YeshuaAgapao.com Blog

My church’s pastor thinks all the nuclear weapons of the world can and will completely obliterate planet earth (requires launch of entire USA and Russia arsenal - everybody else simply don’t have enough). I think at most all the nukes will scorch 99% of everything ‘on’ the earth. The nukes have a lot more destructive efficiency. plus military people no longer want warheads over 1.5 megatons and prefer 15-150 kilotons. Mega-Nukes (>5mt - Castle Bravo, Tsar Bomba) have too much of their energy go off into space and military people actually want all that destruction to stay in the lower atmosphere (troposphere / <40,000 ft), and hence the max desire of 150kt.

However, a comet of 2km (2km is more like a fragment of a broken-up comet) or more has 50% more kinetic energy than 200,000 5-megaton nuclear bombs (go to the Earth Impact Effects Program site and punch in 500 km distance from impact, 2000 meters impactor diameter, 1200 kg/m^3 impactor density, 50km/s impact velocity, 45 degrees impact angle). Not all the nukes in the world are 5MT. Most of america’s currently working nukes are tactical warheads to be dropped from planes or loaded on tactical cruise missles or several 50-150kt MIRVs mounted onto a single missile. And even at 50-150kt, the detonation from 100,000 tactical nukes (10 gigatons distributed across 100,000 points vs 1.5+ teratons from a single point) would still cause more destruction on the surface of the earth than a single-point blunt impact. But it doesn’t match a literal interpretation of the bible in my opinon.

A broken-up comet (with at least 2 fragments inact and the rest broken-up into small pieces; asteroids don’t break up as easily) is a very plausible possibility for the early trumpet-stage of the tribulation: 1st Trumpet - broken up pieces (not comet tail - that is dust); 2nd trumpet - first intact fragment into sea; 3rd trumpet - 2nd intact fragment onto land (possibly the amazon basin); 4th trumpet - impact-ejecta volcanic-winter with possible assistance from the Yellowstone caldera or other serious volcanism (impacts often stimulate volcanic activity). One or more limited nuclear exchanges could occur in the tribulation period though, particularly in the middle east (Israel, Pakistan, Iran in particular) and especially at the end-trib battle of armageddon. Bunch 100,000+ troops into a small place, and a air burst from a single Trident-2 MIRV warhead (50-150kt) can wipe them out (A full missile load could carpet-melt several million packed-in troops). Hopefully the rapture is really pre-trib. Nasty stuff.

Here’s two wikipedia articles, 1 livescience article (science-favored, religion-neutral), and 2 other links on ‘doomsday’ whether it is the tribulation or the last judgement.

The Greg Martin picture suggests a much shorter than calculated lifespan for the sun. It was not meant to be christian at all. But it is a possiblity for a (inner) solar-system-scale final judgment (Revelation 21:1, 2 Peter 3:10; the sun is a huge nuclear furnace). God could choose any method though. I think it will be universe-scale though. A Quantum singularity settling into earth’s core (planetary scale) and ‘total existance failure’ (Universe-scale; Highly improbable normally, but God can control all that probability stuff) are also ‘last-judgment’ possibilities.

Update 2007-06-21: Fixed Greg Martin Inevitable Link (Broke it when updating the pbase gallary)