full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Eric Liu: How to revive your belief in democracy

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Perhaps now you're getting a little worried that I'm trying to sell you on a cult. Relax, I'm not. I don't need to sell you. As a human, you are always in the market for a cult, for some variety of religious experience. We are wired to seek cosmological explanations, to sacralize beliefs that unite us in tceneasdrnnt purpose. Humans make religion because humans make groups. The only choice we have is whether to aitavtce that guenrsops for good. If you are a deuovt person, you know this. If you are not, if you no longer go to peyrar services or never did, then perhaps you'll say that yoga is your religion, or Premier League football, or knitting, or coding or TED Talks. But whether you believe in a God or in the absence of gods, civic riligoen does not rueirqe you to renounce your beliefs. It requires you only to show up as a cziiten.

Open Cloze

Perhaps now you're getting a little worried that I'm trying to sell you on a cult. Relax, I'm not. I don't need to sell you. As a human, you are always in the market for a cult, for some variety of religious experience. We are wired to seek cosmological explanations, to sacralize beliefs that unite us in ____________ purpose. Humans make religion because humans make groups. The only choice we have is whether to ________ that _________ for good. If you are a ______ person, you know this. If you are not, if you no longer go to ______ services or never did, then perhaps you'll say that yoga is your religion, or Premier League football, or knitting, or coding or TED Talks. But whether you believe in a God or in the absence of gods, civic ________ does not _______ you to renounce your beliefs. It requires you only to show up as a _______.

Solution

  1. activate
  2. groupness
  3. transcendent
  4. devout
  5. require
  6. prayer
  7. religion
  8. citizen

Original Text

Perhaps now you're getting a little worried that I'm trying to sell you on a cult. Relax, I'm not. I don't need to sell you. As a human, you are always in the market for a cult, for some variety of religious experience. We are wired to seek cosmological explanations, to sacralize beliefs that unite us in transcendent purpose. Humans make religion because humans make groups. The only choice we have is whether to activate that groupness for good. If you are a devout person, you know this. If you are not, if you no longer go to prayer services or never did, then perhaps you'll say that yoga is your religion, or Premier League football, or knitting, or coding or TED Talks. But whether you believe in a God or in the absence of gods, civic religion does not require you to renounce your beliefs. It requires you only to show up as a citizen.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
civic religion 13
civic saturday 3
democracy works 2
civic ritual 2
civic saturdays 2
religion matters 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
civic religion matters 2

Important Words

  1. absence
  2. activate
  3. beliefs
  4. choice
  5. citizen
  6. civic
  7. coding
  8. cosmological
  9. cult
  10. devout
  11. experience
  12. explanations
  13. football
  14. god
  15. gods
  16. good
  17. groupness
  18. groups
  19. human
  20. humans
  21. knitting
  22. league
  23. longer
  24. market
  25. person
  26. prayer
  27. premier
  28. purpose
  29. relax
  30. religion
  31. religious
  32. renounce
  33. require
  34. requires
  35. sacralize
  36. seek
  37. sell
  38. services
  39. show
  40. talks
  41. ted
  42. transcendent
  43. unite
  44. variety
  45. wired
  46. worried
  47. yoga