Word: belief
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Harvard creed seems to be a form of temperate agnosticism--belief in a process of questioning with truth ever at the end of the corridor, yet in this case a process which does not question its own value, even though for the individual the corridor has no end but death...
This individuality was perhaps the most striking aspect of the response to the questionnaire. Only 31 per cent of admitted Protestants indicated belief in the immortality of the soul (defined as "the continued existence of the individual soul as a surviving entity after the end of organic life"); 4 per cent indicated that they did not know. Jews, for whom immortality is inconsequential, overwhelmingly rejected the doctrine; most Catholics accepted it (though four out of 23 denied it and two did not know). Similarly, a large number of Protestants considered Christ as not divine, but "only as a very great...
What appears from this and related questions is a separation of ethics from religion. Originally the foundation of moral systems, religion, to these respondents at least, has lost the claim of sole ownership to the ethical beliefs of the secular society. Asked whether they "believe that correct ethical principles are grounded on religious faith, and that a genuine knowledge of man's moral obligations necessarily involves a belief in God," only 28 per cent of those believing in some Divine presence replied in the affirmative. Seventy-nine per cent of the believers felt that the ethical opinions of atheists...
...similar individualism is found in respondents' views of the Deity. Only 18 per cent of all respondents indicated belief in an "infinitely wise, omnipotent three-person God Who created the universe and Who maintains an active concern for human affairs," 6 per cent believed in a unitarian God with the same attributes. By far the greatest number of respondents--24 per cent--believed in "a God about Whom nothing definite can be affirmed except that I sometimes sense him as a mighty spiritual 'Presence' permeating all mankind and nature." Of the non-believers, ignorance rather than denial was much more...
...pedagogical corollaries of Harvard's apotheosis of tolerance are subscribed to by Faculty members of diverse beliefs and non-beliefs. In teaching history the lecturer divorces, as much as possible, personal evaluation from more antiseptic exposition; in elementary philosophy the conflicting claims to truth are all laid before the student; in courses on religious philosophy or writing the professor teaches about religion ,and does not attempt to inculcate belief...