“Are you ready for the Great Atomic Power?
Will you rise and meet your Savior in the air?
Will you shout or will you cry, when the fire rains from on high?
Are you ready for the Great Atomic Power?”
(seriously, if you’ve never heard it, you absolutely gotta)
The ATOMIC BOMB not only affected religion, but furniture, swimming pool and automobile design. The BOMB also directly affected millions of school kids (“duckl and cover!”) and bomb shelter “makers” - its’ influence seeped down into music (see: Dylan’s “Hard Rain-a-Gonna-Fall”) and celebrity BOMBshells and movies (“On the Beach” - “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” - etc) - the A-BOMB is the kookiest! Too bad its explosive dire effects and after-effects have been so gruesome.
Holy shit. I was just about ready to slip off peacefully in to bed. Now I have to read about some crazy-pants insanity about how Jesus is cool with atomic bombs? Really? Thanks Doctorow!
I wonder if anyone scanned in the lessons. The idea of mail-order lessons, religious or otherwise, is interesting.
Now-a-days you can learn complex stuff like programming from a lesson Wiki for free. It seems weird having to pay for knowledge.
WHAT!?!?!
Reconsider that remark in the light of a new day. Come on man. I’ve been reading and agreeing with you for a long time on here. Tell me my sarcasm meter is broken.
You will not be saved by the holy ghost.
You will not be saved by the god Plutonium.
In fact, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!
Amen. (or what ever they say in Cthulhu-land).
Seriously. There wide areas of knowledge – not everything – that are just are now available for the taking. Mostly technical, but lots of other stuff too. There was a time when, if you were a fan of some genre TV show, you’d have to buy some small press book to get an episode guide. Now there are legions of fans who put it up on Wikipedia or specialized sites.
Mind you, effective teaching is still worth paying for. There is a difference between having a C++ manual and some lessons on a website and having a teacher guiding you through the process and fellow students to work on projects with.
And then there’s training. Learning how to use tools, and craft and artistic techniques. You can’t grab that off the web. You need a real teacher.
But the kind of things that mail-order lessons taught . . . that kind of stuff you can just put on a website.
Ok then. Thank you. 
The Revolution will not be atomized.
Honestly, everything I’ve read about the man, I think Jesus would be horrified.
“Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb”
I knew someone would beat me to it. Amazing tune and the Louvins are a treasure.
While this doesn’t feature Jesus, it is one of my favorite songs ever and it’s about an Atom Bomb. By Fluke, from the Risotto album as well as the Wipeout 2097 game/soundtrack. This video is really horrible, but it uses imagery from the game.
THE AIR
ABOVE LOS ALAMOS IS LIKE A BREATH
SUCKED IN HORROR TOD MORT MUERTE DEATH
–Meaning the nearby nuclear research
Our instinct first is to deplore, and second
To think no more of.
-James Merrill, The Changing Light At Sandover
It never occurred to me before that Merrill’s atomic mysticism might have been informed by anything other than his imagination. Now I wonder if his idea that souls of those who die that would otherwise be reborn in new bodies are blown apart by nuclear explosions was inspired by this.
So, the Church of the Children of Atom (Fallout 3) is firmly based in reality.
I should have known.
Thanks!
I had forgotten how much I liked that song. And agreed, the video (now) is terrible. But it fits in well with the imagined future of the time. Now… off to watch Hackers.
I came to the thread to post exactly these lyrics. Also, I highly recommend finding a live version by Southern Culture On The Skids and cranking the hell out of it.
According to dollartimes.com, in 1930 $20 was worth the equivalent of $266.98 in 2013 dollars. Dude had quite the business.
