full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Karen Armstrong: My wish The Charter for Compassion

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And I found some astonishing things in the course of my study that had never occurred to me. Frankly, in the days when I thought I'd had it with religion, I just found the whole thing absolutely incredible. These doctrines seemed uonevprn, abstract. And to my aeinostnmhst, when I began seriously sutdniyg other traditions, I bgean to rizleae that belief — which we make such a fuss about toady — is only a very recent religious enthusiasm that surfaced only in the West, in about the 17th cnutrey. The word "belief" itself originally meant to love, to przie, to hold dear. In the 17th century, it narrowed its focus, for reasons that I'm exploring in a book I'm writing at the moment, to include — to mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, a credo. "I believe:" it did not mean, "I accept certain creedal acreitls of faith." It meant: "I commit myself. I engage myself." Indeed, some of the world traditions think very little of religious orthodoxy. In the Quran, religious opinion — religious orthodoxy — is dismissed as "zanna:" self-indulgent gssueowrk about mttears that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. (Laughter)

Open Cloze

And I found some astonishing things in the course of my study that had never occurred to me. Frankly, in the days when I thought I'd had it with religion, I just found the whole thing absolutely incredible. These doctrines seemed ________, abstract. And to my ____________, when I began seriously ________ other traditions, I _____ to _______ that belief — which we make such a fuss about _____ — is only a very recent religious enthusiasm that surfaced only in the West, in about the 17th _______. The word "belief" itself originally meant to love, to _____, to hold dear. In the 17th century, it narrowed its focus, for reasons that I'm exploring in a book I'm writing at the moment, to include — to mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, a credo. "I believe:" it did not mean, "I accept certain creedal ________ of faith." It meant: "I commit myself. I engage myself." Indeed, some of the world traditions think very little of religious orthodoxy. In the Quran, religious opinion — religious orthodoxy — is dismissed as "zanna:" self-indulgent _________ about _______ that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. (Laughter)

Solution

  1. realize
  2. articles
  3. prize
  4. century
  5. studying
  6. today
  7. unproven
  8. guesswork
  9. began
  10. matters
  11. astonishment

Original Text

And I found some astonishing things in the course of my study that had never occurred to me. Frankly, in the days when I thought I'd had it with religion, I just found the whole thing absolutely incredible. These doctrines seemed unproven, abstract. And to my astonishment, when I began seriously studying other traditions, I began to realize that belief — which we make such a fuss about today — is only a very recent religious enthusiasm that surfaced only in the West, in about the 17th century. The word "belief" itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. In the 17th century, it narrowed its focus, for reasons that I'm exploring in a book I'm writing at the moment, to include — to mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, a credo. "I believe:" it did not mean, "I accept certain creedal articles of faith." It meant: "I commit myself. I engage myself." Indeed, some of the world traditions think very little of religious orthodoxy. In the Quran, religious opinion — religious orthodoxy — is dismissed as "zanna:" self-indulgent guesswork about matters that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. (Laughter)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
golden rule 6
major world 3
united nations 3
world traditions 2
religious orthodoxy 2
religious people 2
young people 2
give guidelines 2

Important Words

  1. absolutely
  2. abstract
  3. accept
  4. articles
  5. assent
  6. astonishing
  7. astonishment
  8. began
  9. belief
  10. book
  11. century
  12. commit
  13. credo
  14. creedal
  15. days
  16. dear
  17. dismissed
  18. doctrines
  19. engage
  20. enthusiasm
  21. exploring
  22. faith
  23. focus
  24. frankly
  25. fuss
  26. guesswork
  27. hold
  28. include
  29. incredible
  30. intellectual
  31. laughter
  32. love
  33. matters
  34. meant
  35. moment
  36. narrowed
  37. occurred
  38. opinion
  39. originally
  40. orthodoxy
  41. people
  42. prize
  43. propositions
  44. quarrelsome
  45. quran
  46. realize
  47. reasons
  48. religion
  49. religious
  50. sectarian
  51. set
  52. study
  53. studying
  54. stupidly
  55. surfaced
  56. thought
  57. today
  58. traditions
  59. unproven
  60. west
  61. word
  62. world
  63. writing