Word: affirming
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...remaining 60 per cent who answered the poll, including the convert, seem to be orthodox in their faith. To begin with they practice their religion. They also agree with the Church on issues of Catholic doctrine (for instance, they unanimously affirm that "God is just"), yet they vary among themselves on all matters of opinion...
...orthodox Roman Catholics differ in their judgments about Harvard's "challenge" to their faith. One half of the staunch Catholics have never "reacted either partially or wholly" against the Church, but about an equal number affirm there was a time when their views "could fairly have been called 'agnostic' or 'atheistic.'" Generalizations for the Catholics at Harvard are thus difficult to draw...
...suspects that to these Harvard respondents, this spiritual Presence simply allows them to state whatever comes to mind about Him, and not to develop any meaningful image of God in their own minds. God is what one wants Him to be at a particular moment, and if we can affirm nothing about Him, we can feel comfortable that He will not chastise us for our failings and our apostasy--for who is to determine what is failing and what is apostasy but ourselves, who create God? An eclectic mind which does not wish to be tied down to dictated beliefs...
Perhaps the key to a full understanding of these Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates who will not affirm the existence of God, considered as a group, lies in the fact that about 85 per cent of them will not deny His existence, either--that is, they are predominantly agnostics who look equally askance at the theist and the atheist who both say more than they could possibly know. This is reflected in the factors they most frequently check as having principally contributed to their present religious attitude: "the fact that contemporary science does not appear to require the concept...
...face of an otherwise inevitable world war with the Soviet Union was outvoted by less than two-to-one, whereas the general vote against surrender ran close to three-to-one 2.) the group of 215 who chose war include over fourfifths of those who were also willing to affirm a belief in the immortality of the soul (all but fourteen persons), while 35 per cent of the non-believers took the opposite stand in favor of surrender...