Customer Reviews

The Religious Sense

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Overwhelmingly natural, I'd call this book. You get pleasantly surprised at the description of yourself in such a relieving (really liberating) way. That is a mighty surprise in these days! And, however, since it does describe you, it's... wholly natural, as if somehow you've always had known it. Well, but could it be any other way?

Exploring a "religious sense" in us, such as our olfactory, visual or auditive sense, it starts by making methodological clarifications, concerning realism, reason, and the pertinence of morality in the use of reason. And then it plunges into you.

For these reasons, it's something to be read by any kind of folks: whether religious or not, christian, jew, muslim, agnostic, whatever! I've known people of all of these beliefs who've read it and loved it.

Magnificent!

A guidebook to life. Explains the basic religious nature of man's interaction with reality and calls on the reader to examine his/her experience to see if it coincides with his observations. This book has changed many lives, mine included, and hopefully will continue to explain to many of the deep longing, indeed the 'great question', that lies at the foundations of each human heart. One of the handful of 'essential books' in existence.

I read this book 3 times. The first 2 times I read it too quickly to fully appreciate it. So the third time, I took my time and compared what I was reading to my honest experience... not as someone bought into a Catholic idealogy, but someone open to his experience... Now, I want everyone I meet to read this book. If you take your time, and not read it already claiming which side you are on, the book can take you on a wrenching spirtual journey... 1 that you'll be glad to take. In fact, it makes you happier to be a human.... If you read this book, spend time with it, otherwise the points seem too intellectual, when really it is about the experience of the whole person. Good luck.

Luigi Giussani, founder of the Catholic lay movement "Communion and Liberation, explores that aspect of human ity that cries out for meaning, with an insight that has not been seen in the later part of this century. He addresses the question of Man's inherent need for meaning. Why are we not satisfied with the answer that there is no meaning to life other than that we are born, we live, and we die. Luigi Giussani shows us that in every person, there is something that cries out for meaning, a question that cannot be answered, but through the intervention of something that transends earthly reality

In this book Giussani goes to the core of the question "What does it mean to be human?" better than does anyone else I've read or heard. He shows us how to live in a way that corresponds to our true needs for beauty, truth, happiness and justice..., and not according to the ideals of the common mentality.

In this book Giussani tries to reconcile faith and reason by giving his definition of the two terms and looking at how we are to enquire reality.

"The religious sense" is the first in a set of three books that form a complete introduction to the author's thought about religion, and in it he only wants to set up the foundations of his method. For this reason, references to a specific religion are few, if any. This makes the book very readable by everyone, not just christians.

The word "God", at this stage, is only used as a name for the mystery the total understanding of which lies beyond the grasping of human mind, but still leaves man with no other choice than to pursue it. In other words, when Giussani looks inside the human, he sees the intuition of an answer to our basic questions (like the meaning of life to say one) and the need to go toward that answer. That unreachable hypothesis we go after, he calls God.

The negative side is that, while the author is obviously an highly intelligent person, he doesn't seem determined to follow a rigorous logic to back up his views. Many times I thought that there had to be some missing step, either because his conclusions didn't follow from the premises, or because I could think of an easy possible objection to those very premises. But every time I was starting to wonder when would he address that objection, or when would he provide the missing steps, he hit me with something on the line of "This truth is self evident. Everyone who doesn't see this is either a slave of his prejudices or is deluding himself".

In conclusion, this is a good book to read for everyone, either interested or not in christianity. It will give your thought many new roads to try in the quest for meaning and thruth. However if you, like me, think that every judgement should be put to a more objective test than the feeling of the author of what is evident, you will have an hard time swallowing some of his views and keeping on reading with an open mind (a skill that is always useful, anyway). Actually more like 3,5 stars

With his first 3 premises Luigi Giussani introduces us to an unique, and deeply human, approach to reality. It's not philophy, it's not vague spirituality: it's reason and affection, passion for life.

The greatest thing in this book is that the author does not invent anything: page by page the core of the human being is represented as it is.
From the starting pages, with the three premises, the reader feels that he is "meeting" a man that is trying to give a method to understand reality, not to tell is beliefs. The proof is given by the particular feeling of "truth" than comes out from the book: you often feel completely described by the portraying of Luigi Giussani.
Absolutely a masterpiece of our ages.

THE RELIGIOUS SENSE is a profound book that speaks to the particular situation of modern man. Not only does it incisively diagnose the problem of modernity (as misunderstood freedom and rationality), but it offers a ray of true hope rooted in the fulfillment of our deepest destiny. For the confused Catholic who wonders, Why the Church?, or for the genuine seeker of the real meaning of life (beyond what the culture dictates to us), this book serves as an intelligent and trustworthy guide. But beware!--it just might change your life.

En THE RELIGIOUS SENSE (El sentido religioso en español), se responden esta y otras preguntas siguiendo el método de la razón, para que la fe que propugna sea real.