On August 6th, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan--quickly followed three days later by another on Nagasaki.   This bombing essentially ended World War II in the Pacific front, as Japan surrendered to the Allies immediately after.

The use of atomic bombs to end the war—causing over 200,000 deaths within the first year, and many more following due to radiation exposure—was and is, to say the least, a controversial decision.  Was dropping two atomic bombs on Japan a ‘mistake’ by the US?  Something that, in hindsight, was highly regrettable, and shouldn’t have happened?

By definition, using the term ‘mistake’ implies that a better course of action existed—one that (1) was available at the time, and (2) would have resulted in more acceptable consequences than what was actually chosen.  Unless those two criteria are met, though, the word ‘mistake’ cannot reasonably be applied—an objectively bad option may still legitimately be the least worst option and thus not, technically, a ‘mistake’. 

Judged in a vacuum: killing people is bad, killing 200,000+ people is really bad, not killing 200,000 people is good.  Zero deaths is better than 200,000 deaths, therefore dropping the bomb was a mistake and shouldn’t have happened.  Game.  Set.  Match.

This naïve approach implies Japan was a peaceful island nation minding its own business when bloodthirsty US invaders happened to fly by and annihilate two cities just for fun.  In reality, the US and Japan were at war, the Japanese leadership was resistant to surrender even after the first bomb, and the US was attempting to end the war by any means necessary.  Comparing 200,000 lives lost versus zero lives lost is a false and irrelevant comparison because no option that would have cost zero lives existed.   It isn’t as if the US got their maps wrong and accidentally dropped the bomb on Korea, instead. (“Oops.”)

If dropping the bomb on Japan was a ‘mistake’—a regrettable and inferior choice, in that a clearly better course of action existed--the question becomes: what would that ‘better’ course of action have been?  Withdrawing from the war, and leaving Japan to dominate all the other Asian countries within their reach?  Invading with land troops and conventional bombing and taking Japan by force?  Would the casualties in Japan (and everyone else) have been less, equal, or greater than the life cost using nuclear weapons?

No one knows for sure—that’s the enigma of alternative history.  No one knows what the results would have been if another choice was made, because another choice wasn’t made, and that path of history doesn’t exist to analyze and compare.

Supporters of dropping the bomb argue that the ‘alternate history’ involving a land invasion would have been much worse in terms of US (and Japanese) lives.  Detractors of dropping the bomb argue that the ‘alternate history’ could have been better (although certainly not in any naïve ‘zero lives lost and everyone dances around the campfire in harmony together’ sense).  No one can say for sure, though, because the paths not chosen are lost forever in the mists of time.

As we recognize the 30th anniversary of the 1978 revelation that allowed black men to be ordained to the priesthood in the LDS Church, the same sort of alternate history quandary applies.  Many enlightened 21st century members say the priesthood ban was a 'mistake' that shouldn’t have happened.  This leads to the same question as above: What would have happened in the Church, then, in our speculative alternate history without racial restrictions?  Would black and white Church members have been figuratively ‘dancing around the campfire together hand in hand’…several decades before the Civil War?

In the early-to-mid 19th century, if you were a white ‘liberal progressive’ in terms of race, it meant you opposed slavery.  Period.   It did not mean you thought blacks should have the right to vote.  It did not mean you believed blacks should own land, or have the same employment rights as whites.  It certainly did not mean you would have been perfectly okay with your daughter bringing home a black boyfriend.  From a 21st century perspective, even the most progressive liberals in terms of race in the 1800’s were still…well, racist.

Pre-Civil-War, would white members have been perfectly fine confessing their sins to a black bishop?  Or taking sacrament bread/wine broken by black hands, or touched by black lips? Or having black hands lain on their heads for blessings and ordinations?  If a great many white members were NOT okay with those things, what happens?

What would have happened, was the same thing that happened in every other church and organization in the US before the Civil Rights era (still more than one hundred years in the future) when whites in large part realized blacks had the right to be free and treated as human beings…but, gee, that doesn’t mean we have to associate with them ourselves, right?  Can’t they do their own thing…you know, over there, away from us?

As US history shows, the institution of slavery soon gave way to the institution of segregation.  Note that the reasoning behind segregation was not (always) based on ‘hate’.  Many of those same progressive liberals were perfectly willing to accept that blacks were human and deserved the same opportunity as themselves to work, raise a family, and seek after happiness…but, you know, not HERE in *our* companies, *our* neighborhoods, and *our* churches, of course.  They should be over there with 'their own kind’—a much more happier and suitable option for everyone!

Thus the key question:  what would have stopped the LDS Church from becoming segregated in the same way? Where white members would have been perfectly happy with black men being ordained to the priesthood...as long as they exercised that priesthood somewhere else.

(Ask a random white member in the early Church if a black man should be called as an LDS bishop and they might say, “Absolutely!  ...<pause>...  Oh, but not in OUR ward!  No, he should be called to serve among his ‘own kind’—that’s much better for everyone involved.”  Multiply this attitude by several thousand and we now have black LDS wards and white LDS wards--where blacks now have the priesthood and participate in priesthood ordinances, but in their own church away from everyone else.)

These are the questions to answer in relation to the black priesthood ban:

(1) What’s the likelihood that segregation would happened in the early Church?

(2) If segregation was, in fact, a likely if not outright inevitable possibility, would that have been better or worse for blacks than not having the priesthood?

If the realistic choices were ‘priesthood ban’ versus ‘segregation’ (not the false choices of ‘priesthood ban’ versus ‘racial harmony’), then that changes the entire conversation.  Attending meetings but not being allowed to participate in priesthood ordinances, or not being allowed to enter the chapel at all?  Which one would you choose?   (Note—ironically—that the priesthood ban made segregating blacks into their own wards literally impossible.)
 
By the same logic as the atomic bomb example above, the priesthood ban can’t be a ‘mistake’ if it was, in fact, better than any of the alternatives.   Without a convincing case that segregation would NOT have occurred in the LDS Church, don’t we have to accept the ‘least worst’ option? 

LDS members critical of the ban get themselves caught in a contradiction:  they cynically attribute the ban to “racism” of early Church members (and had nothing to do with God’s will), but then—paradoxically and highly optimistically--think life without the ban would have resulted in our vision of blacks and whites holding hands together, with no racial strife whatsoever.

One can’t have it both ways:  if the ban existed because the early church was racist, then isn’t that a pretty strong indicator that without the priesthood ban, life for black saints was not going to be smooth sailing regardless?  The reason the ban existed may have been the exact reason the ban was necessary in the first place, if only because the alternative was worse.

(As a thought experiment, read the Salt Lake Tribune report about some of the trials black Saints have gone through, particularly the experience of Tamu Smith in the temple, and ask yourself whether blacks meeting in segregated wards instead of being banned from the priesthood would have made this and similar experiences more or less common in Church history.  After all, under segregation, white church members would have been far more accustomed to the idea that ‘blacks don’t belong in the same places of worship as us…’  Which do you think would have required more adjustment when it finally ended in modern times?)  

Those who oppose dropping nuclear bombs on Japan can’t just ignore that there was a war going on when making their analysis.  There was no ‘don’t drop the bomb and everyone lives happily ever after’ option to choose.  Likewise, Church members who oppose the ban because they are opposed to racism can’t just pretend that racism didn’t already exist as a fundamental element of American culture when proposing what *should* have happened, instead.

Church members can't lament the existence of racism in one context, and then immediately pretend racism didn't exist in another context when deciding how the Lord would or would not have wanted to bring the Church from the 19th century into the 21st.  The priesthood ban was certainly regrettable...only because racism is regrettable.  Was it a 'mistake', though?  Present the better alternative first, and then we'll decide...