Answering Review Request: The End

Clint Morey asked me to read his book "The End". It is a commentary on certain passages of the Christian Bible with a focus on Judgement Day. This is not a novel and the author is quite insistent that it is not fiction either so I will not use my normal grading methods. Instead, I will treat this as an argument presented in a persuasive debate. The criteria will be: Evidence, Reasoning, and Polish

THE ARGUMENT

What I see here is an attempt at proving that ideas about Apocalypse and End of Times etc. are still relevant in the 21st century, not something just for "ancient" people, and that it could happen any time now. Mr.Morey presents several possible forms this world ending event could take as they would appear in such a time, and then presents counters against skeptics of the event and its source.

After reading the book and thinking about it for a week, I've come to the conclusion that this book is not truly interested about the Christian idea of the End of the World. Instead it is more of a collection of counter arguments against things the author religiously disagrees with while hanging the end of the world above the reader's head.

 EVIDENCE

Naturally, all the evidence comes from Christian Bible. Mr.Morey doesn't consider any other source because he doesn't think it necessary. By that I mean, he doesn't consider any other source to have value on this subject.
By the same token, he dismisses the evidence used by others against his argument. This is both scientific evidence and that from other religions. The following is an excerpt from the book's fifth chapter:
"When you stand before God He's not going to buy the ex-cuse that you saw this neat National Geographic video that showed evolution to be a fact. It had great visual effects and even included quotes from famous scientists. And on top of that, evolution was in your high school Biology book."

 It's hard to argue with someone who doesn't respect any source of evidence but his own.

He really does not like any belief system other than his own, be it secular or another religion. He believes them to be wrong, therefore useless and thus not worthy of respect. Political Correctness is more than a waste of time; it is oppression of The One True Faith. That is the message I get from this his book.
 Being Christian myself, I don't believe in other religions but I still respect those religions and the people that practice them.

It goes beyond a refusal to be respectful or "political correct" and becomes rude and abrasive. For example, he speaks of Pro-Choice advocates "vociferously" advocating their beliefs. At that point I had to think, "pot calling the kettle black" because he can be quite obnoxious himself. At one point, he went 1984 Big Brother style conspiracy theorist by claiming that "the government" removes images that paint abortion in a bad light from the internet (page 52 in chapter 2).

 LOGIC and REASONING

The modern day threats are all plausible. I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel, so I'm pretty sure it's accurate. Seriously though, I believe the purpose here is to present "real life" ways that the world could end in order to make an idea such as Judgement Day seem more realistic and credible.

Some of his arguments do not make sense but this is not always his fault. One example is when he points to a line that says God's "invisible qualities" are "clearly seen". I believe his faith in his evidence is such that he doesn't realize the contradiction there. Another one that I don't know if he realized is placing ideas such as "God is Love" next to "God's gonna cause a horrific apocalypse". That's a contrasting juxtaposition of statements. 

Then there are occasions where he defeats his own argument. For instance, when he sets about discrediting the Theory of Evolution, he says that "If anyone tells you what happened in the universe a few billion years ago, it doesn’t matter what they say next. Whatever they tell you happened isn’t truth -- it’s a story" (in my PDF, this is page 69 and it is found in the fifth chapter). What does he call the Biblical Genesis if not a story of something that happened a really long time ago? I can only assume that "Unprovable. Untestable. Unrepeatable. A story." doesn't apply to his holy book.


 Another example of faulty logic is his reckoning that Judgement Day is near by way of the signs. I don't think he realizes that some of them have always been around and others are too vague and subjective to be of any use.
-->For instance, he says "wars and rumors of wars" are a sign; sure there are and have been a lot of wars in the last hundred years. The previous hundred years had wars and rumors of them too as did the century before that and so on. I doubt there has been an era of human history that could not quality.  
-->For the "increases in wickedness", his first example of such is a misinterpretation of Sex Ed in public schools in Chicago. He combines this with the ban of teaching Christianity in an American public school as an increase of wickedness. He mentions things like torture and drug abuse (again things that have been around for a while) but focuses on the Sex Ed, prostitution, abortion and sexual slavery, which have also been around for a while.  It's a puritanical focus.

 POLISH

The book looks good; no grammar or spelling errors that I recall.  There are jokes and they're kind of funny at first but then it devolves into spiteful ridicule before going away entirely.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The End" a D

This is a free review request. I received nothing in exchange except a free copy of the book.

P.S. I wonder if the author thinks I'm persecuting him for being Christian because I didn't like his book.

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