Earth. The Final Frontier Contrary to popular belief, Earth is not an insignificant blip on the universe’s radar. Our world proves anything but average in Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards’ The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery. But what exactly does Earth bring to the table? How does it prove its worth among numerous planets and constellations in the vastness of the Milky Way? In The Privileged Planet, you’ll learn about the world’s life-sustaining capabilities, water and its miraculous makeup, protection by the planetary giants, and how our planet came into existence in the first place.

The Provocative Classic The Privileged Planet in a Fully Revised, 20th Anniversary Edition! Are we just an accident of cosmic evolution? Is Earth a “lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark” as the late Carl Sagan put it? Or is there more to the story? In this provocative book, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards marshal a staggering array of scientific evidence to counter the modern dogma that Earth is nothing more than the winner of a blind cosmic lottery. When The Privileged Planet was first published in 2004, it garnered both praise and rage. But its argument has stood the test of time. In this completely revised 20th anniversary edition, Gonzalez and Richards show how thousands of discoveries of extrasolar planets over the last two decades have only strengthened their case. They take readers on a mind-expanding journey through our solar system and beyond. Along the way, they explore the mystery of total solar eclipses, the crucial role of water and carbon, the fine-tuning of physics that makes advanced life possible, and the beginning of cosmic time. From our cozy blue planet to the edge of the known universe, they show how earthlike planets are exquisitely fit not only to sustain life but to provide the best platform to discover the hidden wonders of the cosmos. The Privileged Planet compels us to reconsider our place in the universe. Far from a cosmic fluke, our world is ingeniously designed not just for life but for discovery.

"El hombre ¿azar o diseño?" En esta obra se hace una exposición sucinta de fenómenos y elementos materiales que conforman el universo y, por tanto, también al ser humano, como un ser que tiene cuerpo y vida, y por ello sometido a leyes físicas y biológicas, pero que se desempeña trascendiendo esta clase de leyes. El hombre no puede tener su origen sólo en la materia bruta. Los acontecimientos del cosmos que le preceden, tampoco justifican suficientemente su existencia y su naturaleza, que desborda y trasciende la materia. Siendo el hombre un ser inteligente, su existencia demanda una causa inteligente, superior a él, causa que no se encuentra ni en el azar ni en la materia. En este entramado se conjugan la filosofía, la ciencia, el arte, la historia y la religión.

Is Earth merely an insignificant speck in a vast and meaningless universe? On the contrary. "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery" shows that this cherished assumption of materialism is dead wrong. Earth is far more significant than virtually anyone has realized. Contrary to the scientific orthodoxy, it is not an average planet around an ordinary star in an unremarkable part of the Milky Way. In this provocative book, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards present a staggering array of evidence that exposes the hollowness of this modern dogma. They demonstrate that our planet is exquisitely fit not only to support life, but also to give us the best view of the universe, as if Earth were designed both for life and for scientific discovery. Readers are taken on a scientific odyssey from a history of tectonic plates, to the wonders of water and solar eclipses, to our location in the Milky Way, to the laws that govern the universe, and to the beginning of cosmic time. In "The Privileged Planet," you will discover: Why the best scientific evidence refutes the misnamed Copernican Principle--the widely held idea that there is nothing special about Earth or its place in the universe Why the sheer number and size of galaxies does not mean that Earth's capacity to sustain life is the result of blind chance How Earth is precisely positioned in the Milky Way--not only for life, but also to allow us to find answers to the greatest mysteries of the universe Striking ways in which water doesn't behave like most other liquids--and how each of its quirks makes it perfectly suited for the existence of creatures like us The harmony of Earth and the Moon: how they work together to sustain Earthly life as one intricate system--and how that system produces the best solar eclipses where Earthly observers can see them How Jupiter and Saturn protect Earth from cataclysmic destruction How the laws and constants that govern the universe must be narrowly fine-tuned for the existence of any complex life "The Privileged Planet"'s astounding findings should lead any individual to reevaluate entrenched assumptions about the universe--and even to reconsider our very purpose on what so many have dismissed as nothing more than an accident of cosmic evolution.

Why does God hide – day-in and day-out – from those of us who yearn to hear His voice? When we do good, there’s no heavenly applause. When we do evil, no divine rebuke. And when great horrors visit us, He rarely intervenes. In good times and bad, there’s just silence . . . the awful silence of God. Now comes Why God Hides, this magnum opus of Fr. John Portavella, written after many decades of listening to God’s silence – in his own life and in that of thousands of his parishioners. Those years of listening, reading, thinking, and praying have made ever more clear to him – and with the help of this book, will make clear to you– that, in fact . . . God is not silent nor is He hidden, if only you know how to listen and learn where to look. Time and again in the events of salvation history and in the trials and joys of our daily lives, Fr. Portavella here unveils the Face of God and lets us hear His voice, speaking in every instance words of sweet love. Why God Hides is a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime book that scatters the darkness of our minds, giving us myriad glimpses of our supposedly hidden God, bringing with each of those glimpses the consolation and joys we have yearned for so long.