Dawkins Vs. Hitchens

Posted by on Sep 18, 2007 in Rants | 7 comments

When I posted All About God…err…I mean god, I was asking why Dawkins uses the capital “G”, whereas Hitchens does not. Instead of getting answers to that question, I mostly received the same comments from the first time I posted on this subject. I was not asking what you think I should do. I have my opinions and I am not trying to piss anyone off. But why is it so many glossed over my real question:

Hitchens uses “god”, while Dawkins uses “God”. My only assumption is that Dawkins is more of a people-pleaser nice guy, while Hitchens does not come off that way at all. Could this be the reasons behind why there’s a lack of consistency? What are your thoughts?

and were content to just bash my point of view?* I agree with Hitchens in this respect because I “God” is not a name to me. It may be a name to people within a specific group, but it is a group I do not belong to. Just as the Jewish G-d, which I am closer to, at least culturally.

I do not try to convince theists to deconvert; I am not on some mission. If you haven’t noticed, this is more of a ranting blog with videos and images and short opinions. I do not write essays, not since college of course. Since I studied film and creative writing, that’s basically all I did. I just don’t have the time or energy for that. I applaud those who do: Good Work! But its not my style. I write short stories, short poems, and short opinion pieces; I generally try keep it pithy and succinct.

* If you wish to leave a comment, please don’t just proclaim to me why I should capitalize the “G”.

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  • The Exterminator

    I don’t think there’s a philosophical disagreement in the capital/no-capital “controversy” among atheists. I think it’s a linguistic one.

    Some folks believe that God, like Jesus Christ, is a proper name of a specific fictional character, and therefore should be capitalized whether or not one believes in him, just as you would capitalize Moses or Achilles. Other folks, and I count you and me among them, Hussy, do not believe that god is a proper name, and so should not be capitalized.

    Unfortunately, the lower-casing of “god” is viewed as confrontational by religious idiots. I think Dawkins avoids this confrontation because it isn’t important to his thesis. He may also believe that God is the name of a specific mythical character. But I don’t necessarily agree with you that Dawkins is a people-pleaser. I think he’s more of a linguistic traditionalist and sees no point in changing common usage.

    On the other hand, Hitchens courts controversy. For him, I think, the lack of capitalization is a linguistic trick, primarily meant to be confrontational.

    I can’t speak for Hitchens, but here’s the reason I use the lowercase (I’m quoting from a thread on my own post about this topic): The word “god” is not a proper noun. It’s no one’s name. It would be more reasonable for people to refer to “my god,” rather than just “god.” Certainly, in the former circumstance, every atheist, and most nonatheists, too, would lowercase the word…. In Hebrew, the sky character is referred to using the tetragrammaton — which, roughly transliterated into English is YHVH. That’s Yahweh, or Jahweh, or Yahveh, or Jahveh, even perhaps Jehovah. But it ain’t “God.” That non-name earned its initial cap from the unlettered folk who decided that their own skyguy was the only one. But nobody ever said that it was a proper name. I don’t think it is a proper name, in either sense of the word “proper.” This has nothing to do with my nonbelief, because I scrupulously capitalize Zeus, Thor, Jesus, Ishtar, and all those other deities whose existence I dismiss as nonsense. But “god” stays uncapped when I write it.

  • Eric Haas

    I suspect Dawkins’ capitalization of “God” is probably just a habit left over from his Anglican upbringing.

  • toomanytribbles

    i think people who capitalize god do it in the same way as santa claus — because it indicates the names of a character, if fictional.

    i struggled with this for a while when starting my blog. i would tend to not capitalize it, but then i had the urge to write a god, and not use it as a name.

    i avoided over the whole dilemma by doing away with caps altogether. and the typing’s quicker, too.

  • Intergalactic Hussy

    When I speak of god, its the generic god. For me, all those gods are equally ridiculous. So I don’t capitalize unless I am quoting.

    “Unfortunately, the lower-casing of “god” is viewed as confrontational by religious idiots.”

    I don’t see it as confrontational but I’m on the other side of it. But I suppose I can see it as though. I don’t do it to be confrontational AT ALL. I just do what I think is linguistically accurate.

  • Heathen Dan

    I didn’t even notice that Dawkins capitalizes the g– word (does he? I should check). I’ve grown used to seeing it that way, I suppose. But my preferred convention is to use the lower case god as a generic term for a deity and the capital God when referring to a specific deity (usually Yahweh, the Mahometan god is always referred to as Allah by westerners).

  • Patti

    Dawkins stated during a question and answer period at one of his lectures that the capital ‘g’ was a change made by his editors during the copy editing phase. I wish I could cite the actual video he said this in, but I’ve seen so many I’d never remember which one it was in.

    Who knows whether that’s a true excuse. He may have just wanted to avoid a lengthy debate on a subject he considers irrelevant and a waste of time.

    Personally, I use the lower-case g in my own writings. I don’t mean for it to be confrontational …though I see why it might be taken that way. I just want to make a point with it. Except when it’s grammatically correct to use the cap G ;-)

  • Infidelis Maximus

    I think you should use a capital “G” because it is grammatically correct

    I’m just kidding :-)

    I think Hitchens does this to piss off religionists–it’s not that he doesn’t believe it refers to a specific fictional deity. I guess that makes him a better atheist in some folks’ books, but not mine. I like how he writes, but this doesn’t serve any real purpose.

    It’s a matter of personal choice, and you should do whatever you’re comfortable with–just as Hitchens has. It’s a blog anyway–so who cares?

    And a special shout out to ‘exterminator’: lowercasing God is viewed as confrontational by far more than ‘religious idiots.’ I’m neither religious, nor an idiot, but I do see this as patently offensive to religious people. Hussy certainly has the right to do that if she wants–it’s her blog, after all.