The Council for Secular Humanism is asking the same thing I’ve been asking for a couple years now. This is how I see it, plain and simple:
- I use the capital G when I am referring to the specific Abrahamic God as a person’s name.
- I use the lowercase g when I am referring to the notion of god.
Not only was I raised Jewish, I also contemplated the possibilities of Wicca and Buddhism (at separate intervals) and then after some much needed conversation with my husband (then boyfriend), I realized that they’re all the same basic stuff and I don’t need any of it. Though I have discussed the benefits of some ideals in Zen Buddhism, I don’t prescribe to the bulk of it. In all honestly, sometimes a little positive thinking and finding that balance between the good & bad people and events is necessary. Surely, it’s not the only way to do such things but it worked for me at a not-so-great time in my life.
Needless to say, there are (and have been) more gods than we can count on our collective fingers and toes. Supposing that any time anyone speaks of a god is automatically referring to the one and only God is a bit too ego-driven for my blood. I don’t like to leave out the Wiccans, Hindus, and whoever else, they’re all on the same playing field as far as I’m concerned.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to change the name of my blog to emphasize my Jewish (or non-Christian) upbringing. Many Christians have visited my blog, naturally assuming I left Jesus or ever had any reason at all to even consider the Jesusy God. For the record, my half brother converted to Christianity and my (old school) father considers that way more of an insult than me not believing in God, G-d, or god.
I briefly gave a two bullet point overview on my thoughts for using the uppercase G and lowercase g. If you follow my blog frequently, you may notice inconsistency. Those lines can get fuzzy, say when I’m quoting or referring to someone else who used G when I clearly don’t agree. Or when I prefer to broaden the scope from God to god for a particular reason. I generally prefer to use “god” because I’m usually not speaking of the only God, but just the concept of god and god-belief. For someone who was raised with Christianity and often argues specifically against the Christian dogma, it may be a different story. But that’s not my shtick.
By no means do I use a lowercase g to simple rebel or to show no signs of respect. According to my grammar rules, only proper nouns get capitalized. Sometimes, I just don’t see god as proper.
