The View From the Center of the Universe: Discovering ... (ISBN 1594482551)

God is Almost Still Here (Sort Of):
I can't make up my mind who this book is trying to reach; the fundamentalists or the godless scientists. The fundamentalists need the dose of wonder-through-cosmology to replace their biblical literacy and, I presume, the non-religious need an alternative to the horrors of existentialism. Falling in the latter camp (except for the existential bit) I find the voodoo-hoodoo dredged up from human pre-science a bit too much like speaking in tongues. The authors attempt to create a set of symbols to go with this new science/religion as a way to achieve some sort of primal archetype substitution. We have to wait until page 276 and 277 to find out about the new God where suddenly He is mentioned 22 times. The big news is that the authors believe "in God as nothing less than the process of opening our personal lines of contact with the unknown potential of the universe". O.K., at least there's nothing in there about rewarding jihadis with 72 virgins, but how much does science have to whittle down the God thing before we dispose of it once and for all? Lest anyone should think my take-away from this book is all negative let me close on a positive note by recommending it as a good brush-up and review of current cosmology. Many of the concepts such as scale and time bias are worthy of serious thought. It is always a good thing to be reminded of the utter weirdness of the universe.

The View from the Center of the Universe:
This is my second purchase of this book as I bought one to share. The video which comes with the book is also worthy to be shared.

Sweet and Sour, But Overall Interesting...:
Hey, I just finished "The View". Yeah, it's true the first and last part are a bit gooey and soft, but the middle was a great overview of where we are today in our cosmological thinking. I liked the first and last part, in spite of their "softness". Ultimately we need a new world view and the discussion and presentation of the author's current world view was very stimulating; and partially restored, in me, the warm fuzzy about existence that is completely missing in today's Existentialism. So, I salute the authors for venturing into this unexplored part of the universe.

View from the Center of the Universe:
Very interesting but difficult to get through if you are not familiar with the subject and vocabulary.

2/3 OK:
The fist two parts of this book are excellent and show some good scientific research. The 3rd part, however, delves into conjecture and pure mysticisms and has llittle scietific relationship to the other two. I was surprised that the 3rd part was even inclkuded in this book and I'd recommend that readers just simply skip it.