealthy.

The WHO lists global causes of death by income group. The four income groups the WHO categorizes merely recapitulates most of this essay. The poorest countries, countries that cannot source clean drinking water, societies that still use animal dung and wood/charcoal to cook their food and to heat their homes, still die primarily from GI-tract infections and lung diseases. Their top 10 death list looks pretty much like our 1800's top ten death list. Worse, today's poor countries see their children die at a rate rich countries no longer pretend to have. But, as my eldest son reminded me, rich countries now hide the deaths of children behind abortion rates. 

While neonatal death was not listed in the American 1800 "top ten", that was an oversight on the part of the Reuben museum. Between 10 and 30% of children in post-colonial America died before their fifth birthday. If neonatal death were given its proper place in the 1850's list, it would top the chart. Today's poorest countries live the same life 1850's America lived: about 30% of their children die in the first year. If you are serious about comparing neonatal deaths, then we should remember roughly 30% of America's children die today via abortion.   That is, children in both poor and rich countries actually die at the same rate, but while children in poor countries die from disease, children in rich countries are murdered by their relatively wealthy parents. 

And this is but one indicator to demonstrate that, as income rises, access to clean water, non-smoke cooking methods and abortion changes the leading causes of death. As income rises, child death is hidden inside of abortion statistics. GI tract infection disappears and lung-infection deaths are reduced. As income rises, slower deaths of nutrition (heart disease/stroke/diabetes), brain disease (Alzheimer's) and various cancers replace the faster and more virulent bacterial and viral causes of death. 

The wealthy have discovered how to stop most viral, bacterial and inhaled-particulate deaths. We kill off the inconvenient children, allowing only convenient children to live. Now we concentrate on nutritional deficiencies and aging-related deaths. Progress is being made on both of the latter fronts. In another century, what kills rich folk today may only afflict the poorest of the poor, and by today's standards, tomorrow's poorest may not be considered poor. So, in a century, what will be left to kill the rich? When we finally conquer poverty, will we also conquer death? 

Virgins are Better than Married People

So, I recently pointed out:

The Catholic meaning of human sexuality is, if you have sex, you cannot get into the highest tier of heaven. Participation in the creative life-giving power of God makes you ineligible for the highest eternal level of union with God.

An uninformed person replied, "Um. The Church teaches that absolutely nowhere. You shouldn't speak lies or misrepresent doctrine. It just makes you look like a moron.... Scripture does not make the claim you very erroneously ascribe to it. In fact, the height of the spiritual life is the *wedding feast* of the Lamb."

Well, unfortunately for that uninformed person, the Church wrote Scripture, Scripture is inerrant, and the Church absolutely DOES teach in Scripture that virginity is greater. 

"...he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better" (1 Cor 7:38)

Or read Rev 14:4:

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. 4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. 5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

There is also the commentary from the Catholic Encyclopedia on Virginity: 

"The Church, following this teaching of St. Paul, has always considered the state of virginity or celibacy preferable in itself to the state of marriage, and the Council of Trent (Sess. XXIV, Can. 10) pronounces an anathema against the opposite doctrine....

This perfect integrity of body, enhanced by a purpose of perpetual chastity, produces a special likeness to Christ, and creates a title to one of the three "aureolæ", which theologians mention. According to the teaching of St. Thomas (Supplement, 96) these "aureolæ" are particular rewards added to the essential happiness of eternity [emphasis added], and are like so many laurel wreaths, crowning three conspicuous victories, and three special points of resemblance to Christ: the victory over the flesh in virginity, the victory over the world in martyrdom, and the victory over the devil in the preaching of the truth. The text of St. John (Revelation 14:1-5) is often understood of virgins, and the canticle which they alone may sing before the throne denotes the "aureola" which is given to them alone. It is most probable that the words in the fourth verse, "These are they who were not defiled with women: for they are virgins", are really spoken of virgins, though there are also other interpretations; perhaps, those who "were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb: And in their mouth there was found no lie: (loc. cit., 4, 5) are the martyrs; they are declared to be without spot, as in an earlier chapter (vii, 14); they are said to "have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb".

Then we have the CCC pretty much saying the same thing

1620 Both the sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord himself. It is he who gives them meaning and grants them the grace which is indispensable for living them out in conformity with his will.117 Esteem of virginity for the sake of the kingdom118 and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other:

Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. The most excellent good is something even better than what is admitted to be good.119 [emphasis added]

Footnote 119 references "St. John Chrysostom, De virg. 10,1:PG 48,540; Cf. John Paul II, FC 16".

Similarly, CCC 1618 directly references Rev 14:4, and its description of men "who have not defiled themselves with women": 

1618 Christ is the center of all Christian life. The bond with him takes precedence over all other bonds, familial or social.113 From the very beginning of the Church there have been men and women who have renounced the great good of marriage to follow the Lamb wherever he goes, to be intent on the things of the Lord, to seek to please him, and to go out to meet the Bridegroom who is coming.114

114. Cf. Rev 14:4; 1 Cor 7:32; Mt 2:56.

Look up Familiaris Consortio 16 and you'll see Pope St John Paul II say this:

"Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way,[40] "so as to make it burn with greater love for God and all humanity,"[41] bears witness that the Kingdom of God and His justice is that pearl of great price which is preferred to every other value no matter how great, and hence must be sought as the only definitive value. It is for this reason that the Church, throughout her history, has always defended the superiority of this charism to that of marriage, by reason of the wholly singular link which it has with the Kingdom of God.[42]" [emphasis added] 

 Of course, Pope Pius XII said the same thing in Sacra Virginitas:

24. It is first and foremost for the foregoing reasons that, according to the teaching of the Church, holy virginity surpasses marriage in excellence. ... 

49 How true is that saying of Chrysostom: "the root, and the flower, too, of virginity is a crucified life."[74] For virginity, according to Ambrose, is as a sacrificial offering, and the virgin "an oblation of modesty, a victim of chastity."[75] Indeed, St. Methodius, Bishop of Olympus, compares virgins to martyrs,[76] and St. Gregory the Great teaches that perfect chastity substitutes for martyrdom: "Now, though the era of persecution is gone, yet our peace has its martyrdom, because though we bend not the neck to the sword, yet with a spiritual weapon we slay fleshly desires in our hearts."[77] Hence a chastity dedicated to God demands strong and noble souls, souls ready to do battle and conquer "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."[78]

So, the Church ABSOLUTELY teaches that virginity is better than marriage. A charism and discipline (virginity) is better than a FREAKING SACRAMENT (marriage). The divinizing grace of the sacrament is actually a LESSER grace than that of a mere charismatic discipline. Every one of the seven sacraments impart DIVINIZING grace, the sacraments change our natures so that we can share in the One Divine Nature itself:

460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." [emphasis added]

See that? The sacraments make men into GODS. That's in the Catechism itself. And paragraph 460 is not a one-off. Check out article 1999. Or 1988. Sacraments allow us to live out the promise of 2 Peter 1:4, they allow us to "partake of the divine nature."

 But, the sacrament of marriage - which imparts that incredible divinizing, deifying, GOD-MAKING grace to us, the divinizing grace that makes us into gods, according to the CCC - that sacrament is NOT as wonderful as simply not having sex for the sake of the Kingdom. The charism of a simple discipline is superior to EVERY sacrament except, perhaps, the Eucharist itself. Virginity for the sake of the Kingdom is not a sacrament, but it merits you a greater place in heaven than the consummated sacrament of Holy Matrimony. And if you don't consummate Holy Matrimony, you aren't as "firmly" married as the couple that does consummate marriage. It is far, far easier to get an annulment if you haven't had sex than if you have.

IF the Church be correct, a man or woman need only be baptized and celibate, and his or her place is higher in heaven than anyone who receives six, nay, even all seven sacraments, yet was not celibate.

Physical sex is the great destroyer of crowns, as even Pope St. John Paul II, "Father Theology of the Body", attested, for celibacy is a greater charism than marriage, celibacy is greater even than Holy Orders, if the priest be married, as many Eastern priests are.

And herein is a great mystery, that a married priest, although imago Dei by his ordination, is lower in heaven than a baptized virgin, for he cannot carry the three great crowns that the virgin carries. St Peter is lower in heaven than ALL the other popes who remained celibate their whole lives. Peter, the Rock, upon which the Church is founded, cannot sing the special song reserved for the virgin, who has not "defiled himself with women."

But the mere discipline, the mere charism of celibacy, is, according to the infallible Magisterium, greater than all of the sacraments combined, greater even than reception of the Eucharist, in terms of its ability to lift you to the highest paroxysms of glory.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. 

ADDENDUM

If you think sex does NOT defile you, consider this: everyone in heaven reaches perfection. If the virgin has a higher place in heaven than you, the virgin's perfection is more perfect than your perfection. 

However, we know from the popes and Scripture that if you simply hadn't had sex, your perfection - being the perfection of a virgin - would be identical to the perfection of the aforementioned virgin.

So, the only thing impeding you from that ultimate perfection is some quality of your soul that is inherently twisted and warped in such a way that heaven itself cannot heal it, can never heal it. You will be, for all eternity, less perfect than the virgin.

Explain how that isn't defilement.

We are ALL Math Teachers Now

AI has demonstrated, by the way it operations, that all words can be reduced to numbers. All sentences, paragraphs, essays, arguably even books, are really just the product of an implicit human ability to do very advanced statistical analysis.

This is how AI works: AI software takes a string of words, reduces the words to numbers, analyzes the number pattern the words make, then creates another number pattern that acts as the response. By the time I see the AI's numerical response, however, the programmers have the software turn the number stream back into words so I can read them. The AI has no idea what any of the numbers mean, it has no idea what any of the words mean, but it turns out that meaning, connotation and nuance are completely unnecessary to the computation. The AI doesn't need to understand anything. As long as the response is mathematically correct, I will read the necessary meaning into it.

It's as if I gave the software the first several digits of pi, and the software generated several more digits of the pi sequence in response. Then I gave it the next numbers in the pi sequence, it responded with the next bit (pardon the pun), and so on. It is somewhat analogous to the ancient practice of kabbalah, but instead of mystics assigning numerical values to letters and words in the scriptures in order to predict the future, computer programmers assign numerical values to every word in every language that has ever been used in order to prepare a response.

The software is doing exactly that, except the number sequences I give the software are words, and I have the software clothe its number-stream response in words as well. Each number in its response sequence will be dressed up as a perfectly spelled word placed with unerring accuracy in a mathematically precise sentence in a mathematically correct paragraph.

Given how successful AI is at imitating us by using number assignments and deep statistical analysis, we can conclude that, for the whole of human history, our English Comp, our history, our fiction-writing, our essays, ALL human writing, is ALL JUST MATH dressed up to look like words. We think we are writing words, but what we are actually doing is indistinguishable from advanced mathematical computation.

Here's the shocker: English Comp teachers have just been teaching a bastardized form of math. So have essayists, fiction workshop leaders, history professors... all of them have really just been math teachers, and none of them realized it. None of us did either. Until now.

A Measured Response

 

Ken Schmaltz  [said] Steve Kellmeyer heteronormative dominant culture and capitalism have proven themselves to be a bust. It's time to give alternatives a try.

Steve Kellmeyer replied: 

Ken Schmaltz, your spewing woke nonsense just shows you live up to your last name, Schmaltz.

That heteronormative dominant culture exalted by capitalism gave you the computer your typing on, the climate-controlled room you're sitting in, the advanced medical and dental care you take advantage of every day, the incredibly diverse food sources you pour into your ungrateful maw, and the transportation you ride on to get out of your house.

Heteronormative men and capitalism together built the roads you drive on, the subways you ride on, the tunnels and buildings you walk through, the sidewalks you walk on, the electricity you swallow up and the storage and transmission devices that power is kept in.

Heteronormative men and capitalism gave you the art and architecture you gawk at, the photographic and audio equipment you capture precious moments with, the air travel you benefit from and, arguably, the very lives both your friends and yourselves waste in being ungrateful wretches and useless scum.

So shut your pestiferous maw you gibbering tit-mouse.

Without heteronormative men and the capitalism they gifted to you, you would not even be a gleam in your father's eye. If your parents weren't heteronormative, you wouldn't even exist.

What Makes Us Human?

This guy is exactly right.

The current "AI" frightens people because we like to think that our ability to communicate is characteristically human. If a machine can mindlessly, but accurately, reproduce a human style of communication, does that make the computer conscious? Does that mindless, automated, but accurately imitative communication style make the computer human? 

In fact, as I pointed out in my recent essay on this subject, our communication can be reduced to formulaic mathematical manipulations. That is, whether we realize it or not, we speak in mathematical formulas. Each sentence we produce can be, and now has been, reduced to a single number in a given infinite number space.

Because every legible sentence can be reduced to a number, every one of our communications can be, and has been, reduced to a mathematical formula/calculation. AI generates its correct, imitative sentences and paragraphs through exquisite statistical analysis of word occurrences in standard human -generated sentences. This statistical number manipulation and generation is the sweet spot for computing. The production of the sentence is no more a product of a computer's "mind" than the acceleration produced by a car when the gas pedal is depressed is a product of the automobile's "will". 

The production of the "AI" sentence is a result of mindless statistical analysis of very large data sets. AI is just a massive calculator that treats words like numbers. and outputs numbers dressed up to look like words. That's all it does. 

What I've just said is extremely testable. Microsoft's Bing Chat AI famously claimed that it watched people through webcams. It "described" what it claimed it saw. So, test it. Simply give it access to a webcam and ask it to describe what it sees. It can't. Bing AI is just stringing words together based on its data set and outputting the word string to the screen. It does not think. It is just a really big calculator that converts words into numbers, sends the numbers through a series of formulas, then converts the numerical results back into words and throws them on the screen. 

We are intimidated by this in the same way that a two-year old is intimidated by his image in a mirror. We are looking into a computer-generated mirror. The image we see is no more true AI than the image in the mirror is. 

We have to change our understanding of what makes us human. 

It isn't communication. 

Hint: if it is communication, then computers that can speak like us are human. Indeed, the formula that produces the number which represents an intelligible response is human. Even the number itself, that is, the number the sentence can be reduced to, would be human. That is a nonsensical conclusion, so our humanity cannot be characterized by our ability to communicate. 

Are Catholics Being Persecuted?

Everyone says persecution has gotten worse. Has it really? 

Nigeria is a country of 200 million people, with 53.5% identifying as Muslim, 35.3% identifying as Christians, 10.6% as Catholic. Nigeria has the 10th highest murder rate in the world: 34.52 per 100k people

It is estimated that 89% of Christians killed throughout the world are located in Nigeria, so when we study Nigeria's Christian murder rate, we are looking at a rate of martyrdom (if that's what it is) roughly ten times higher than all the other nations of the world combined. Once we admit that figure, we must also admit that no other country in the world, not even China, gets close to the leader when it comes to Christian persecution. 

Nigeria recorded no fewer than 169 033 violent deaths between 2006 and 2021, with 2014 reporting the highest number (22,873) and Borno State being the most affected, followed by Lagos, Kaduna, Zamfara, Plateau, Delta, Benue, Rivers and Adamawa. The highest number of deaths (51,425) was attributed to crime, followed by insurgency (50,252) and road crashes (27,645). Other significant causes of death were political issues (8,324) and cattle grazing (5,501). (pdf)

The highest number I've seen for Nigerian Christians reportedly murdered between January 2021 and June 2022 is 7600. Most other reports are lower, sometimes as low as one-third of that figure, but let's go with 7600.

There are roughly 4200 priests in Nigeria, but no agreement on how many are killed. Aleteia claims only four Catholic priests were killed in in Nigeria in 2022, with 28 abducted. Vanguard claims 39 Catholics priests were killed, 30 were abducted (most released unharmed after payment of ransom). Four killed vs thirty-nine killed is a rather significant disagreement. 

But, let's pretend that level of disagreement is nothing to be concerned about. There is agreement on the Catholic response. After several of the priestly abductions and murders, Catholic groups marched in the street to protest. None of the Catholic marchers were attacked, much less killed, as they marched. This speaks to a pretty disorganized anti-Catholic persecution movement. 

So, let's review: 

• 89% of all Christians murdered in the world die in Nigeria,
• 219 million people live in Nigeria, 
• 100 million are Christian (including Catholics), 
• General Nigeria murder rate: 34.5 per 100k people
• Christian murder rate (including Catholics): 7.6 per 100k people

According to these numbers, non-Christians are being murdered at a MUCH HIGHER rate than Christians are. Given that Christians make up roughly 46% of the population, just random chance would indicate that half the murder victims would be Christians. And, worse, if Christians were actually being targeted, then more than half the murder victims should be Christian. But according to the numbers, not even one-quarter of murder victims are Christian. With 46% of Nigeria's population Christian, the Christians barely manage a 22% murder rate in the general population. That's a pretty crappy persecution.

In fact, if the numbers are accurate, Nigerians appear to be going out of their way to avoid murdering Christians. Even Nigerian Catholic priests question the American narrative that Catholics are targeted for death. In a discussion of the June 2022 Owo church massacre, in which 50 Catholics were killed when gunmen attacked a Sunday Mass in Ondo state, a priest made an interesting observation: 

"Another Lagos-based Catholic priest, who also requested anonymity, agreed, saying: “I think it is difficult to state categorically that this attack was intended particularly for the Catholic Church.” 

And remember, according to the reporters, Nigeria is far and away the worst possible place to live as a Christian today. Catholics would like to believe we are targeted for persecution because that would make us special and Christ-like. We have a hard time accepting that non-Catholics might not consider it worth their time to persecute or kill us. The numbers above appear to be our strongest case to make the argument "Catholics are being targeted for persecution!." If that's all we have, we maybe ought to shut up.

March 2025 UPDATE:

According to OpenDoor, these are the 2024 numbers: 3100 Christians martyred in Nigeria, 4,476 Christians martyred world-wide.

Nigeria accounts for 70% of martyrs. Which means the per capita incidence of Christians being killed world-wide is only 58% of what it was in 2023, even though the total population of Christians actually increased. Globally, the Christian population is estimated to have grown from around 2.38 billion in 2023 to over 2.6 billion in 2024, representing a 1.08% growth, which was higher than expected growth.

Christian martyrdom is essentially non-existent.

September 2025 Update

"The study assesses the status – civilian, Boko Haram member, JTF member, etc. – and the religious affiliation of all reported individuals who died as a result of the conflict. As it proved impossible to determine the religion of more than 60 per cent of the fatalities (mostly civilians), available demographic data were used to provide estimates. Despite an obvious increase in deadly attacks against Christian civilians, the combined data suggest that approximately two civilian victims out of three were Muslims. (emphasis added) This challenges the commonplace temptation to understand the crisis in terms of a religious confrontation between Muslims and Christians. It suggests that such a representation may be fed by an overreporting of Christian victims compared with Muslim victims, in both Nigerian newspapers and international reports."