Dennis Danielson's work The Book of the Cosmos shows that the ancients did not view Earth as being at the Center of the Universe in terms of being the most important thing in existence; rather our world was at the *bottom* of existence both in terms of location, such as in a pit, and in terms of importance, goodness, purity, etc.

http://www.english.ubc.ca/~ddaniels/blrb_dw.htm

This is why if you read ancient works such as Aristotle, they consider everything below the Moon to be corrupt and impure (and why Hell was placed in the center of Earth, it's a low as you could get in the ancient view).

This is also why Galileo was so thrilled with the Copernican theory of Earth being "just" one of the planets circling the Sun. To him and others it meant that Earth was *elevated* into the realm of the stars, since it was one of the bodies circling those "perfect" realms. Becoming like the rest of the Universe and not in that central pit made Earth and humanity more important, not less.

Obviously scholars over the centuries misinterpreted what was meant by Earth being the center of things.

The latest question is, is our Universe the only one?