U.S. President Barack Obama underlined "humanity's core contradiction" of war in Hiroshima, Japan on Friday, pointing out that despite the teachings of love and and peace by all of the world's great religions, they all have believers that claim their faith as a "licence to kill."
"How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause," he said. "Every great religion promises a pathway to love and peace and righteousness, and yet no religion has been spared from believers that have claimed their faith has a licence to kill."
Obama said throughout history wars have been waged due to either "religious zeal" or "nationalist fervor," Breitbart reports.
It was noteworthy that Obama did not explicitly apologise to Japan for the U.S. dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II that killed thousands of people—the first nation to use nuclear weapons in anger.
The U.S. president could only lament mankind's use of science and technology to destroy each other, asserting that the nuclear bombs that ended World War II proved the horror that "mankind possessed the means to destroy itself."
"Yet, in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies we are most starkly reminded of humanity's core contradiction," he said.
He said it was time for the United States and other countries with nuclear weapons to disarm their stockpiles.
"We must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them," he said.
To achieve this, Obama called for pursuing diplomatic efforts to settle conflicts.
"We must change our mindset about war itself, to prevent conflict with diplomacy," he said.
He urged leaders to pursue efforts in shaping a future world free from both nuclear weapons and war.
He said mankind needs to rediscover their common humanity and extend peace to the entire world.
"That is a future we can choose," he said, "A future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but the start of our own moral awakening.
The president delivered his speech at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima after laying a wreath and meeting with survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack.
