God or G-d. Nah, just god.

Posted by on Jun 26, 2007 in Images, Rants | 11 comments

Why do atheists refer to any god as “God”? Is it the brainwashing early on that makes us continuing to do such things? Raised Jewish, I was always told to use “G-d”; you can’t write down such a holy name that you possibly may eventually throw out. Silly, I know. I stopped the bad habit all throughout middle and high school, only to creep back on me in college for a reason unbeknownst to me. Non-Jewish friends had no idea why this was done. I tried to explain and then realized Why am I reverting back to old and bad habits? It’s like saying “Thank God”; some things become ingrained. I admit I went in and out of using “G-d” even when I was script or story writing a character saying “oh my god!”

I finally dropped it for good a few years ago. Why do some atheists use God with a capital “G”, including many authors? Isn’t that giving their god precedent over reality. The Greek gods aren’t capitalized, nor should the Christian god, the Jewish god, the Muslim god, et al.

EDIT: The follow-up can be seen here.

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  • The Anonymous Atheist

    I’ve always felt that God is a proper noun, so I capitalize God in the same way that I capitalize Robert or Jennifer. It’s all in the language. “God commands it,” should have a capital G, but if it’s “a god commands it” it shouldn’t. Since god can mean either one of many gods, or the Christian God, it gets confusing. Allah, Elohim, Zeus, Thor, Buddha, they are all the same. They are all gods, with a little g. God is a god with a little g, but his name is also God, with a big G.

    That said, capitalizing His and He has always really annoyed the crap out of me, because that doesn’t follow any grammatical rules at all.

  • nullifidian

    I always wondered that too, but I usually put it down to cultural conditioning within a particular faith tradition, usually of an Abrahamic bent.

  • CHADMAC

    I’m going to have to go with The Anonymous Atheist on this one. I have always capitalized God because it’s a name. I also agree that capitalizing Him, His and He is extremely annoying.

  • Intergalactic Hussy

    I am also annoyed by the use of He/Him.

    I’m not 100% sure what I feel is the correct one to do. But I still use “god”. A proper noun such as Jesus would be capitalized. Is “god” a proper noun?

    (proper noun, also called proper name-
    a noun that is not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier, as any or some, and that is arbitrarily used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have, as Lincoln, Beth, Pittsburgh. [dictionary.com])

    Is “god” a particular name? A specific god’s name would be capitalized. But “god” seems too general for me to capitalize.

  • The Anonymous Atheist

    But his name is still God. If you name your kid “Person” you’d still capitalize it, because it’s your kid’s name.

    I love linguistic debates. Yes, I’m a geek, in more ways than one.

  • Intergalactic Hussy

    I can understand God being one god’s name but which one? (ie Jesus, Allah – everyone’s god can’t all be named “God”, can it?) The Christians, Jews, and Muslims have one god (except for Christians, its sometimes 3).

    When I refer to any god, its generally under the pretense that it could be any of them (from Christian to Jewish to Muslim to Hindu, Wiccan and Greek gods and goddesses). To me, they are all the same. Mythological creatures.

    If other polytheistic religion gods have names, such as in the Hindu religion or the Greek mythology, then why does the Judeo/Christian god get precedent over the others?

    I’m a geek too!!

  • The Anonymous Atheist

    You make a good point. I’m not sure though, the words for “God” in other languages could just get translated to our word for God: God. You’d need the origin of all the languages, etc.

    It’s an interesting question though. You definitely have my mind going :)

  • Richard Rosalion

    I agree with the anonymous atheist – I capitalise it when it’s a proper noun. Personally, when I say “God”, I’m referring to (simultaneously) the gods of all religions (long story – check out religious eclectisism if you’re interested).

    I also try to be gender-neutral when I talk about God, although it is difficult sometimes (and I definitely slip up).

  • Captain Joe Kickass

    If god existed, then god’s name would be a proper noun.

    For example: Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad are all proper nouns.
    (Yes, I am aware several are not gods but prophets or whatever.)

    So here is where the serious geek factor comes in -

    Has anyone noticed these require capitalization in spell check -

    christian
    jew
    buddhist
    buddhism
    mormon
    hindu
    hinduism
    islamic
    muslim
    chrisianity
    judaism
    jainism
    calvinism

    But These do not.

    atheist
    atheism
    satanist
    humanist
    secularist
    taoist
    methodist
    baptist

    Can we have some consistently, please.

  • Brice Lord

    I’ve stopped capitalizing “god” because a) it’s more work b) God isn’t real and c) it distorts a simple reference (“God”) to the implication of reverence. I’m not reverent, nor do I believe in god, nor do I like to do work, so it’s a pretty simple decision for me.

    P.S. I like the blog, Ms. Hussy, first time on it.

  • Cafeeine

    The G-d thing I find funny because it ignores the vary basic way we use language. By typecasting “G-d” as meaning exactly the god of the Jews, G-d essentially becomes a synonym to God, and therefore is subject to the same problems. The hilarious issue is that this is the second time this happened, as “God” was used to replace YHWH, and by force of use it became a synonym that itself fell under the rules of YHWH.