Religious Dogma

Will the World End in 2012?

By: Raymond C. Hundley, PH.D.

Thomas Nelson 2010

Is the world coming to an end in the year 2012? For centuries, many people have made predictions and held beliefs that the world will end in 2012. In this book, Hundley gives an overview of the top 2012 doomsday predictions. These include, the Ancient Mayan predictions, Solar Storms, the Large Hadron Collider, the predictions of Nostradamus, the reversal of the magnetic poles, collision with planet X, Earth’s alignment with the magnetic plane, eruption of the super volcano, the Web Bot project and then finally ending with religious predictions of the end of the world. Each chapter talks about a different theory, and ends with a final assessment of the likely hood of the given prediction.

It is interesting that Hundley, a self confirmed Christian, also gives consideration to scientific apocalyptic theories. However, it is obvious that his personal opinion lies with belief of religious predictions about the end of the world.

As someone who is not religious, I felt the book got a little preachy at the end where Hundley devotes two chapters at the end to preparing Christians for the end of the world. He believes that one can be saved by “beginning a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, and outlines the steps to saving yourself from the apocalypse. Is this another tactic to scare people into religion? I felt that the entire book was just a vehicle to preach religion.

Hundley gives much misleading information in this book like such as when he states, “NASA has issued a public warning that a massive solar storm may strike the Earth soon.” This is not true. I looked at NASA’s website and they say, “Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.”  As you can see, they say nothing about it solar storms ending the world. After being given false information about one thing, I think this author loses all credibility.

If you are interested in fanciful ideas that committing yourself to Jesus will save you from an Apocalypse, than you will probably enjoy this book. Otherwise, I suggest if you want to know really good information about many of the topics covered in this book, visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html.

The world may end one day, but I do not believe that anyone can predict it.

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