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A couple of years ago, liberal comedian/commentator Jon Stewart discussed this on his show. And he said we should not have bombed Japan.

He said we should have provided the Japanese with a demonstration of the power of the bomb by dropping one off shore. Then, warn them that the next one was to be dropped on them if they didn’t surrender.

Over the years, various people have said it was some sort of crime against humanity, to have used an atomic bomb.

Hindsight is always 20/20 of course.

My unanswered questions to those who think we should not have bombed Japan, revolved around the questions of how many more lives on both sides would have been lost, if we had to launch a conventional invasion of the Japanese islands. My questions are: is it better to kill many more people, including Japanese civilians, through conventional means, rather than inducing them to surrender by the use of the atomic bombs? Never heard a coherent answer to such questions.

My basic approach on this subject is that there is no legal or moral justification for any military action whose sole purpose is the deliberate (or indiscriminate) destruction of civilians. You can go back through thousands of years of Judaeo-Christian moral principles and find that this has been the case since antiquity.

One potential flaw in much of the historical analysis of this subject is that it's predicated on the assumption that there were only two options available to the U.S. government at the time: (1) drop atomic bombs on major Japanese cities (with certain risk to Japanese civilians); or (2) invade Japan (with certain risk to U.S. soldiers).

I have yet to see any compelling case made that the U.S. ever had to invade Japan in 1945 -- or any time after that -- in order to win World War II.

Exactly right. The bombing of the first city didn’t change the Japanese minds, so demonstrating the bomb’s power on an empty atoll somewhere would have moved them even less.

A demonstration was considered, but decided against:

"It was evident that everyone would suspect trickery. If a bomb were exploded in Japan with previous notice, the Japanese air power was still adequate to give serious interference. An atomic bomb was an intricate device, still in the developmental stage. Its operation would be far from routine. If during the final adjustments of the bomb the Japanese defenders should attack, a faulty move might easily result in some kind of failure. Such an end to an advertised demonstration of power would be much worse that if the attempt had not been made. It was now evident that when the time came for the bombs to be used we should have only one of them available, followed afterwards by others at all-too-long intervals. We could not afford the chance that one of them might be a dud. If the test were made on some neutral territory, it was hard to believe that Japan's determined and fanatical military men would be impressed. If such an open test were made first and failed to bring surrender, the chance would be gone to give the shock of surprise that proved so effective. On the contrary, it would make the Japanese ready to interfere with an atomic attack if they could. Though the possibility of a demonstration that would not destroy human lives was attractive, no one could suggest a way in which it could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war,"

So, the demonstration was at Hiroshima.

a partial answer to your question:
It was expected that the landings on the Japanese home islands would use the entire Marine Corp (300,000 men) on the first day. The following day a similar number of US Army was expected to land. Expectation was 50,000 American casualties on the first day.

He said we should have provided the Japanese with a demonstration of the power of the bomb by dropping one off shore. Then, warn them that the next one was to be dropped on them if they didn’t surrender.

And he ignored the fact that even after the bomb was dropped on one of their cities they did not surrender. And after the second they still had to be forced into it.

So what would Stewart's little plan done? Wasted the third bomb, which was the last one we would have for a few months.

Explains why he is a third rate comedian rather then anyone of value.

Over the years, various people have said it was some sort of crime against humanity, to have used an atomic bomb.

And in the months leading up to dropping the bomb upwards of 125,000 people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo yet nobody talks about that. Upwards of 135,000 were killed in the firebombing of Dresden yet nobody talks about that. But everyone calls Hiroshima and Nagasaki war crimes.

A very wise man once said, "War is cruelty and you cannot refine it..." The goal of the war is to end it as soon as you can so that the killing could stop. The atomic bombs accomplished that.

As if bombing them with tons of conventional weapons (as we did in Germany) would be more humane.