Are Xtians Poor Readers And Poor Writers?

[Mongo]

Note: This is a serious question and it is not intended to deteriorate into slamming fundys or debate their education/intellegence (already done quite deftly elsewhere).

 

The topic:

 

I started to read "A fun reply to a raving xtian..." and was struck by the first line in which the fundy wrote:

I CAN’T BELIVE THIS BULLSHIT IS REAL, I FOUND THE LINK TO THIS WEBSITE ON A JOKE SITE THAT SAID A STUDENT CAME TO SCHOOL WAIRING A PIRATE COSTUME AND SAID IT WAS PART OF HIS RELIGION.

 

This quote strikes me as interesting for two reasons. Firstly, according to Robbob, the fundy uses all caps all the time as a matter of habit. This is simply bad form and violates Internet writing protocol. Secondly, he misspelled a very common word; "WAIRING" instead of "wearing". Ouch. That is really bad. I didn't read further.

 

In my detailed email debates with my relatively intellegent cousins and siblings, it seems that many of them routinely fail to grasp the essence of my arguments. I can't count the number of times I have submitted multiple reply on the same issue to finally get a reply of "Oh, I thought you were saying..."

 

I find that the more attention to grammar, the more reasonable the person. Perhaps it is a question of attention to detail and not grammar.

 

To contrast, this site is replete with people who know the meaning of the word "replete"! Oh joy! I have one location where I can let loose with multisyllabic utterances and not confound my audiance.

 

Am I the only one who sees that the reading and writing skills of the x-xtians on this site is far above average? I am routinely awe struck at the maturity of expression emmanating from teenagers and twenty-somethings on this site.

 

It is well established that fundys' test scores on a variety of scales are lower but I'm curious whether you find that reading and writing in particular are very poor or whether there is simply a general inability to follow logic or an inability to recognigize emotion based reasoning?

 

Any observations out there?

 

Mongo

[mwc]

In my old xian school there was quite an emphasis on proper English skills (grammar, spelling, etc.). For many years I wrote as if I had a cork up my butt. It's only now that I've become lazy (add-on spell checkers and dictionaries are wonderful) but if push comes to shove I might be able to go back to my old formal ways with a little practice.

 

Even having said all that I still tend to write more formally than I speak. Unfortunately, I think that distinction is becoming a thing of the past and people are writing how they speak and I can't understand what they hell they're going on about in either venue (at least when it's written I can try re-reading it a few times but in person it's either ask them to repeat it or just nod and smile ).

 

As for the rest. Well, you have to have fairly low comprehension skills when it comes to all things xian and still be a xian so there's no surprises there now is there? Compartmentalization is an amazing thing.

 

mwc

[Mongo]

In a long winded way... I'm proposing that the ability of people here to read (comprehend) and write (express) has enabled us to find a better truth.

 

Take the sentence above... most people here would not over look the word "propose" whereas most fundies I argue with would skip over that word and interpret that sentence as a statement of "belief".

 

In my experience, fundies regularly make these kinds of mistakes.

 

Mongo

[SWIM]

Being an IT oriented person and having read thousands of emails over the years I can tell you Mongo, that the quote *most likely* came from a child. It is logical too, since children are *freshly* brainwashed, they have not had enough contrary input or experience thinking logically, so they are more likely to be an *outspoken* fundy.

 

Children love to rebel against those they disagree with, so if the kid has been pounded into fundyism for a long time, they may be itching to wield the "hammer of god" on atheists/agnostics. So, this does explain a lot of the crap-ass spelling and grammar by them.

 

And yes, I do realize that there are a LOT of outspoken adult fundies, but their crapola is *mostly* (not all) in literature, articles and web sites. Myspace fundies and message board "swoop in post then leave" are probably, imo, largely populated with children.

[Mongo]

Being an IT oriented person and having read thousands of emails over the years I can tell you Mongo, that the quote *most likely* came from a child. It is logical too, since children are *freshly* brainwashed, they have not had enough contrary input or experience thinking logically, so they are more likely to be an *outspoken* fundy.

 

Children love to rebel against those they disagree with, so if the kid has been pounded into fundyism for a long time, they may be itching to wield the "hammer of god" on atheists/agnostics. So, this does explain a lot of the crap-ass spelling and grammar by them.

 

And yes, I do realize that there are a LOT of outspoken adult fundies, but their crapola is *mostly* (not all) in literature, articles and web sites. Myspace fundies and message board "swoop in post then leave" are probably, imo, largely populated with children.

 

So you are proposing that us adults are being sucked into idiotic debates by children.

 

That makes *us* look dumb.

 

Hmmm...

 

Mongo

[woodsmoke]

My own experience has been the exact opposite. I've always been a grammar nazi, and growing up the most intelligent people I knew were almost all (devout) Mormon (intelligence here excluding having the wisdom to see organized religion for the crock of shit it is).

 

Granted, this is colored heavily by the fact most of the population in Utah is Mormon, so it only makes sense there would be more of them simply due to demographics. We do seem to hold with the trend, however, in there being proportionately more well-educated and/or intelligent non-believers than Mormons.

 

All of this, of course, is purely anecdotal.

[Jubilant]

We live in a predominately Christian country, most of our population despite religion or lack thereof, have the same educational background. There are plenty of non-believers who tend to be lacking in the grammar department. If you were to converse and debate with a Christian book author, though they are set in their ways, it'd be quite different than debating the average American...even teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.

 

I have a close friend that has a niece in Germany, her mother is from the U.S. and her father is from Germany...the child speaks both languages fluently. Despite her ability to speak both languages, she failed her English Grammar class ; when her mom confronted the teacher, her teacher told her that although her daughter speaks American English well, that they teach Queen's English and therein is where the problem lies. Next the teacher told her that Americans in general have poor grammar skills.

 

There are a lot of smart and intelligent Christians, and a lot of smart and intelligent non-Christians. Truthfully, I'm blown away by the grammar and writing skills of the Europeans on this board! The way the majority of them write is absolutely eloquent and makes me wish I had been introduced to their form of grammar.

[Piprus]

For whatever it might be worth on this thread...

 

I've read that from its origins, christianity was a religion that appealed to the lower classes...from Roman times, the slaves and the lowest tier of Roman society...because it promised something no other religion did...an afterlife realm of pleasure, freedom from sickness or death, a world where there was no sadness, no pain, no drudgery...only pleasure, at the benevolence of the christian god, a classless society where one's birth life no longer mattered. In God-Jesus' afterlife, every "saved" one lived on an equal plain in the ultimate glory and happiness.

 

Maybe that is still the basis of christianity. The appeal of a better, ethereal life after this one, designed to hook the masses. Perhaps that is still the message cast, refined for current times.

 

False then, false now.

[Taphophilia]

My mother has an eighth grade education and has better English skills than I have. However, she took tons of shorthand and dictation courses and is a prolific reader.

 

Most US adults have only a 7th or 8th grade reading level. Sad, isn't it?

 

Emory University/UCLA study, reported in JAMA: 41.6% of American patients could not comprehend directions for taking medication on an empty stomach. 26% were unable to understand information regarding when their next appointment was scheduled. 50.5% could not understand a standard informed consent form.

 

Pediatrics: The average reading level of American parents of young children is 7th or 8th grade, but 80% of pediatric materials for parents are written at the 10th grade level or above.

 

The National Adult Literacy Survey: Nearly 50% of the Americans surveyed cannot read well enough to find a single piece of information in a short publication, nor can they make low level inferences based on what they read. About 20% of the US population are functionally illiterate; for some subsets of our population, that rises to 40%.

[Vigile]

Found this on Wiki:

 

In the United States, according to Business magazine, an estimated 15 million functionally illiterate adults held jobs at the beginning of the 21st century. The American Council of Life Insurers reported that 75% of the Fortune 500 companies provide some level of remedial training for their workers. All over U.S.A. 40-44 million (21-23% of adults) are functionally illiterate. [1]

 

In the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph (14 June 2006) "one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year-old". The UK government's Department for Education reported in 2006 that 47 percent of school children left school at age 16 without having achieved a basic level in functional maths, and 42 percent fail to achieve a basic level of functional English. Every year 100,000 pupils leave school functionally illiterate, in the UK.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy

 

Could this suggest that the problem is not necessarily the education system, but betrays the fact that roughly 20% of humanity are just stupider than the rest of us?

[Mankey]

Found this on Wiki:

 

In the United States, according to Business magazine, an estimated 15 million functionally illiterate adults held jobs at the beginning of the 21st century. The American Council of Life Insurers reported that 75% of the Fortune 500 companies provide some level of remedial training for their workers. All over U.S.A. 40-44 million (21-23% of adults) are functionally illiterate. [1]

 

In the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph (14 June 2006) "one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year-old". The UK government's Department for Education reported in 2006 that 47 percent of school children left school at age 16 without having achieved a basic level in functional maths, and 42 percent fail to achieve a basic level of functional English. Every year 100,000 pupils leave school functionally illiterate, in the UK.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy

 

Could this suggest that the problem is not necessarily the education system, but betrays the fact that roughly 20% of humanity are just stupider than the rest of us?

Hey!

 

You forgot lazy.

[R. S. Martin]

What are the standards for literacy? I am functionally illiterate in some topics. Please don't expect me to read an insurance policy and understand what I read. But be informed that I have nearly completed a masters degree in theology. I can't balance a cheque book but I have an uncanny ability to "just know" intuitively when my chequing account is low. So what are the standards for literacy? Am I literate or am I illiterate? I survived a first-year college-level stats course but required at least a year to recuperate because of the amount of energy it required. I understood the theory but my brain doesn't get along with technical details and numbers.

 

When it comes to working through the abstract theoretical metaphysics of theology I'm tops and I think fundies haven't even begun to think things through. They're just thick-skulled and fat-headed and stubborn. And scared like all get-out. Then again, some of them are smart enough to come up with answers to stop your mouth next time that is going to leave you speechless. Or at least me. Just some stupid answer that will take me a week to figure out what in the world they could have meant by it. And by the time I get it figured out the moment will have long passed.

 

Are they poor readers and poor writers? I suppose a formal survey would have to be done to verify any definite conclusion but from a logical perspective, it would seem not to require any brains to become a fundy. You do best in a fundy environment if you check in your brains at the door and forget to pick them up on your way out. That was my downfall. I was literally incapable of doing it. I did my very best but my mind was too big; I could not turn it off. I tried my very, very, utmost best to turn it off so I could tolerate the kind of life I was supposed to live and it DID NOT WORK. They played the blame-the-victim game to the hilt and it was all my fault that I did not enjoy life under everyone's thumb in the back corner of the factory where creativity was absolutely zero. So when I filed a hole big enough to squeeze out of the cast iron box where they kept me, they were REALLY mad--not at themselves for forcing the life out of me but at me for finding a way to cope with an impossible life situation.

 

I would say they were actually quite intelligent and creative in their own way, even if they were quite far removed from and dishonest with their own feelings. After all, you see that among atheists, too. I have seen seriously sloppy reading and writing and thinking skills among atheists, too. Then again, some of the sloppiest emails I've received are from profs--folks with PhDs and many years with teaching experience.

 

Mongo, I do understand what you mean about people being unable/unwilling to differentiate between propose and believe. My guess is that would have more to do with a limited vocabulary than with religion. I am presently engaged in a conversation with a fundy (I think; he hasn't come out and said so yet) here where, on third or fourth reading, I began to suspect we are dealing with limited vocabulary rather than with a matter of questioning God.

 

He said:

If

God made our brains (to put it very simply!) then surely it makes sense that there is a 'connecting' point or points in there? It's a chicken-and-egg thing, really.

 

I responded: The type of argument you are making would come mainly from fundamentalist Christians. My question to you would be: If you are a fundamentalist Christian, how can you question whether or not God created the human body, including the brain?

 

You say "

If

God made our brains (to put it very simply!) then surely it makes sense that there is a 'connecting' point or points in there?" You say "if" and you put no redeeming clauses in there to undo the "if." Thus, you are questioning whether God actually made our brains. That does not sound like a good fundamentalist Christian. How do you defend such a position?

 

Later, I realized he probably meant, because, rather than if. However, he is stressing the word "if" so much I let my post stand. Let him take responsibility for his own words. This is another case where I suspect I'm supposed to feel guilty--and come under conviction--for my atheism because he's posting off-topic; he is outrightly rejecting the premises on which the thread is based without saying so. This is a dirty trick I know some Christians like resorting to. He can now figure out how to defend his position, let me have the last word, or confess that he made a mistake by using that word. It remains to be seen what he chooses to do.

[R. S. Martin]

Someone suggested exC is a cut above many forums when it comes to writing and thinking styles. I've seen that kind of comment repeatedly on here. But I've been on other forums with exChristians and they're not all on this level. I think we're just lucky to have a good bunch here.

[Taphophilia]

Ruby,

 

English is your second language and you are much better than many people where English is their first language. You are one of the most intelligent people I have ever read. I would like to point out that everyone has different life experiences and has a wide array of knowledge, just because you are not versed in an area where someone else is, doesn't mean you are not intelligent. I'd also like to point out that everyone's brains work in different ways, where one person will be better in one area than another. Just because you are better is some areas than in others doesn't mean you are not intelligent. No one can be good at everything. Don't compare your weaknesses to another person's strengths. I think you beat yourself up way too much.

 

Taph

[Monk]

Mongo,

 

I think you're exactly right. In my opinion, I don't think the logical side of the brain works as well in theists as in non-theists. That is NOT to say they are more stupid or dumber or anything. I just think that people who are more right or left brained (whichever side controls emotion) are more inclined to accept things on faith than they are to scrutinize what they here and ask for proof. Some people are inclined to follow their proverbial hearts and some are inclined to analyze a situation from a thousand angles before they can even move.

 

I guess I'm saying that, in some respects, how you view religion is tied to your genetic makeup as much as your environment. That sounds dangerously close to eugenics, but I think there's some correlation. Obviously, there are/will be exceptions, but, as you said from the start, we aren't speaking in absolutes here.

[Jubilant]

I agree with both Taph and Ruby and Vigile brought in a wonderful little tidbit as well. IMO this has far, far more to do with culture/education than religion.

 

Taph made a another good point in saying that we are all different. Not everyone is knowledgeable when it comes to grammar, or anything for that matter and some people (despite their lack of education) pick it up later, whereas even college grads do not use grammar good well. Personally, if I can understand someone, I'm not going to nitpick. I've seen people from all kinds of backgrounds who are guilty of misusing the following (myself included): their/there/they're, then/than, etc. Instead of making one feel stupid or unintelligent, I prefer to think of myself as capable and smart enough to know what they mean meant.

[Vigile]

I have a buddy who is a county prosecuter and a part time law professor. When we were in school together there was a running joke amongst our gang about how bad his writing was. Law school surprisingly didn't improve him. He has even published several papers in achedemic journals and has had to have friends edit for him before submission. I wouldn't say he's brilliant, but he is a smart guy and has acheived more at the age of 30 than most ever do. Even so, he still can't get his theres/theirs/they'res right.

[R. S. Martin]

I have a buddy who is a county prosecuter and a part time law professor. When we were in school together there was a running joke amongst our gang about how bad his writing was. Law school surprisingly didn't improve him. He has even published several papers in achedemic journals and has had to have friends edit for him before submission. I wouldn't say he's brilliant, but he is a smart guy and has acheived more at the age of 30 than most ever do. Even so, he still can't get his theres/theirs/they'res right.

 

That makes me feel better--a brain that simply won't stick to the "rules" of what is considered regular run-of-the-mill normal.

[R. S. Martin]

Ruby,

 

English is your second language and you are much better than many people where English is their first language. You are one of the most intelligent people I have ever read. I would like to point out that everyone has different life experiences and has a wide array of knowledge, just because you are not versed in an area where someone else is, doesn't mean you are not intelligent. I'd also like to point out that everyone's brains work in different ways, where one person will be better in one area than another. Just because you are better is some areas than in others doesn't mean you are not intelligent. No one can be good at everything. Don't compare your weaknesses to another person's strengths. I think you beat yourself up way too much.

 

Taph

 

Thanks, Taph. The point of my post was: Who am I to judge whether Christians as a group are poor readers and writers? You are not alone in considering me an intelligent person. But there are many people who consider me borderline retarded. I am not sure which group is larger.

 

I have great respect for the intelligence of my Christian professors, and the theologians I am reading. These people are anything but stupid. Due to their education, their knowledge bases far exceed those of the average person on the street. As has been mentioned in this thread, education makes a difference in knowledge base. One thing I wonder about is why no Christians address the Big Questions I have been asking all my life. Is it because they do not have the intellectual ability?

 

I think that unless and until we can get highly educated Christians to address and think through these "questions that Christians can't answer," and respond to them with intellectual honesty, we won't know whether it is a matter of religion or a matter of intelligence that prevents them from addressing the questions.

 

At the moment, I don't know how to get them to look at the questions. I am getting some very strange signals from liberal Christians right now. The only way I can make sense of it is that they're scared. It's as though the "evil monster atheist" stereotype dominates their subconscious and they assume I am mocking them for their faith even in the most innocent day-to-day doings. This does not seem like a good time to test their intelligence. BTW, the person I quoted above seems to be a very liberal Christian rather than a fundy. He's one of the people from whom I am getting strange signals. One of the others is my thesis advisor.

[RIPw4]

Note: This is a serious question and it is not intended to deteriorate into slamming fundys or debate their education/intellegence (already done quite deftly elsewhere).

 

The topic:

 

I started to read "A fun reply to a raving xtian..." and was struck by the first line in which the fundy wrote:

I CAN’T BELIVE THIS BULLSHIT IS REAL, I FOUND THE LINK TO THIS WEBSITE ON A JOKE SITE THAT SAID A STUDENT CAME TO SCHOOL WAIRING A PIRATE COSTUME AND SAID IT WAS PART OF HIS RELIGION.

 

This quote strikes me as interesting for two reasons. Firstly, according to Robbob, the fundy uses all caps all the time as a matter of habit. This is simply bad form and violates Internet writing protocol. Secondly, he misspelled a very common word; "WAIRING" instead of "wearing". Ouch. That is really bad. I didn't read further.

 

In my detailed email debates with my relatively intellegent cousins and siblings, it seems that many of them routinely fail to grasp the essence of my arguments. I can't count the number of times I have submitted multiple reply on the same issue to finally get a reply of "Oh, I thought you were saying..."

 

I find that the more attention to grammar, the more reasonable the person. Perhaps it is a question of attention to detail and not grammar.

 

To contrast, this site is replete with people who know the meaning of the word "replete"! Oh joy! I have one location where I can let loose with multisyllabic utterances and not confound my audiance.

 

Am I the only one who sees that the reading and writing skills of the x-xtians on this site is far above average? I am routinely awe struck at the maturity of expression emmanating from teenagers and twenty-somethings on this site.

 

It is well established that fundys' test scores on a variety of scales are lower but I'm curious whether you find that reading and writing in particular are very poor or whether there is simply a general inability to follow logic or an inability to recognigize emotion based reasoning?

 

Any observations out there?

 

Mongo

 

 

While I agree proper grammar is important, I would not go as far to say that Christians have poor grammar. I am an English teacher in training. My advanced composition teacher is a DEVOUT catholic. You cannot slip a misplaced comma past that woman.

 

I even use the occasional poor grammar when communicating on the internet. Its a dirty form of short hand.

[trashy]

I think fundamentalist religion attracts the lower-income, less-educated part of the population. And since most drive-by posts are from fundies.......

 

there ya go...

[Vigile]

I have a buddy who is a county prosecuter and a part time law professor. When we were in school together there was a running joke amongst our gang about how bad his writing was. Law school surprisingly didn't improve him. He has even published several papers in achedemic journals and has had to have friends edit for him before submission. I wouldn't say he's brilliant, but he is a smart guy and has acheived more at the age of 30 than most ever do. Even so, he still can't get his theres/theirs/they'res right.

 

That makes me feel better--a brain that simply won't stick to the "rules" of what is considered regular run-of-the-mill normal.

 

Language is a funny thing. I've lived in Russia for over three years and I'm really embarrassed to say that my Russia skills are beyond disrepair. I lived in Italy for only 1 1/2 years and my Italian is horrible as well, though much, much better than my Russian. To my Italian friends I'm l'assino (donkey) for being too stubborn to learn. It's strange because I feel I have a better than average grasp of the English language. Why those skills don't transfer over to another language is a mystery to me.

 

To be honest, I learn visually. And generally I don't have a lot of mental energy left to study Russian after spending so much on my business every day. It's an excuse, but I think it's at least somewhat valid. The second half of the story is that I hate studying language. Even English. Grammar is the most gruelingly, painfully oppressive subject that you can subject me to apart from math (I even majored in Poli Sci because of the limited math requirements). And, I procrastinate big time those things that are uncomfortable to me.

 

I can actually read Russian fairly well. Speak, and understand when listening? Don't even ask. I'm lucky to have a lot of patient friends and family who don't hate me for failing to learn.

[R. S. Martin]

I'm not sure whether to continue in this thread or whether to start a new one. Frankly, I am not sure why this is in the science section to begin with. I am guessing maybe because learning styles are sort of science. In that vein, I continue here.

 

Language is a funny thing. I've lived in Russia for over three years and I'm really embarrassed to say that my Russia skills are beyond disrepair. I lived in Italy for only 1 1/2 years and my Italian is horrible as well, though much, much better than my Russian. To my Italian friends I'm l'assino (donkey) for being too stubborn to learn. It's strange because I feel I have a better than average grasp of the English language. Why those skills don't transfer over to another language is a mystery to me.

 

I've read the entire post but want to respond to this part. Maybe the thing you are good at is self-expression via language rather than languages per se. I would guess there's quite a difference. For self-expression you have to find a way to convey what is inside of you in a form that others understand. If your art is language, all you need is one language and I take it you learned that as a child.

 

To learn languages, you need an affinity for grammar and phonetics and patterns of sounds and linguistics--I dunno. I'm just making up terms as I go. I'm trying to explain what I have experience in my explorations of languages in reading labels. I have a half-decent knowledge of German when reading and speaking, am fluent in spoken Penn. German as well as in written and spoken English, and can identify most major world languages in their written forms. That's about it. Since Pierre Trudeau we've had two languages on all our labels but I never learned French.

 

Once in a while, depending what product I get that was made in a European country such as Holland, I have fun identifying half a dozen languages. What I go by is phonetics--combinations of letters/sounds that are unique to each language--I couldn't list them here to save my life. But my brain automatically knows what it sees when looking at a common combination in a paragraph. This works only for languages that use alphabets like ours, though I can identify (say what language they are for) a few other alphabets or whatever they are called. I understand that we use a very different part of the brain to capitalize on all these patterns than we do to recognize detail (such as individual letters, words, and vocabulary).

 

To be honest, I learn visually. And generally I don't have a lot of mental energy left to study Russian after spending so much on my business every day. It's an excuse, but I think it's at least somewhat valid.

 

It's perfectly valid. I am glad you shared this because now I better understand when "foreigners" "don't bother" to learn a language. People who work with their hands all day probably have the mental energy to learn a language at night. All the same, I am impressed when I speak with a person who has been in Canada for twenty years and still speaks with a very heavy accent. I think I would do better but then, I really have no way of knowing. I learned Penn. German as an infant and English as a 7-year-old. I am fluent in both and people have no problem understanding me.

 

The second half of the story is that I hate studying language. Even English. Grammar is the most gruelingly, painfully oppressive subject that you can subject me to apart from math (I even majored in Poli Sci because of the limited math requirements). And, I procrastinate big time those things that are uncomfortable to me.

 

Procrastinating on things we don't like is normal. I would guess that is how we evolved--by favouring our best-loved talents. I cannot learn language via grammar, though I love grammer. I just can't memorize all those details. My aim is to learn the language by reading and general vocabulary, then take the grammar to perfect my skills. Not sure when or if that will ever happen. Ancient/New Testament Greek is what I've been working on very sporadically on for quite a number of years. Bascially all I'm doing is holding onto the alphabet; not making any progress.

 

I can actually read Russian fairly well. Speak, and understand when listening? Don't even ask. I'm lucky to have a lot of patient friends and family who don't hate me for failing to learn.

 

You ARE lucky. It sounds like you've got a decent handle on three languages in some form or other. If you want something to feel bad about you can probably find people who can speak and write fluently in half a dozen languages. If you want to feel good about something you probably have no further to look than your bathroom mirror. I would guess the people in this world who can read well in two or three languages are in a strict minority. And it sounds like you can.

 

I realize that with the work you do it would be very convenient to be handier with languages. I guess you will have to either accept the situation or adapt your life to better accommodate your abilities. It sounds to me like you've given it an honest try.

[R. S. Martin]

I mentioned patterns of letters or phonetics in language. To show an example, I learned these combinations by reading sire names from European countries in English stories or articles. Also from English words derived from words in these languages. For example, if I come across a name beginning with "Sch" as in Schmidt" it is probably German. English is one of the few languages that has the "th" combination. A word or name with "quette" anywhere in it is probably French in origin and most of those letters are probably silent. Those are a few. I'm always learning new ones.

 

Here's a wierd one pointed out to me by a woman who learned a South American language and also German and was trying to learn English. The combination was wkw. The word was awkward.

[pitchu]

I tend to think that good writing/language skills have little to do with religious convictions or the lack thereof, and a lot to do with whether or not one fell in love, as a child, with words. If a child is mesmerized by diagramming a sentence, for instance, s/he is likely to grow up to write and speak well.

 

Whether s/he does that on behalf of religion or not seems to me a separate issue. There are terrific writers and orators in both camps.