Books Ngram Viewer

In case you have not yet seen the Google project called "Ngram" then you are missing out on interesting data that is more fruitful than "Facebook trolling" all day long.  

The essence of Ngram is being able to see the frequency of words that have been published in a massive number of books over time.  So assume you wanted to see how often the words, "faith, hope, love" appear in in books since the year 1800, you will see this graph:

As you can see all three have been in decline for decades and are hovering at all time lows.  

However, if you search Faith, Hope, Love you get this graph:

The only difference is the first letter of each word is capitalized.  Love is making a strong comeback (notice the big dip in the early 1940's we have not finally recovering from) and Faith and Hope are on the up swing as well.  Does this mean there are more sentences beginning with Faith, Hope or Love then they are being used in the middle of the sentence?  Does this mean there are more books with these words in the titles?  

I believe Dan Pink posted this originally but it is worth Christians taking a serious look at as well.

Can you image that?  "hope" has been dominating "fear" for the vast majority of time and now they are in a dead heat.  

In the spirit of taking into account "case sensitivity" take a look at "Hope" and "Fear".

"Hope" is still in the lead (the 1940's dip is not nearly as intense in this situation), but "Fear" is at all time highs!

How is it that if we are a "Christian Nation" as some people would contend, then how is it that the Christian message of Hope is in rapid decline and Fear is taking more ground?  How is it that this so called "Christian nation" has forgotten that with God there is nothing to fear/Fear?  Is the current incarnation of the message of Christianity so watered down or irrelevant that Fear/fear is given permission to even have a foothold in a world full of Hope/hope?  

At the very lease it is good there is a lot of Love/love as it is said that it is the greatest of things.

How do you help people find their faith?

The other day I did the funeral for Miss Elizabeth Rhodes (aka Betty).  Her nephew, Nick, is a film director who lives in Austin.  He had a great voice when reading scripture and as the family walked to the grave site, I found myself wanting to ask Nick where he learned to read so well.  I discovered he was an actor and now a director and his mother is a Juilliard trained opera singer and she taught him the importance of breathing.

As we walked along he asked me a question, since we were sharing professional opinions on a subject matter.  He asked, "How do you help people find their faith?"

I asked him why he asked that question.

He replied that many of his friends are okay with religion as a whole but are agnostic of in his term "faith-less", that he wanted to know how or if he could help his friends (who want to believe there is More).

I have an answer to this question which I gave to him, but I wanted to know if any of you who read this might be willing to supply a response?

How do you help people find their faith?

Decisions without evidence

A comment some time ago stated the following in response to a question I asked about what we put trust in:

"Would you trust a friend with your secrets who you don't have evidence to believe they are trustworthy?

Would you trust a surgeon to operate on you who has a history of accidents and mistakes, or do you want the surgeon whose track record is clean? You are still required to trust in the surgeon, but you only do so with evidence that it would not be dangerous to do so.

Would you put your child in the hands of the Catholic Church when they have been proven to have a history of child abuse? 

You judge based on evidence every day. It's one of the most basic functions of the human mind, and we do it almost constantly."

I agree.  

But the fact of the matter to is that you and I, everyday, make decisions and put our faith in many things for which we do not have any evidence.  

When you drive down a street you have faith/trust the people in the other lane to not drive into your lane.


When we have work done on our cars, we trust people do not do harm to our car in hopes that we would return when the "fluid ran out".


When we park our cars in garages over long periods or when we board a plane, there is trust all around us.  Most of which there is no evidence for.  


And this is why, according to my theology, I do not understand why Christians are afraid of atheists.  We all trust.  We all have faith.  Atheists have faith.  


Attention my fellow Christians: There is no need to fear the Atheists.  
Attention self describing Atheists: There is no need to fear the Christian.  


Unless you put your faith in fear...