anonymous123

Poorly reasoned, not worth the time

Revisado: 11-09-20

I've loved almost everything I've read or heard by Rowan Williams until now. After awhile, I had to put this down. Treating it as a follow-on to "Being Disciples" and "Being Christian" does a disservice to the first two books. This is disorganized and poorly reasoned, making me think the author did not have clearly enough in mind what he wanted to say. For anyone interested in pursuing the notion of being and consciousness as manifest in humans, my go-to book is still "The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss," by David Bentley Hart.

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Delightful, engaging

Revisado: 03-01-20

An interesting instructor who knows how to present and pace her material. I haven't tried to research all of her assertions, just sat back and enjoyed it. It meshes well with other histories and Great Courses so I am expecting it to be backed by a bibliography of fairly respectable works.

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YES

Revisado: 01-03-20

DBH hits it out of the park. I happen to love his sometimes extravagant rhetoric, but certainly not all readers will agree. However, the argumentation is spot-on IMO, and makes what I hope will be the start of purging this destructive, poisonous, crippling heresy from the practice of Christianity.

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Enlightening, engaging, and FUN!

Revisado: 07-29-19

Very enjoyable, a fine example of popular science writing (reading), lively performance, suitable for grownups and nerdy kids.

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Not Cornwell's best, TERRIBLE performance

Revisado: 05-13-19

This was sloppier in concept and a bit more adolescent than most of the Scarpetta series, but what really marred my enjoyment was the performance, which was without question the worst I've heard in the thousands of hours I've listened to in the past 7 years. It was childish, cartoonish, unimaginative, and almost intolerable. The voice actor appeared to have absolutely no relationship to the book and characters, made it impossible to believe that Scarpetta could bear to be in relationship to Benton Wesley as he was portrayed, and read Lucy as though she were 10 years old, golly gee whiz. I cannot understand how the producers allowed this to be released. Spare yourself the misery and frustration; read the paper or tablet version.

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Stimulating, entertaining

Revisado: 01-25-19

A fun, thought-provoking review of current thought on the limitations physics may place on evolutionary form. Although some reviewers are very impatient with the equations, I found them overall useful and at times revealing (there's an equation for THAT?? COOL!!).

I was a little disappointed in Cockell's Enlightenment-era aside miscasting geocentrism as insistence on Earth as the center of the universe because of its cosmic importance (the opposite, its low position as the seat of ultimate imperfection, was generally held among the learned of Copernicus' day); and a brief and misleading reference seeming to name the concept of evolution as Darwin's invention rather than his elegant crystallization of the observations and ponderings of many of his contemporaries in addition to his own. And perhaps some readers might have better understood the old belief in [wheat+underwear = biogenesis of mice] if he had briefly mentioned that natural philosophers of that day were only beginning to move away from the ancient Greek belief that all things are unique combinations of air, fire, earth, and water (hence the notion of alchemists, including Copernicus and Newton, that it should be possible to reorder these four elements to change lead to gold). And animals with wheels?? Physics is first and foremost the reason we don't find two-piece organisms beyond single-cells with spinning flagella. I wish he had actually tackled this subject even for a few paragraphs rather than just discussing tumbling tumbleweeds (a ball being completely different from a propeller or a wheel and axle. But these shortcomings aside, the material is overall logical and engaging in presentation, and pretty darned thorough.

The reader has a nicely modulated, lively, interesting voice, but his performance is marred throughout by mispronunciations of common scientific terminology (c'mon, guy, haven't you ever watched NOVA?). Don't these folks look at their material ahead of time and use a dictionary to confirm pronunciation? Still, an engaging and worthwhile book for adults and scientifically precocious young people.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Marcotte: a breath of fresh air, as always

Revisado: 12-21-18

This is not a book for faint-hearted right wingers; it's for those of us who will do our utmost to remove you from power so we can resume building a nation that works for all of us down the generations. Amanda Marcotte is pithy, on-target, absolutely unsparing, and hopeful.

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All aces!

Revisado: 09-09-18

The story and Simon Vance's performance: just the best. If somehow you haven't seen the movie yet, I strongly recommend seeing it first. When you read (listen to) the book I think you'll know why I've said this. Engrossing, well-paced, inspiring, and charming, perhaps especially if you're an Anglophile.

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The performance detracted from the message

Revisado: 06-01-18

I kept thinking, "This guy needs to come to my (Presbyterian's USA) church." A hopeful journey by a brave young man who believes in love and reason and is allowing those traits to lead him to a renewed relationship with God.

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Weak

Revisado: 04-07-18

The weakest SJG (Creator rest his soul) I've read. I appreciated what he was trying to accomplish, but his grasp of theology was too poor to adequately make an argument. I much preferred theologist David Bentley Hart's "The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss" (except for the bliss part, which I thought was hokum) and atheist Curtis White's "Atheist Delusions: Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers."

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