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Review Summary: Insightful reading |
Date: 2008-10-15 |
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Details: The author is a physicist that writes on possible end-time scenarios. The terminology and concepts can get a little monotonous at times during the reading, but do understand he writes it this way for good reason. If you muscle through the book, there are some insightful nuggets to be mined. |
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Review Summary: It All Makes Sense |
Date: 2008-08-05 |
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Details: Dr.Swenson has put forth an interesting proposition. Man's greed,avarice, propensity towards violence,and moral decline, along with natural economic and progressive forces have assured that the rapid maelstrom of mankind's destruction will continue unabated. Profusion,irreversibility, exponentiality, and the fallenness of the human race are the critical factors being overlooked by most in the fields of long range global forecasting. All of these elements, according to Swenson, are things that we neither desire to change or are incapable of changing at this juncture of recorded history.The author is not a pessemist in the true sense of the word's definition, but a realist based on current trends he sees around the world.
Thankfully those, like Swenson, who put their faith and trust in the God of creation and His Son who paid the price for our salvation need not worry or fret. God is preparing for those who believe a place in His new heaven and new earth. The end may be near, but there is new beginning beyond this present life.
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Review Summary: A real disappointment... |
Date: 2007-06-10 |
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Details: I initially became familiar with Richard Swenson after reading his excellent book "Margin." Having heard him speak on the margin concept several times, I increasingly came to respect his gift for analyzing a problem and prescribing some potential solutions. It is this affinity for Swenson's work, rather than any sort of specific interest in end-times or apocalyptic propositions, that drew me to this particular book, and I was left sorely disappointed.
At just over 100 pages, Swenson doesn't have space to waste much time. He quickly dives into his thesis, that the world is speeding along toward its ultimate and permanent demise. He draws this conclusion based on such realities as the exponential growth of all things. As he deftly describes, our society is all about more stuff, more gadgets, more money, more activities, more pollution, more war, more technology, more people, and so on.
My frustration with the book is that he seems to take a huge leap from his data to his conclusion. It is indisputable that our world is experiencing explosive growth in many, if not all, major categories. While never explaining how this perception will inevitably lead to the destruction of the world, he speaks as if the connection is obvious and indisputable. He suggests that the slowing and eventual ceasing of these explosive growth trends is utterly impossible, yet he specifically cites one reputable author who made that exact claim and provided evidence of several such slow-downs. I was never convinced and Swenson didn't bother to provide evidence that exponential growth must continue indefinitely until destruction ensues.
One other minor complaint is strictly mathematical. Swenson takes pains to explain that he has a degree in physics and is a person who studies the data from an analytical, scientific perspective. Unfortunately, he includes many charts throughout the book that purport to demonstrate exponentiality, yet they show straights lines. Obviously, these lines demonstrate linear growth, with a constant slope. That is not exponential!! It seems sloppy to fail to actually use exponential curves and seems to discredit the author's indisputable mathematical prowess.
Ultimately, I found this book to be repetitive and unconvincing. Swenson has some important insight to provide, and there is value in much of what he says. Unfortunately, he overextends his conclusions without providing sufficient validity to his rather alarmist claims. I agree that much of the modern human experience is unhealthy and unsustainable, but I remain unconvinced that the world is coming to an end. |
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Review Summary: Don't waste your time - nothing new here! |
Date: 2007-05-01 |
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Details: We had a name for a guy in college that kept telling us what we already knew - Moto for Master of the Obvious. Dr. Swenson is Moto. He writes about his study of the culture for the past twenty years and comes to the conclusion that mankind is on a collision course with destruction - and that this inevitable crash is going to happen soon...real soon. As a Christian, Swenson writes having one eye on Scripture and one eye on the world, but unfortunately his eyesight is a little hazy on both. The first problem is that Swenson associates the concept of sin or "fallenness" (his word) with the problems of the world...and then concludes that because there are more people, there is more fallenness. Simple logic, but unfortunately not supported in Scripture nor in the annuals of human history. For example, before the flood, the bible tells us that mankind was incredibly wicked, so much so that God grieved for His creation and His wrath eliminated all but a small handful of humans. Also, when you look back at the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah and see how God brought swift and severe destruction upon their sin, one can logically conclude that although there are more people, mankind is just as depraved now as it was at the beginning. And while we have continued to invent new ways to destroy life, we also continue to invent new ways to prolong and enhance life - as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes nothing is new under the sun.
But, according to Swenson, something is new - a new "era of progress" that is not like the rest of human history; everything is different now, he claims. Everything is economics, and the beast of modernity who is controlled by economics cannot be fed enough to alter its destructive force on mankind. Swenson then gives a bunch of large words and interesting mathematical equations and again reaches his same conclusion - the path to destruction is a downhill road and mankind is rolling down faster and faster and faster. Again, though, Swenson forgets about the biblical narratives in the Old Testament that demonstrate first that God is in control, not the laws of nature or the laws of mathematics and secondly that God has given man a chance for repentance in the past and may well do so again in the future. While Sodom was destroyed, Nineveh repented and was spared (much to the chagrin of Jonah).
Swenson tries to reduce God to a formula so that the negatives and the positives of life can be weighed against each other. Of course this exercise is completely futile as if man knows the ways of God. God has been glorified greatly even in the midst of horrendous human suffering - ask anyone who has gone through the trial of cancer only to come out on the other side with a deeper relationship with the Lord and a greater appreciation for their family, friends and life in general. Swenson's "negative" is actually a positive in the spiritual sense. And this is Swenson's greatest error - reducing all things in life to the physical realm effectually eliminating the sovereignty of God from the lives of man.
While the argument may well be logical, I found it flawed at the core and learned that Swenson told me nothing that Scripture hasn't already made perfectly clear - there is a day of judgment coming, a day when this earth will be destroyed and a new earth will be the dwelling place for the redeemed. The only question for man today is the same was it was thousands of years ago - in whom do you trust, in the wisdom of man or of God? |
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Review Summary: One Of Those Books Can Just Takes Your Breath Away |
Date: 2006-05-14 |
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Details: This book is disturbing, sobering, and fascinating all at the same time. While some may choose not to believe "fundamentalist" religious views that say the world will soon come to an end, this book essentially says the same thing in a different, perhaps more rationalistic way. The author, Dr. Swenson, methodically presents his case, showing that mankind is on a path to almost certain self destruction. It's a fairly easy read; Swenson gives good, scientific explanations for his conclusions, but the book isnt weighted down with too much scientific jargon. The book is also hard hitting in a relatively compact size, lengthy enough to convincingly make the author's case on multiple fronts, but not too long that it becomes tedious. If you've ever felt that our world may be heading towards a catastrophic end, this book makes the case for you, giving rational, logical, and scientific reasons for anyone to be convinced that mankind has long been sowing the seeds of his own destruction. Well worth the price, and then some. |
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out of 11 Reviews
