By A. James Rudin
Religion News Service

(RNS) Japan was the scene of the devastating opening chapter of the atomic age, and now it may be writing the closing chapter on the world's quest for secure nuclear energy.

It is the only nation to have suffered atomic bomb attacks when our nation struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart in August 1945 -- bombings that hastened the end of World War II.

Now, the current Japanese nuclear catastrophe caused by the earthquake and tsunami may stop any future construction of nuclear power plants on our beleaguered planet.

The United States has 104 of the world's 443 nuclear plants, and the Japanese calamity has surely ended the arrogant predictions that such facilities can survive similar natural disasters, or that nuclear energy can wean us away from our addiction to foreign oil and dangerously mined coal.

If wars are too important to be left to generals, then nuclear policy is too important to be left to politicians, utility company executives and technicians.

Maybe it's time for religious leaders to publicly declare there are certain things human beings are incapable of achieving -- like building the biblical tower of Babel or safely harnessing atomic energy.

During the 1960s I was an Air Force chaplain in Japan, where my duties included monthly visits to the Atomic Bomb Causalty Commission (ABCC) facilities in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The U.S. Public Health Service established the ABCC in 1948 to study two separate control groups: individuals who survived the atomic bombs and those who were not exposed to radiation. Not surprisingly, those who lived through the attacks were struck by cancer, birth defects, skin deformities, genetic abnormalities, psychiatric problems and other maladies far in excess of the non-exposed group.

To read the rest of this fascinating story, click on this link:  : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/18/tales-of-religious-aid-du_n_837351.html