Rating: 
Summary: Wow
Review: This has to be one of the best books on this subject available thus far. It's *very* easy to understand, and it's not long or drawn out. Basically Schaeffer divides man and his view on the world into two categories; belief in an infinite God vs. humanism (belief in the absence of an infinite deity). The first creates a solid basis for morales, ethics and right and wrong. Man has *meaning* and a *purpose* in the world, something to hold on to and develop a strong sense of direction from. The latter induces that the world is of random chance (the big bang theory) and that man is nothing more than a machine. Morales are subjective to each person, a personal decision. There is no base for right or wrong, or good or evil. Man loses his sense of direction and ultimately, he falls. Schaeffer also provides a deep analysis of how science, in it's infancy, was based on the belief of and infinite God and how the early scientists were almost all Christian, like Newton. He describes the failure of the humanistic scientist back then and it's defeat against the Christian science and it's transition into the vice-versa of modern day. A fantastic read!
Rating:
Summary: This book summarizes splendidly why we think the way we do.
Review: This is finally a book which makes it easy to understand today!s culture. It even makes it easy to get an idea of former cultures leading to all the forms of culture we can find around us today. Schaeffer explained things I've always longed to know - reasons, backgrounds, coherence of ideas and history. It's enthralling, not one of those books where knowledge is presented in a way to bore the reader. No, it helps to understand life!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Diagnosis, Strange Cure...
Review: This is one of the best books to point out the slow break from Christianity that has pulled Western Civlization into a moral tailspin. If you want to know why a nation with every mark of an advanced culture can approve of abortion without batting an eye, buy this book.The problem is that he presents a distorted view of the Reformation and thus makes a faulty case for the cure as a return to "Reformation Christianity." How does he do this? Well for starters he flat-out ignores the fact that Sola Scriptura is almost a guarantee of the religious relativism he strenuously condemns (how can it not, any possible interpretation can be thrust upon a text without an authoritive interpretation). He strangely claims that the Reformation lead to Democracy, which, considering that every nation that sided with the Reformers did so out of greed and desire for absolute power is strange to say the least. One of the negative aspects of the Reformation that he does address is that everywhere the Reformation took hold edured destruction of art and wholesale looting of monestaries on a massive scale. He tries to answer this charge by saying that the destruction pertained, for the most part, only to people who owned the art and images themselves. While it might be true for some of the cases, it makes no sense to apply this to the numerous cases of destruction and looting of monestaries, churches and church lands (along with numerous instances of martyrdom among the clergy in those lands). While I would wholely recommend the book to anyone who wants to know how are culture descended into relativism. However the author's biases color his view of history to a degree that it might make him uncredible in the eyes of more historically oriented observers.
Rating:
Summary: Great Diagnosis, Strange Cure...
Review: This is one of the best books to point out the slow break from Christianity that has pulled Western Civlization into a moral tailspin. If you want to know why a nation with every mark of an advanced culture can approve of abortion without batting an eye, buy this book. The problem is that he presents a distorted view of the Reformation and thus makes a faulty case for the cure as a return to "Reformation Christianity." How does he do this? Well for starters he flat-out ignores the fact that Sola Scriptura is almost a guarantee of the religious relativism he strenuously condemns (how can it not, any possible interpretation can be thrust upon a text without an authoritive interpretation). He strangely claims that the Reformation lead to Democracy, which, considering that every nation that sided with the Reformers did so out of greed and desire for absolute power is strange to say the least. One of the negative aspects of the Reformation that he does address is that everywhere the Reformation took hold edured destruction of art and wholesale looting of monestaries on a massive scale. He tries to answer this charge by saying that the destruction pertained, for the most part, only to people who owned the art and images themselves. While it might be true for some of the cases, it makes no sense to apply this to the numerous cases of destruction and looting of monestaries, churches and church lands (along with numerous instances of martyrdom among the clergy in those lands). While I would wholely recommend the book to anyone who wants to know how are culture descended into relativism. However the author's biases color his view of history to a degree that it might make him uncredible in the eyes of more historically oriented observers.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put it down
Review: Very thoughtful book on history of thought and culture. Everything your college Western Civ. class never taught you. Really made history interesting and relevant for me.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: Yes, the book itself is quite interesting in many places, and absolutely captivating in others. What is, to me, the most interesting is the need of some self-proclaimed atheists (i.e., the "reader from California") to trash Christian writings. They so often seem to have a compulsion to pick fights with those they deem inferior in intelligence to themselves. Apparently they just can't stand it when a true intellectual supports Christian and even (=gasp=) conservative viewpoints. How sad.
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