A viral meme has been circulating the Internet for 2 years concerning Tim Tebow wearing John 3:16 on his eye blacks at the 2009 college bowl championship. The meme claims after the game, 92 million people searched John 3:16 on Google.
This claim is bunk. Given that 200.5 million people in the US have Internet access, that only the biggest NFL games top 100 million viewers, and that the vast majority of Americans are Christians or were raised Christians, 92 million searches of John 3:16 by individual people is unbelievable. Even if it were true, that would mean almost all of viewers with Internet access searched the verse, and if football fans represent religious diversity in the US, 69 million searches were conducted by Christians.
What's more, Google Trends shows that, by far, the most searches of John 3:16 on the search engine occurred in January 2012, due to curiosity following an ad during a playoffs game showing footage of Tebow's John 3:16 eye blacks. Google Trends doesn't give the actual number of searches, but if we believe Tebow generated 92 million searches in 2009, he must have generated well over 100 million searches in 2012. In 2012, a little over 100 people claimed to have been saved because of the ad. So, basic math tells us a mere 1 in 1,000,000 were saved because of the ad. For perspective, 1 in 700,000 people are stuck by lightning each year in the US. You are more likely to be struck by lightning then to be converted by Tebow face paint.
But, of course, that is all nonsense, for that would imply everyone who watched the 2012 Super Bowl also watched the Broncos-Pats game, saw the ad, happened to have Internet access, and searched for the verse. Unlikely? I think so.
Check your sources. Google Trends is the expert on searches on their own website over time, not religious websites. All the reputable mainstream news sites that still have this old story up cite Tebow or his coach for this information, not Google.The only primary sources I can find cite 92 million Google searches, not 92 million people, and to assume searches equal individuals is an equivocation fallacy.
Furthermore, does it make sense that nearly 1/3 of the US population would watch a college bowl game AND have Internet access AND not have the verse memorized AND search the verse, when only 1/3 of the US population watches the Super Bowl?
It doesn't really matter though if 92 million searches of John 3:16 were made, because 92 million searches does not necessarily equal 92 million people, as mentioned above. That is an equivocation fallacy, and thus still unbelievable.
Don't make up statistics unless you wish to be proven wrong.
you also have to think of the people who looked up the vurse just to look it up and the people who wanted to read it to study for a sermon.
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DeleteI think it is safe to assume that the number of people looking it up for other reasons is pretty consistent on a weekly or monthly basis. If you look for keyword "John 3:16" on Google Trends, you will find the Tim Tebow events in 2009 and Jan. 2012 caused significant deviation from the baseline, but not enough to account for 30,000,000+ searches.
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