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
- realize
- articles
- prize
- century
- studying
- today
- unproven
- guesswork
- began
- matters
- 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
- absolutely
- abstract
- accept
- articles
- assent
- astonishing
- astonishment
- began
- belief
- book
- century
- commit
- credo
- creedal
- days
- dear
- dismissed
- doctrines
- engage
- enthusiasm
- exploring
- faith
- focus
- frankly
- fuss
- guesswork
- hold
- include
- incredible
- intellectual
- laughter
- love
- matters
- meant
- moment
- narrowed
- occurred
- opinion
- originally
- orthodoxy
- people
- prize
- propositions
- quarrelsome
- quran
- realize
- reasons
- religion
- religious
- sectarian
- set
- study
- studying
- stupidly
- surfaced
- thought
- today
- traditions
- unproven
- west
- word
- world
- writing