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smasler 's review for:
The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
by Alan Lightman
I read many of the other Goodreads reviews of The Accidental Universe and they range all over the map. If you are looking for a straight physics treatise, you will not be happy with this collection of related essays. If you are looking for the universe to affirm your belief in a specific God or even a God at all, you will probably not be happy with Lightman's book. If you want science to affirm your disbelief in a meaningful universe...still no. But, if like me, you think that there can be no better combination than a novelist and a physicist and you wonder, what does a person like that think about the larger philosophical questions, God, Humanism, beauty, art; in a manner which philosophical thoughts and current physics come very close to meeting, read Lightman's essays. Even if you weren't wondering, read it. Because here is a man, an artist a scientist who professes his atheism and science with doubts on the veracity of each and with a beautiful faith in humanity and art. I suppose that I loved it because I am so close to that state in which I find it highly unlikely that there is a God like the ones that we worship and yet find it untenable that there is not. This is not the philosophy of a professional theologian or philosopher and yet there is something so compelling here that it will be tossed around in my mind for years to come. I have a feeling that whatever your personal belief about the nature of the universe and its meaning, you will find a kindred spirit here if you read it openly.