Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Abrams and Primack have created a book which can and SHOULD be read by everyone.
They give credit to the ideas, thinking and writing of visionaries like Thomas Berry, Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme (among many others) but the approach they bring is FRESH, clear and resonant adding in several new notions of significant value such as human "inflation" (the notion that humans are exponentially detrimentally affecting Earth's biosphere - an analogy to the exponential cosmic inflation theorized to have launched our Universe). This ecological imperative makes the book NECESSARY now - we do not have another 10,000 years to figure out what the human species is about in the Universe.
There is no shortage of ecological doomsday books out there but what the authors have done to make the prospect of a man-made (I don't blame the women of Earth! ;^) ) apocalypse really SCARY is to explain, coherently and perhaps for the first time, how truly precious we foolish wonderful humans really are in the Universe. Much of the book explains just exactly how humans fit into the modern cosmological understanding of the Universe. Unlike my hero Carl Sagan, who postulated that Life and Intelligence were abundant within the Galaxy, let alone the Universe, Primack and Abrams, emphasize our uniqueness, perhaps within the entire Multiverse (Universe of Universes). Human self-awareness/consciousness, and the "garden planet of the Universe" (Thomas Berry) which sustains us, may be the rarest gift/miracle within all Creation. To snuff this out in a frenzy of greed, war, consumerism and just plain human ignorance is indeed SCARY. To snuff out a Life is a sin/crime - to commit genocide/biocide (extinction of species) is a greater sin/crime - but how do you measure the loss of billions of years of never-to-be-repeated Cosmic evolution? SCARY indeed.
Yet, the book does not dwell on apocalyptic possibilities, it, like the work of Berry/Swimme, weaves an INSPIRING sacred (in a secular sense!) narrative ("Story") of what our amazing unfolding Universe is really like and where we humans fit in. They left me with a re-affirmed sense of the absolutely miraculous story of our origins which literally blows away all traditional "creation myths" like so much smoke and vapour. Yet, this narrative/story is deeply INSPIRING and intensely sacred in its depth, breadth and meaning - literally TRANSCENDENT.
Unlike Richard Dawkins and his "new atheist" pals, Abrams and Primack spend little time directly confronting the narrow, quaint and mostly unprovable claims of the religious traditions of the world. They merely expound their thesis and let you, the reader, decide where it is that you choose to find meaning for your personal and our corporate (and planetary) future. The authors, in fact, suggest that religious communities which adopt and explore their ideas will be most helpful in what they call the transition of human culture into a "Cosmic Society" - one which thinks in terms of millions of years and entire Cosmos - not just personal ambition and the next Quarterly Earnings Statement!
Referring to the work of Paul Hawken, Primack and Abrams suggest that in tens of thousands of places on the planet, the transition from tribal, ethnic, national and religious human communities is ongoing as the need for humans to start thinking as a species and for the entire Earth Community is underway. They are HOPEFUL that as the Story of the New Universe penetrates into our children and grand-children's education and awareness that a new human "Cosmic Society" will emerge which will slowly transition from what we have today to something more far-sighted and more deeply aware of our true place in the Universe. This cultural transition will neither be easy or quick but is NECESSARY.
They conclude the book with a short essay - an excerpt from the far future, written by humans of that time - explaining how it was that a courageous band of rebels organized and worked to transform human society in the 21st Century averting planetary collapse and launching the Cosmic Society which has endured for a million years.
Not just a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED book - a MUST-READ book!
Click Here to see more reviews about: The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World (The Terry Lectures Series)
After a four-century rupture between science and the questions of value and meaning, this groundbreaking book presents an explosive and potentially life-altering idea: if the world could agree on a shared creation story based on modern cosmology and biology—a story that has just become available—it would redefine our relationship with Planet Earth and benefit all of humanity, now and into the distant future.
Written in eloquent, accessible prose and illustrated in magnificent color throughout, including images from innovative simulations of the evolving universe, this book brings the new scientific picture of the universe to life. It interprets what our human place in the cosmos may mean for us and our descendants. It offers unique insights into the potential use of this newfound knowledge to find solutions to seemingly intractable global problems such as climate change and unsustainable growth. And it explains why we need to "think cosmically, act globally" if we're going to have a long-term, prosperous future on Earth.
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