The Late Great Planet Earth

Utter trash! I still can't believe how this POS swept over America during the 1970s, resulting in millions, I'm sure, for Lindsey, that asshole, as well as a horrible POS wildly fantastic, mythological horrow show of a movie that was traumatic as shit to kids like me and others I knew whose fundie parents forced them to go see it. In retrospect, it was a total joke, a hoax, and Lindsey was and remains an utter fraud. Personally, I think those of us who are "fundie survivors" from the 1970s -- and there are a LOT of us: read Seth Andrews -- should file class action lawsuits against Hal and his publisher, as well as those assholes responsible for that shitty movie, A Thief In The Night, which traumatized me and tons of people and kids show more like me, not only at that time, but to this day, resulting in decades of therapy which has never been effective, scarring me for life. Another target of a wished for class action lawsuit would be the publisher of those damn Chick tracts, which also scared the shit out of me and most of the other people I knew. All those awesome cartoons and drawings of demons, the flames of Hell, drugged out '70s hippies destined for Hell, etc. All of these and much more contributed to fucking ruining my life and tens of thousands like me, of driving us away from fundie/evangelicals forever, of feeling nothing but disgust and disdain, if not outright hatred for the hypocritical, lying fire and brimstone manipulators trying to use prehistoric rubbish to scare everyone possible into doing their damn will (and filling their pockets at the same time). I'll never forgive them and I'll never forgive Lindsey for this wretched joke of a piece of total shit book that did so much permanent damage to untold legions of people. If you wonder why people are leaving the churches in the US in droves these days and why over 20% of the American population are called the "Nones," as in no church, no mythological supernatural tooth fairy in the sky, etc., you can thank Lindsey, those responsible for the other atrocities mentioned here, and the assholes who carry on their tradition, like Tim Lehay , who field a softer brand, but still put through the same apocalyptic message (while raking in millions on the side). If it were possible, I wouldn't give this book a "0" - I would give it a "-1,000" or onward to infinity. If you value reason, logic, sanity, human decency, facts, etc., and if you frown upon or even despise those theistic religionists (particularly conservative Christians in the western world) who use terms like "love," "morals," "peace," "family values," etc., when they're too lazy and stupid to read their own holy book and discover the atrocities committed by the god of the old testament while claiming their Jesus was a holy man of peace and love, while he stated he came with a sword to split up families and turn parents against children, etc., bragged that he spoke in parables so his idiot disciples literally wouldn't be able to understand anything he said, and left no writings or proof of his existence, and none from any witnesses were ever written down so much could be said about the gospels, etc., aside from the millions of literal lies, discrepancies, untruths, fraud, etc., in their holy book and especially the new testament, then by all means, avoid this idiocy. I couldn't recommend it any less than I am doing now. Truly one of the most despicable books in history by one of the most despicable humans in history... If there were an actual hell their mythology describes, he and his ilk would be destined for it. show less

The book that brought eschatology to the masses and was huge part of evangelical culture in the 1970s and 1980s. You couldn't have the Left Behind Series without it. Of course, the implication was that the Soviet Union and hippiedom would team up to destroy the Christian West and lead to the apocalypse. Of course, that was easy to believe in the 1970s when it seemed the Soviets were winning and religion was mostly going to go bye bye. The 1980s, Reagan and a boom in fundamentalism, changed all that. I was amazed at how little Bible was in this "Bible book." Not a lot of scripture passages, not a lot of exegesis, not a lot of dissection of Greek words, not a lot of citations from theologians. Just a lot of: look how scary the world is, show more doesn't that sound like that could lead to this in the End Times. I had a prof tell me in college, that if you wanted to understand Revelation, read one book about the End Times and then never ever read anything else. Well, lots of people did that without knowing it. I didn't. show less

Not going to bother to enter all the pre-millennial doom-mongering books I read back in the day. This will have to stand pars pro toto. It says a lot about the genre that no amount of dis-confirmation prevented the author from issuing a series of updated versions.

Fascinating in retrospect knowing how successful this message was and how utterly wrong he is about all the predictions. No great surprise there of course, as the apocalyptic messages from the Bible have been re-interpreted to be talking about the present for millennia. Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation is a great overview there.

It dropped so low--in my Regard--
I heard it hit the Ground--
And go to pieces on the Stones
At the bottom of my Mind--

Yet blamed the Fate that flung it--less
Than I denounced Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon My Silver Shelf--
-Emily Dickinson

I actually adored this book when I first read it (junior high, maybe?) and went on to read several of his other books as well. It wasn't until I took a course on eschatology in college that I understood the slipshod argumentation. Mark it down to lessons learned, I guess.

This book is good for little other than illustrating how people have completely misunderstood Apocalyptic as a literary genre, as well as the concept of eschatology; not to mention prophecy in general. This book can only be classified, in my mind, in the category of fiction along with its more contemporary "Left Behind" series.

This once very popular book contains predictions of what was then still the future. The predictions were based on a code the author thought he had found in the bible, or rather the hidden meaning of words. This author started the myth that the olive tree stands for Israel.

This book has scared the living daylight out of many people. It predicted the end times to happen.

Of course the world is still turning.

Lindsey tried again later, by the way, with the millenium scare [Facing Millenium Midnight] (1999).
When we survived the year 2000, he was still not ashamed of himself and tried again in 2003: "Once Saved, Always Saved?". No doubt full of scare stories.

People. We will survive the end of the Aztec calendar in 2012 too. And the comet in show more 2038. show less