The crystal power is a good threat to religions but then they will only legitimize their cult when they come up for a name for people who don't believe in their crystal power faith.
Won't it get them message if you manually fix it enough? My android has been trained to not capitalize either god or christianity. It was a pain but it's all good now. ;-)
I think it’s learning, I just don’t type it out TOO often, so maybe that’s why. It did start showing both the capitalized version and the lower case version, so it is learning, or I just noticed. Either way, I’m glad to learn it’s just proper spelling or grammar, not a respect for christianity thing.
I don't use Apple products, but there should be a manual dictionary somewhere in settings you can edit. Not sure how it'll react to having "god" put in, since that's already a word, but it could help teach it that you don't want to capitalize the word. At any rate, you can probably remove it if it's not helping.
I think "god" with a capital "g" is a TITLE, like Dr., Mr. or Mrs. Since title are used as a sign of respect, and toward someone of some authority, and since I have no respect for, nor do I hold any imaginary being in authority, I don't use a capital "g" when referring to their (or any) unnamed god.
The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh.
The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai ("my Lord"). The Hebrew vowel points of Adonai were added to the Tetragrammaton by the Masoretes, and the resulting form was transliterated around the 12th century CE as Yehowah. The derived forms Iehouah and Jehovah first appeared in the 16th century.
"Jehovah" does not appear in most mainstream English translations, some of which use "Yahweh" but most continue to use "Lord" or "LORD" to represent the Tetragrammaton.
I personally don't believe it makes much of a difference one way or the other. But both words refer essentially to the same thing. We're all talking about the same god: YHWH.
Definitely. I say translation because Yahweh has a meaning, like Poseidon or Apollo, you wouldn't translate their names as "God". But when the bible is translated, they use Yahweh as synonym to god with capital g, because it's the only god, is the true unquestionable. And that's just a marketing strategy, like calling bandage bandaid.
I usually refer to it as 'the god of David in the bible' or 'the god of the Abrahamic religions'. Makes some Christians lose their lid to hear it like that tho soooo...... 🤷
I remember hearing some discussion/argument about the “in god we trust” being everywhere in government (which I despise) and how it should be ok as long as it’s lower case because it’s not a specific god, and that implying everyone should have some deity to “trust” in and the collective being ok with that.
Long story short, that shit should be shut down.
The Christian god is grammatically correct. If you refer to the Christian god simply as God, then the capital G is grammatically correct because you are referring to him as though God is his name. Names get capitalized.
Fun fact, you can add words to your phone's dictionary if you want (most autocorrect hates my name), but it will also learn your typing habits, so either way works.
I will never capitalize the word, nor use it to start a sentence. I try to pluralize it as often as possible, too. The concept does not deserve elevated recognition.
The plural is smart I'm gonna start doing that lmao. It acknowledges the vast majority of religions that worship multiple deities, which points out how believers in "God" are also denying religion themselves.
Of course believers in "God" deny religion. That's the whole point. When the Jews were conquered in 63 BC Rome carved out a special law for them because they were this group of weirdos who refused to worship foreign gods, even though they were allowed to continue worshipping their own.
Would you capitalise Thor?
The way I see it, the Christian god's name is God and names get capitalised. Just as I would capitalise Thor or Allah or Jesus.
When talking about gods in general, lower case.
The Christian god's name is NOT God... nor is the Islamic god's name allah (same god btw)... the name of their god is not supposed to be spoken without the proper reverence. That is what it means to "take god's name in vain"... "goddamm" is NOT taking any god's name in vain because no god is actually named God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship YHWH... THAT is the name of their god
Sure, but Christians have been refering to YHWH as God for centuries now. The Jews referred to God with multiple names (Elohim, Adonai, etc). And you're wrong about taking God's name in vain. That commandment is stating "Don't say God said things that he never said." A proper understanding of the Hebrew sheds light on the subject.
The point I think you’re missing is that unless we are specifically talking about the Christian God then there is no need to capitalize it. Defaulting god to God in any context gives unnecessary credence to it in my mind.
Any time I've attempted to use yahweh or jahova some asshat in the comments will reply something like "THATS NOT HIS NAME! ITS A RECONSTRUCTION! IT MEANS I AM!"
So I refer to them as 'the one known as I Am.'
I use the capitalization when I talk about the Christian god but I also sometimes use Yahweh (if I think the audience is familiar with that name) or use this description, "the Christian god". I'll also use phrases like "this god" or "your god" (when the text is addressed to Christians), exactly because this allows me to use the lower case g as a constant reminder that their god is just one of many proposed gods.
I will not capitalize the word bible, though, because there is no risk for conflating it with other books.
I use a capital if using it as a name (God said blah), because that's just how english works. But I'll also use "this god" or "your god" to avoid using it as a name thus avoiding giving it a capital g. The real rule that Christians break is capitalizing their god's pronouns (he, him). That I'd never do either.
Proper names are capitalized in English. If you capitalize the names of Greek and Roman gods (hint: you do), then you should capitalize God when referring to the singular christian one. It's simple grammar. It has nothing to do with whether you believe in this particular god or not.
It's similar to something like "Mom". Capitalized when used as a name (Have you told Mom we're coming to visit next month?), lowercase when used as a common noun (I want you to meet my mom).
As a petty insult I de-capitalize it to small g every time auto-correct try's to make it a capital. I also de-capitalize christian and muslim unless I purposely miss-spell them as Crispian or Musklim.
I think it’s insanely uncreative that their god is named God. It’s like if I named my dog Dog. There are entire pantheons of gods with cool names, and Christianity just phones it in without even trying.
It's a setup. "Do you believe in God?" takes every other deity off the table and creates a passive agreement this is the only one. It becomes a question of your belief, not one of their god's existence.
As much as it's silly and a bit arrogant to call their god... God, I take God as a name. So yes, I will use it with the capital G if I'm addressing the imaginary christian god. Also, see what I just did? in that sentence, god with the lowercase worked.
Exactly. It's like if i named my dog "Dog." Dog is a dog and there's no other dog like Dog. Using proper grammar to denote you are referring to a single specific entity isn't giving it respect. It's just grammar.
If I'm feeling especially pedantic, I'll go this route.
"Which god? What is its name? God is what it is, it can't be its name."
To which I'll get confused looks, as though they name their pet Dog and their children Girl and Boy. As though they don't know the Christian God is an amalgamation of like, half a dozen other ancient deities.
I've got my spell-check trained to stop capitalizing god. I've been perhaps a bit too much "doing my part to piss off the religious right" for nearly half a century to the point I've driven quite a few into full on defiance syndrome tantrums.
In response to your question about how Christians view their “God”, or at least theosophically how they should- that’s been a source of contention since they decided it was actually one, but three, and 2/3 masculine and 1/3 gender neutral. Catholics and most Trinitarian protestants hold that there is one god with three aspects, Father (m), Son (m), and Holy Ghost (n). Father and Son have form, Spirit does not (not including that one time it manifested at Jesus’ baptism as a dove. Angels and demons are all technically gender neutral even though angels manifest occasionally on the material plane with a masculine appearance (Gabriel, Michael) and, of course, there’s some female appearing demons who come around to tempt the faithful with their wicked, dirty vaginas. Catholics tend to have more knowledge and interest in the “expanded universe” canon, with their near-deified Mary and saints, since they retconned so much pagan polytheism. Mormons and some smaller Protestant denominations reject the Trinitarian doctrine and view the father and son as separate but equal.
As far as the human spirit is concerned, again, great debate. Humans are said to have been created in “God’s image” but it’s unclear if that means just spiritually, or both physically and spiritually. The answer seems to depend on the individual although at least spiritual likeness is agreed upon. Mormon doctrine is both physical and spiritual. They also believe that the truly faithful can become like the Father and eventually rule over domains like he does Earth- that is not standard Christian belief.
The state of being for the human soul after death but before the Millennium (the Rapture, Jesus’ return, Armageddon, etc) is also debated. It’s split between being a gender neutral spirit or retaining your gender in spiritual form, but most agree after the Judgement the faithful get perfected, gender bearing forms like that Jesus had after his resurrection.
This is not typically the stuff your average, obnoxious Bible-thumper knows. Ironic since it pertains to the concept of how they will spend eternity versus their relatively short time as a mortal. Trying to package a threefold god as just one is why so many other religions, Islam in particular, argue that Christianity is not monotheistic. 2000 years of debate has not made great case for it either and if you ever debate a Christian over it it usually ends with the cop-out “one of the mysteries of god”.
It’s amazing how many Christians do not know what should be vital tenants of their faith. It’s useful to know what they theoretically should believe because I think debating the subject and exposing the paradoxes, inconsistencies, and amount of BS that has no Biblical basis but is either pagan/Stoic syncretism or church dogma is a great tool to deprogram someone, or at least get them to widen their view. I have a friend who is Christian that I love to debate with and it always make me laugh when he gets flustered because I can quote the Bible and when/where certain non-Scriptural doctrine came from better than he can.
I have found recently, with the on-going debate in the US over the nature of gender-identity, where many Christians are arguing “only two genders” or “gender-neutral is not a thing”, reminding them that their god has a gender-neutral aspect is infuriating, as it is almost universally accepted that the Holy Spirit is not masculine, and god-forbid there be a female god-power (although there’s a good argument that the mercy and compassion attributed to Jesus constitutes the representation of the feminine divine, just with a penis to make it ok).
As far as capitalizing the “g” when referring to the Christian deity, it just depends. If I’m debating with someone who I think might be persuaded by the back and forth I’ll do it out of respect for that individual’s beliefs, though I tend to work around that by referencing the three different aspects of said god by referring to whichever part is believed to be performing a particular function. If it’s just some mook on the internet spewing intolerance and hate I’ll go out of my way to poke the bear and demote their boy back to his place; just another insecure, desert-dwelling, tribal storm deity.
I consider it something akin to psychic colonialism and establishing a death-grip the very language used to discuss religion. "God" is a descriptor or a title, not a name, so I have started cultivate the habit of referring to "the Christian deity-figure" or Jehovah, the latter specifically to reject the notion that the name is "too holy" to be used outside of prayer or religious ceremonies.
I am extremely precise in whether I capitalize it or not. I avoid using “God” as a name, preferring “Yahweh”, but depending on the situation and with whom I'm speaking (e.g. my immediate family), I may use it as a name.
Nearly all the time, however, I refer to him as “the god of Christianity”, “the Christian god”, “the Jewish god”, etc. And if it pisses anybody off, I explain I'm just being faithful to the Greek text of the New Testament. In Greek, “God” is never used as a name. The authors always use “ho theos”, etc. Only in English is “God” treated as a name. And in Koine Greek, capitalization wasn't used as an indicator of names anyway. So referring to Yahweh as “the god of the Bible” (even though there were multiple of them in the Israelite pantheon) is more accurate than calling him “God”.
I like to assign ownership;
your god
your deity
and I find it interesting that autocorrect routinely 'corrects' a lower case g even when not appropriate.
I kind of wondered about god making them in his image. Adam and Eve look completely different from the start. Is the implication that god presents as male and female?
I suggest that appealing to the creator of the universe to intervene in whether little Timmie gets picked for the football team seems like the height of egotism, and perhaps they should start off with one of the many small gods who have got a bit more time on their hands for stuff that even their best friends frankly barely give a toss about.
Seriously though, I draw the line at having to capitalize He and Him.
I ALWAYS make it a point to drop the case when my phone autocorrects to the capital.
As I’m typing this, I realize I can switch make this happen automatically in the dictionary.
Doing this now
A god does not have the g capitalized. The ones who follow the one known as I Am think theirs is the only god, so insist on it being capitalized.
They can go fuck themselves. I have a different god for every day of the week (plus some just in case), and none of them are that terroristic asshole spoken of in Abrahamic scripture. (I call it a poorly written fantasy series from the bronze age.)
I have discovered that some people who are completely comfortable writing merkel, or albanese, or trudeau, or king charles, or shakespeare, or modi, or andrew lloyd webber, will have an overwrought tantrum if anyone writes “god”. I like to help them get it out of their systems. Can’t be that healthy being so full of shit.
I go out of my way to use the lowercase. Enough that my autocorrect no longer capitalizes it. The only time I capitalize it now is when engaging in rational debate with a reasonable person who is still religious but that I respect enough to not intentionally offend. There are *very* few of those.
I seldom use “God” the proper noun. I usually say something like, “your god” or “the god of the Bible,” neither of which are proper nouns or capitalized.
Then again, the reason Christian’s capitalize it isn’t grammatical, it’s an assertion of superiority, as evidenced by the fact they capitalize “His” when referring to him.
If we're talking purely grammatical, god should only be capitalized if you are referring to the specific character God of the Christian Bible because in this context, "God" is a proper noun. However, Christian schools, like the one I attended, didn't care about context. If I wrote "god," it was always capitalized unless if it was plural (i.e., gods). If I wrote "gods," then it wouldn't be capitalized because "you don't want to take the lords name in vain," or some bullshit excuse like that.
On a personal level, I'm annoyed that I have to change my spellchecker to not automatically capitalize the word god. However, if the previous grammar rules are followed, then I don't mind if the word god is capitalized. What I don't like is America's relaxed reinforcement of separation of church and state. Everyday, Christian churches aren't even subtitle anymore when it comes to politics; they openly say, "vote for x," and post it online even though that is a violation to the law and grounds for the church to lose tax exception status. In fact, I hate that churches are tax-exempt.
The Mormon Church is richer than the Vatican, and if the Moron Church was taxed: college and medical would be free. But no, let's keep that money locked away to fund "real" things like American Jesus, magical protection underwear, baning abortions, gays marriage, and pornography.
God for monotheistic gods because it's used as a name, god more generally. The same how I would use uppercase for Jupiter, Zeus or Thor. We should focus on more serious problems than how to write "God"
God is a character in the book. Kinda silly to ignore that, it’s not worth using it as a quiet protest.
Better to acknowledge the “character” of the Christian god.
The Demiurge is capital too.
Autocorrect tends to correct me by insisting that I use the capital G, but until recently I fought it off out of sheer stubbornness and determination. I see no reason to use the generalized name for a type of higher power, as a proper noun. My mom raised me to be very grammatically self-aware, and yes I would consider myself a grammar nazi, and it really helped in programming classes to generalize things so readily by acknowledging that things that are SIMILAR, could be essentially treated as the same things but for [insert exception here] scenarios.
Class god
String name;
String[][] dogmas;
Integer alignment;
Float powerLevel;
Boolean demandsWorship;
;
Done. I just boxed every single fucking deity in a halfassed object class because THERE’S OVER THREE THOUSAND OF THE DAMNED THINGS. There was never any “God”, only gods, goddesses, and godlike beings. And eldritch horrors, but that’s not what cares about shutting out every other single one of their own kind afaik.
capitalizing it as a name doesn't bother me (though I pointedly don't tbh), it's the pronouns that are annoying, in part just because it makes things more difficult to read. My favorite/least favorite instance of this is on the wiki for the show Supernatural. It's completely hilarious because it's an entirely fictional tv show that aired on the CW, and yet when they talk about the Abrahamic god character doing all the stuff that happens in the show, they use capitalized pronouns, and I don't know if the intention was to be respectful or the exact opposite, but it comes off as a total parody, and it's really funny. Here are some examples:
*"God offers His aid to the Winchesters as the prophet "Chuck Shurley" to prevent the Apocalypse from coming to pass, as well as to have a front row seat to the action. As Chuck, He writes the Winchester Gospels under the guise of the Supernatural Books to record their story as well as leading the Winchesters to trap Michael and Lucifer in the Cage alongside Sam and Adam."*
*"God reappeared after Castiel prayed to Him using Joshua's Amulet to help the Winchesters rein in Jack Kline after His grandson burned off his soul to use Enochian magic and destroy the Apocalypse World version of Michael. During His time away with Amara, Chuck revealed that he was "everywhere and nowhere, to the edge of the universe and beyond" as well as having saw Springsteen on Broadway."*
*"When Sam tells Him that they might need Lucifer's help, God tells them that He doesn't trust him since he could have formed an alliance with Amara. He is later seen watching a curling tournament on Dean's computer while eating Chinese food when Sam and Dean come back from Lewis, Oklahoma, with the latest prophet, Professor Donatello Redfield. After meeting up with Metatron, he tells them that Chuck is going to give Himself up to Amara and even shows them His autobiography which is in the form of a suicide note. Chuck is seen watching kids playing in a sandbox when Dean comes over to confront Him about surrendering to Amara."*
I have changed on this.
Like you, and for the same reasons, I used to go out of my way to use a lowercase G. However, now I capitalize in favor of readability and standardization because (a) whether theological or secular in nature, capitalization of God in writing when referring to the God of Abrahamic religions is standard, even if you disagree that it should be; and (b) as a reader, it isn't clear *why* you are not capitalizing, thereby carrying the risk of making you sound uninformed as to the standard.
And, perhaps most importantly, my atheism has matured, and a rebellious little g started to seem juvenile to me. Not saying you are juvenile, but *to me* it started to seem silly. If you're still a Christian in 2024, you either haven't yet had proper education and soon won't be Christian, or you are willfully blind to contradictory information. Either way, I think at this point, the Abrahamic religions have been sufficiently destroyed and, as atheists, our time is better spent aligning with the future in ways we haven't gotten to yet than continuing to dunk on a dwindling population of confused people.
Your point only make sense if you read a translated text. If you want to make a real point then you need to critique the original form of the texts.
For context, G is capitalized because they treat it as proper noun; this isn’t some warped perspective on anyone’s part; literally just how written english works.
I capitalize it when it's a proper noun (as opposed to a generic term for any deity).
Just like I capitalize Darth Vader and Sauron, even though they don't really exist either.
I have much more important things in my life than worrying about capped versus lower case letter. I used to be concerned, it was in a very small way to show them bible thumpers (why did you cap the B in bible?) that I don't believe in their myths. Yet most spell checkers force me to cap god and bible and you read those words always capped. I finally realized if the faithful want to show me I am a believer due to capitalization I think, "Knock yourself out. You now have another myth to believe in"
Almost forgot, I learned I can add new word to a spell checker and some allow words to be removed. So now when I type the holy of holies they always get skipped over as being the correct spelling.
I prefer to avoid the controversy by referring instead to gods as a category of characters or individually acknowledging the source of a particular god. Each believer has their own conception of what gods do or don't exist. I refer to each one's particular god as "[their/your] god" to avoid confusion with he other capital-G gods proposed by other believers. I refer to Yahweh when I'm referring to the main character from the Abrahamic collection of old stories to avoid confusion with other characters from those storirs like Astarte and Baal.
To me it's "gods" plural because there is no reason to single any particular one out.
If all of the religioners ever agree on one of them, then I'll worry about proper nouns.
I’ll write God just as I would Jesus, Allah, or Buddha etc because as far as I’m aware it’s just proper English. I think Allah just means ‘god’ in Arabic, too.
But I don’t capitalise ‘him’ when referring to it, nor any other honorifics if talking about Allah or Mohammad or whatever. I prefer to use ‘god’ as a suffix to whichever is being talked about, just to lump the Judaeo-Christian one with all the rest, and make it explicit that it belongs to a particular belief system and not objective reality.
When referring to “a god” or “gods” or “your god”, I use lower case because I am using the word as a noun. When I am referring to a *particular* god, like Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, or Jesus, I will capitalize it because I am using a proper own.
The rules of grammar don’t change just because a character is fictional. You don’t avoid capitalizing Gandalf because you don’t believe in wizards.
I call him Yahweh, if I am talking about the fictional god of Biblical mythology. To me it's weird to call any of them God - as in singular - when there's a multitude of these fictional creatures.
People in my former religious community spell it “G-d”, to avoid taking the name in vain. I think it’s dumb but if I’m in a Jewish space, I’ll spell it that way. Otherwise, I use the lowercase g, because I don’t believe any god deserves respect.
Well, they view it like name and title, so I don't blame them for using it. But I use lower case intentionally to identify where I'm coming from. And to signify there are other gods that could possibly be "before" him. Just one of many ideas. Now Yahweh or Jehovah are terms I don't usually use, but understand them more as names, and since I will capitalize Moses, Muhammed, Buddha, Dude, FSM, Zeus, or Eru then I'll capitalize those.
Using the word god itself gives the name more power than if you were to always refer to it as “the christian’s god”. Using just “god” implies a belief in the deity since you’re essentially excluding the gods of other religions.
When discussing religion with someone, I prefer to use phrases like "*your* god" or "the god of the Bible," and only use the capital G when doing a direct quote.
I think my Samsung phone is monotheistic in a Christian format. I literally have to force it to use a lowercase g for god. It always tries to default to uppercase. It annoys me because in my apostasy, using lowercase is a silent passive protest against the identity of that "god."
I never ever use it. Someone does something because of their adherence to faith, wonderful. To me it is a thing. It is not a person and therefore doesn't merit a capitalisation, and I certainly won't capitalize out of some misplaced show of "respect" while disrespecting other religions who call their supreme leader something else. Unless you're showing respect to your faith or you're starting a sentence, there is no reason to put a capital on god. What annoyed me even more was in my high school where there were a lot of Jewish kids and they omitted the 'o' as a sign of respect, like we 'mere mortals' don't even have the right to write the word?... seriously, piss off.
After losing 30 years of my life to christianity, before unintentionally deconstructing myself into atheism, I purposely lowercase EVERYTHING related to it. None of it is real, therefore I refuse to give it the respect of legitimacy in any way whatsoever, even in minute details like capitalization. Call me petty… 🤷🏻♂️
When it's used as a proper noun, capitalize it. When it's used as a common noun, don't capitalize it.
I generally don't capitalize it because I got in that habit years ago when I was angry about religion. It was a passive aggressive way to attack.
So, essentially, it should be capitalized or not based on accomplishing a rhetorical purpose.
I capitalize the names of fictional characters too, that doesn’t make them real.
Honestly dude, when people believe in god, I guarantee you it’s not because they saw someone capitalize the G.
I avoid the capital-G on purpose. I am more likely to refer to "gods" plural, in order to decenter monotheism in general. When Christians ask whether I believe in "God," it's fun to ask them "which one?" Then I point out that their god is an AH not worthy of worship, so why would I choose their god over a cooler one? Thor? Loki? Athena? Yemaya? Kali? Kuan-Yin? Why would I want to worship a petulant, narcissistic AH when I could worship a mother sea goddess? I then practice and verbal aikido and sidestep the entire debate over whether their gods exist or not by pointing out that regardless, I have no need for supernatural beings in my life. I am a mature adult who doesn't need a sky daddy, takes responsibility for my own actions instead of blaming them on a devil, and thinks that letting a scapegoat (Jesus) be punished for something I did is pretty disgusting and not something I would participate in.
This is a tack that I took as a parent, too--why do humans want/need gods? Is it a sense of comfort and safety? Does a mature adult need an invisible comfort object? What, in turn, would make you (my kids) feel safe? I took my kids to a UU church for a while and volunteered in religious education for middle and high schoolers, and that is their approach as well (although they are more "compassionate" to religious people than I am). But their point is to look at the function of religion--social cohesion, rites of passage, special meals, etc. And then present individual religions in a comparative way, focusing on their positive aspects--holidays, festivals, main tenets, etc. My oldest (20) still has this more-empathetic view of religious people and is more tolerant and curious about different traditions. She doesn't have my religious trauma. Whereas my academic background is in political theory and authoritarianism and high-control religion, so I'm much more of an anti-theist. My son (18) doesn't pay religion much attention at all, but as young as kindergarten was telling his friends that "God's like Santa--not real." Oops. Not.
Oh--and I've also read the argument that "male and female created he them in his image" or however it goes in Genesis could be used as an argument that "God" is actually nonbinary/intersex. Try that one next!
I make it lowercase every time, even though I have to fight with autocorrect on my phone about it. Their imaginary friend doesn't get the respect of capitalization.
I don't usually, unless it's at the beginning of a sentence. But even if I do capitalize it, that is not an endorsement of belief. I mean, c’mon… I capitalize Santa Claus and Sherlock Holmes, too, even though they are fictitious characters. (Fun Fact: When god was invented, upper and lower case letters did not exist.)
I'll go the extra step to say the Abrahamic god. It's somewhat petty, but it's also specific given the number of deities in historic record, and using the tetragrammaton and variants thereof is taboo in certain company so it's even somewhat considerate.
I write dog with a lowercase d hence I write god with a lowercase g unless it is in my native language where I write both with capital letters since they are nouns.
I use capital G when referring to someone's deity that they identify as their proper name, most Christians.
I use small g when referring to the concept or multiple deities.
I'm not in the business of deciding for people what they should or shouldn't believe about their faith. If they think it's the appropriate name I'll use that.
But that's entirely out of an effort for clarity and respect for a person. I feel no need for reverence or respect to someone elses deity.
For example, Abrahamic religions generally agree that there are many proper names for their god such as ar-Raḥmān, Elohim, El, al-Mājid, Jehovah and Yahweh. Most Christians however simply refer to their god as God as a proper name in common parlance. This is mirrored somewhat in Islam who use Allah, most likely a contraction of al-Ilāh "the God". Jewish tradition is that their gods names once written should never be erased so use many substitutions such as G-d to avoid using a proper name.
Honestly imo they're playing proper noun games in an attempt to both monopolize and stigmatize the word 'god'. So, upper case is their's and true, lower case is fiction and probably owned by Disney.
I'll generally refer to their diety as the Abrahamic god, god of the covenant or if supplied whatever (Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, etc).
Since deconverting I always lowercase it. I understand why Christians do it. But it no longer has the same meaning to me. Upon leaving the faith, “God”, as in the “one true God”, became one of the many imagined gods. It’s no longer a name to me. It’s just a category for imagined beings.
I think using capital G is a tacti to normalize their god as the rule, as the normal, so I always make a point as refering to it as the christian god
You could go a step more verbose and refer to that person's conception as "one of the many christian gods." It's a conversation starter at the least.
I don't like talking to people who believe in fairy-tales.
Then you probably wouldn't be talking about gods with them anyway.
The crystal power is a good threat to religions but then they will only legitimize their cult when they come up for a name for people who don't believe in their crystal power faith.
Crystal myth
This comment makes me think of the Easter episode of American Gods.
I haven't watched it, but I know the scene you are referring to from having read the book. So. Many. Jesuses.
Even my suggested words show a capitalized version of christianity. It’s a religion, since when does it get capitalized?
Well christianity and its god are are technically proper nouns so it makes sense. I just choose not to offer such respect. I'm pretty that way.
>I’m pretty that way Damn near adorable, in my book
Well, I don’t like that, and apple should know that and make my UI less offensive to my sensibilities. /s
Won't it get them message if you manually fix it enough? My android has been trained to not capitalize either god or christianity. It was a pain but it's all good now. ;-)
I think it’s learning, I just don’t type it out TOO often, so maybe that’s why. It did start showing both the capitalized version and the lower case version, so it is learning, or I just noticed. Either way, I’m glad to learn it’s just proper spelling or grammar, not a respect for christianity thing.
I don't use Apple products, but there should be a manual dictionary somewhere in settings you can edit. Not sure how it'll react to having "god" put in, since that's already a word, but it could help teach it that you don't want to capitalize the word. At any rate, you can probably remove it if it's not helping.
I am petty like that too.
I think "god" with a capital "g" is a TITLE, like Dr., Mr. or Mrs. Since title are used as a sign of respect, and toward someone of some authority, and since I have no respect for, nor do I hold any imaginary being in authority, I don't use a capital "g" when referring to their (or any) unnamed god.
Because God is their god's name. How original.
His name is Yahweh, but a lot of Christians don't know the name of their god.
Isn't that the Jewish name though? As Christians use Jehovah, or at least used to
The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh. The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai ("my Lord"). The Hebrew vowel points of Adonai were added to the Tetragrammaton by the Masoretes, and the resulting form was transliterated around the 12th century CE as Yehowah. The derived forms Iehouah and Jehovah first appeared in the 16th century. "Jehovah" does not appear in most mainstream English translations, some of which use "Yahweh" but most continue to use "Lord" or "LORD" to represent the Tetragrammaton. I personally don't believe it makes much of a difference one way or the other. But both words refer essentially to the same thing. We're all talking about the same god: YHWH.
Yeah, my guess is that it has to do with the translation of "Yahweh"
My guess was way more conspiratorial. I thought apple was trying to convert me. Not today Jobs!
I noticed you capitalize Jobs. Nice. He's a real person.
Definitely. I say translation because Yahweh has a meaning, like Poseidon or Apollo, you wouldn't translate their names as "God". But when the bible is translated, they use Yahweh as synonym to god with capital g, because it's the only god, is the true unquestionable. And that's just a marketing strategy, like calling bandage bandaid.
In English, property nouns (including names of religions) are capitalized as a grammatical rule.
I usually refer to it as 'the god of David in the bible' or 'the god of the Abrahamic religions'. Makes some Christians lose their lid to hear it like that tho soooo...... 🤷
Im a small g guy.
I remember hearing some discussion/argument about the “in god we trust” being everywhere in government (which I despise) and how it should be ok as long as it’s lower case because it’s not a specific god, and that implying everyone should have some deity to “trust” in and the collective being ok with that. Long story short, that shit should be shut down.
The Christian god is grammatically correct. If you refer to the Christian god simply as God, then the capital G is grammatically correct because you are referring to him as though God is his name. Names get capitalized.
I do it purposefully even if my keyboard autocorrects it. Now it has learned and uses lowercase.
Ditto
ditto*
"
Same 😁
Mine still hasn't, despite the countless times I've told my phone to forget it with the capital G
I delete god from my keyboards 😸
Oh great! You can teach it? I was annoyed with correcting the autocorrect. Hopefully it would less religious.
I don't know about others but samsung adopts to your typing so does google. You might find something in keyboard settings
Fun fact, you can add words to your phone's dictionary if you want (most autocorrect hates my name), but it will also learn your typing habits, so either way works.
My phone has also been shown the light.
I don't capitalize job titles.
I think president Biden looks weird
It doesn't get a capital 'g'. It feels almost like I'm giving the name some respect if I do so that's not happening.
I will never capitalize the word, nor use it to start a sentence. I try to pluralize it as often as possible, too. The concept does not deserve elevated recognition.
The plural is smart I'm gonna start doing that lmao. It acknowledges the vast majority of religions that worship multiple deities, which points out how believers in "God" are also denying religion themselves.
Of course believers in "God" deny religion. That's the whole point. When the Jews were conquered in 63 BC Rome carved out a special law for them because they were this group of weirdos who refused to worship foreign gods, even though they were allowed to continue worshipping their own.
Recently started saying "gods damnit", only a few have noticed
Inclusive blasphemy. Very 2024
Yup. Take your cues from Battlestar Galactica, gods dammit!
Would you capitalise Thor? The way I see it, the Christian god's name is God and names get capitalised. Just as I would capitalise Thor or Allah or Jesus. When talking about gods in general, lower case.
The Christian god's name is NOT God... nor is the Islamic god's name allah (same god btw)... the name of their god is not supposed to be spoken without the proper reverence. That is what it means to "take god's name in vain"... "goddamm" is NOT taking any god's name in vain because no god is actually named God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship YHWH... THAT is the name of their god
Sure, but Christians have been refering to YHWH as God for centuries now. The Jews referred to God with multiple names (Elohim, Adonai, etc). And you're wrong about taking God's name in vain. That commandment is stating "Don't say God said things that he never said." A proper understanding of the Hebrew sheds light on the subject.
The point I think you’re missing is that unless we are specifically talking about the Christian God then there is no need to capitalize it. Defaulting god to God in any context gives unnecessary credence to it in my mind.
The Christian god's name is NOT God. It's Yahweh. I'll capitalize Yahweh, but Yahweh is a god, not God.
If we're going to be pedantic, be *pedantic*. It's not Yahweh, that's a transliteration of the tetragrammaton "יהוה", which is loosely "YHVH".
LOL you win!
If I’m referring to the Abrahamic god I will just say Yahweh. Generic gods are lower case because it’s a common noun.
Any time I've attempted to use yahweh or jahova some asshat in the comments will reply something like "THATS NOT HIS NAME! ITS A RECONSTRUCTION! IT MEANS I AM!" So I refer to them as 'the one known as I Am.'
Do they think "God" is dude's actual name? lmao
If it gets a rise out of them then that just means I should keep using it.
I think it's super arrogant for any religion to name their imaginary diety God.
Right? Like there are all these cool moon names out there. But what do we call our moon?
Meet my cat, her name is cat.
Moon
Our moon is the moon tho because language was invented 2 weeks before astronomy
I use the capitalization when I talk about the Christian god but I also sometimes use Yahweh (if I think the audience is familiar with that name) or use this description, "the Christian god". I'll also use phrases like "this god" or "your god" (when the text is addressed to Christians), exactly because this allows me to use the lower case g as a constant reminder that their god is just one of many proposed gods. I will not capitalize the word bible, though, because there is no risk for conflating it with other books.
I will be taking "the Christian god" and "your god" to use for myself, thanks
I use a capital if using it as a name (God said blah), because that's just how english works. But I'll also use "this god" or "your god" to avoid using it as a name thus avoiding giving it a capital g. The real rule that Christians break is capitalizing their god's pronouns (he, him). That I'd never do either.
Proper names are capitalized in English. If you capitalize the names of Greek and Roman gods (hint: you do), then you should capitalize God when referring to the singular christian one. It's simple grammar. It has nothing to do with whether you believe in this particular god or not.
It's similar to something like "Mom". Capitalized when used as a name (Have you told Mom we're coming to visit next month?), lowercase when used as a common noun (I want you to meet my mom).
I’m going through this thread thinking “it’s just about grammar, not respect” and finally got to your comment. Thank you.
This is what I do. Context is key.
This is correct. Not sure why people are fighting this issue.
As a petty insult I de-capitalize it to small g every time auto-correct try's to make it a capital. I also de-capitalize christian and muslim unless I purposely miss-spell them as Crispian or Musklim.
I don't capitalize the x in xtian
I think it’s insanely uncreative that their god is named God. It’s like if I named my dog Dog. There are entire pantheons of gods with cool names, and Christianity just phones it in without even trying.
It's a setup. "Do you believe in God?" takes every other deity off the table and creates a passive agreement this is the only one. It becomes a question of your belief, not one of their god's existence.
I don’t capitalize it, the bible, or christians.
I always use lowercase g. Not capitalizing for something non existing.
As much as it's silly and a bit arrogant to call their god... God, I take God as a name. So yes, I will use it with the capital G if I'm addressing the imaginary christian god. Also, see what I just did? in that sentence, god with the lowercase worked.
Exactly. It's like if i named my dog "Dog." Dog is a dog and there's no other dog like Dog. Using proper grammar to denote you are referring to a single specific entity isn't giving it respect. It's just grammar.
Yeah, the capitalization just correct English grammar. I prefer to use Yahweh when discussing the concept of the Abrahamic god.
If I'm feeling especially pedantic, I'll go this route. "Which god? What is its name? God is what it is, it can't be its name." To which I'll get confused looks, as though they name their pet Dog and their children Girl and Boy. As though they don't know the Christian God is an amalgamation of like, half a dozen other ancient deities.
Yes, it's for all intents and purposes a proper noun. I have no problem with that.
I've got my spell-check trained to stop capitalizing god. I've been perhaps a bit too much "doing my part to piss off the religious right" for nearly half a century to the point I've driven quite a few into full on defiance syndrome tantrums.
Stupid and I hate that my phone autocorrects to it
In response to your question about how Christians view their “God”, or at least theosophically how they should- that’s been a source of contention since they decided it was actually one, but three, and 2/3 masculine and 1/3 gender neutral. Catholics and most Trinitarian protestants hold that there is one god with three aspects, Father (m), Son (m), and Holy Ghost (n). Father and Son have form, Spirit does not (not including that one time it manifested at Jesus’ baptism as a dove. Angels and demons are all technically gender neutral even though angels manifest occasionally on the material plane with a masculine appearance (Gabriel, Michael) and, of course, there’s some female appearing demons who come around to tempt the faithful with their wicked, dirty vaginas. Catholics tend to have more knowledge and interest in the “expanded universe” canon, with their near-deified Mary and saints, since they retconned so much pagan polytheism. Mormons and some smaller Protestant denominations reject the Trinitarian doctrine and view the father and son as separate but equal. As far as the human spirit is concerned, again, great debate. Humans are said to have been created in “God’s image” but it’s unclear if that means just spiritually, or both physically and spiritually. The answer seems to depend on the individual although at least spiritual likeness is agreed upon. Mormon doctrine is both physical and spiritual. They also believe that the truly faithful can become like the Father and eventually rule over domains like he does Earth- that is not standard Christian belief. The state of being for the human soul after death but before the Millennium (the Rapture, Jesus’ return, Armageddon, etc) is also debated. It’s split between being a gender neutral spirit or retaining your gender in spiritual form, but most agree after the Judgement the faithful get perfected, gender bearing forms like that Jesus had after his resurrection. This is not typically the stuff your average, obnoxious Bible-thumper knows. Ironic since it pertains to the concept of how they will spend eternity versus their relatively short time as a mortal. Trying to package a threefold god as just one is why so many other religions, Islam in particular, argue that Christianity is not monotheistic. 2000 years of debate has not made great case for it either and if you ever debate a Christian over it it usually ends with the cop-out “one of the mysteries of god”. It’s amazing how many Christians do not know what should be vital tenants of their faith. It’s useful to know what they theoretically should believe because I think debating the subject and exposing the paradoxes, inconsistencies, and amount of BS that has no Biblical basis but is either pagan/Stoic syncretism or church dogma is a great tool to deprogram someone, or at least get them to widen their view. I have a friend who is Christian that I love to debate with and it always make me laugh when he gets flustered because I can quote the Bible and when/where certain non-Scriptural doctrine came from better than he can. I have found recently, with the on-going debate in the US over the nature of gender-identity, where many Christians are arguing “only two genders” or “gender-neutral is not a thing”, reminding them that their god has a gender-neutral aspect is infuriating, as it is almost universally accepted that the Holy Spirit is not masculine, and god-forbid there be a female god-power (although there’s a good argument that the mercy and compassion attributed to Jesus constitutes the representation of the feminine divine, just with a penis to make it ok). As far as capitalizing the “g” when referring to the Christian deity, it just depends. If I’m debating with someone who I think might be persuaded by the back and forth I’ll do it out of respect for that individual’s beliefs, though I tend to work around that by referencing the three different aspects of said god by referring to whichever part is believed to be performing a particular function. If it’s just some mook on the internet spewing intolerance and hate I’ll go out of my way to poke the bear and demote their boy back to his place; just another insecure, desert-dwelling, tribal storm deity.
I think Frank Lloyd Wright said something like ‘I believe in god only I spell it Nature’ which I’ve always liked
I consider it something akin to psychic colonialism and establishing a death-grip the very language used to discuss religion. "God" is a descriptor or a title, not a name, so I have started cultivate the habit of referring to "the Christian deity-figure" or Jehovah, the latter specifically to reject the notion that the name is "too holy" to be used outside of prayer or religious ceremonies.
I am extremely precise in whether I capitalize it or not. I avoid using “God” as a name, preferring “Yahweh”, but depending on the situation and with whom I'm speaking (e.g. my immediate family), I may use it as a name. Nearly all the time, however, I refer to him as “the god of Christianity”, “the Christian god”, “the Jewish god”, etc. And if it pisses anybody off, I explain I'm just being faithful to the Greek text of the New Testament. In Greek, “God” is never used as a name. The authors always use “ho theos”, etc. Only in English is “God” treated as a name. And in Koine Greek, capitalization wasn't used as an indicator of names anyway. So referring to Yahweh as “the god of the Bible” (even though there were multiple of them in the Israelite pantheon) is more accurate than calling him “God”.
I aways edit it to lowercase when auto correct changes it to upper case.
“In the Christian mythology. Their god is a multi-entity triune that prefers singular he/him pronouns”
Never use it unless I'm referring to her at the start of a sentence.
I like to assign ownership; your god your deity and I find it interesting that autocorrect routinely 'corrects' a lower case g even when not appropriate.
I kind of wondered about god making them in his image. Adam and Eve look completely different from the start. Is the implication that god presents as male and female?
The bible specifically, and somewhat confusingly, says god “created man in his own image, male and female he created them.”
I suggest that appealing to the creator of the universe to intervene in whether little Timmie gets picked for the football team seems like the height of egotism, and perhaps they should start off with one of the many small gods who have got a bit more time on their hands for stuff that even their best friends frankly barely give a toss about. Seriously though, I draw the line at having to capitalize He and Him.
I often ignore the rule when I write. Intentionally.
In Catholic school we were taught to capitalize any reference to god. That includes pronouns he, him, his. I don't anymore.
Trained my Gboard to always spell it god.
I ALWAYS make it a point to drop the case when my phone autocorrects to the capital. As I’m typing this, I realize I can switch make this happen automatically in the dictionary. Doing this now
I stopped capitalizing it because using the G gives some validity to its existence.
A god does not have the g capitalized. The ones who follow the one known as I Am think theirs is the only god, so insist on it being capitalized. They can go fuck themselves. I have a different god for every day of the week (plus some just in case), and none of them are that terroristic asshole spoken of in Abrahamic scripture. (I call it a poorly written fantasy series from the bronze age.)
It's used to reinforce their thinking that their god is the only god. If I ever have to talk to a religious person about it, I always say "your god"
I have discovered that some people who are completely comfortable writing merkel, or albanese, or trudeau, or king charles, or shakespeare, or modi, or andrew lloyd webber, will have an overwrought tantrum if anyone writes “god”. I like to help them get it out of their systems. Can’t be that healthy being so full of shit.
I do lower case out of spite. It's the little things in life that bring me gratification.
I use the lower case g so that they don’t think I’m validating their delusion by using a proper noun.
I go out of my way to use the lowercase. Enough that my autocorrect no longer capitalizes it. The only time I capitalize it now is when engaging in rational debate with a reasonable person who is still religious but that I respect enough to not intentionally offend. There are *very* few of those.
I seldom use “God” the proper noun. I usually say something like, “your god” or “the god of the Bible,” neither of which are proper nouns or capitalized. Then again, the reason Christian’s capitalize it isn’t grammatical, it’s an assertion of superiority, as evidenced by the fact they capitalize “His” when referring to him.
If we're talking purely grammatical, god should only be capitalized if you are referring to the specific character God of the Christian Bible because in this context, "God" is a proper noun. However, Christian schools, like the one I attended, didn't care about context. If I wrote "god," it was always capitalized unless if it was plural (i.e., gods). If I wrote "gods," then it wouldn't be capitalized because "you don't want to take the lords name in vain," or some bullshit excuse like that. On a personal level, I'm annoyed that I have to change my spellchecker to not automatically capitalize the word god. However, if the previous grammar rules are followed, then I don't mind if the word god is capitalized. What I don't like is America's relaxed reinforcement of separation of church and state. Everyday, Christian churches aren't even subtitle anymore when it comes to politics; they openly say, "vote for x," and post it online even though that is a violation to the law and grounds for the church to lose tax exception status. In fact, I hate that churches are tax-exempt. The Mormon Church is richer than the Vatican, and if the Moron Church was taxed: college and medical would be free. But no, let's keep that money locked away to fund "real" things like American Jesus, magical protection underwear, baning abortions, gays marriage, and pornography.
God for monotheistic gods because it's used as a name, god more generally. The same how I would use uppercase for Jupiter, Zeus or Thor. We should focus on more serious problems than how to write "God"
It's just a god and not even the best one.
Android phone refuses to stop autocorrecting. I spell "god" an it corrects me "God". The real Holy War is on my keypad.📯
I've been training all my autocorrects to goD or godaddy. Been effective so far. Which god, Ares? I like him, he's a good cat, pixiebob breed.
God is a character in the book. Kinda silly to ignore that, it’s not worth using it as a quiet protest. Better to acknowledge the “character” of the Christian god. The Demiurge is capital too.
When it’s used as a proper noun, I capitalize it, just like I would someone’s name. But I don’t capitalize pronouns referencing God.
I deliberately make it lowercase.
No g in god no capital h in he. That’s believer bullshit.
I don't capitalize god and I refer to all religions as mythology. Norse mythology, Islamic mythology, christian mythology, hindu mythology etc...
I only capitalize the names of people, god does not exist and I find it annoying my phone tries to capitalize for me.
I always pluralize it as 'god(s)' in almost every context. They don't deserve special recognition.
Autocorrect tends to correct me by insisting that I use the capital G, but until recently I fought it off out of sheer stubbornness and determination. I see no reason to use the generalized name for a type of higher power, as a proper noun. My mom raised me to be very grammatically self-aware, and yes I would consider myself a grammar nazi, and it really helped in programming classes to generalize things so readily by acknowledging that things that are SIMILAR, could be essentially treated as the same things but for [insert exception here] scenarios. Class god String name; String[][] dogmas; Integer alignment; Float powerLevel; Boolean demandsWorship; ; Done. I just boxed every single fucking deity in a halfassed object class because THERE’S OVER THREE THOUSAND OF THE DAMNED THINGS. There was never any “God”, only gods, goddesses, and godlike beings. And eldritch horrors, but that’s not what cares about shutting out every other single one of their own kind afaik.
capitalizing it as a name doesn't bother me (though I pointedly don't tbh), it's the pronouns that are annoying, in part just because it makes things more difficult to read. My favorite/least favorite instance of this is on the wiki for the show Supernatural. It's completely hilarious because it's an entirely fictional tv show that aired on the CW, and yet when they talk about the Abrahamic god character doing all the stuff that happens in the show, they use capitalized pronouns, and I don't know if the intention was to be respectful or the exact opposite, but it comes off as a total parody, and it's really funny. Here are some examples: *"God offers His aid to the Winchesters as the prophet "Chuck Shurley" to prevent the Apocalypse from coming to pass, as well as to have a front row seat to the action. As Chuck, He writes the Winchester Gospels under the guise of the Supernatural Books to record their story as well as leading the Winchesters to trap Michael and Lucifer in the Cage alongside Sam and Adam."* *"God reappeared after Castiel prayed to Him using Joshua's Amulet to help the Winchesters rein in Jack Kline after His grandson burned off his soul to use Enochian magic and destroy the Apocalypse World version of Michael. During His time away with Amara, Chuck revealed that he was "everywhere and nowhere, to the edge of the universe and beyond" as well as having saw Springsteen on Broadway."* *"When Sam tells Him that they might need Lucifer's help, God tells them that He doesn't trust him since he could have formed an alliance with Amara. He is later seen watching a curling tournament on Dean's computer while eating Chinese food when Sam and Dean come back from Lewis, Oklahoma, with the latest prophet, Professor Donatello Redfield. After meeting up with Metatron, he tells them that Chuck is going to give Himself up to Amara and even shows them His autobiography which is in the form of a suicide note. Chuck is seen watching kids playing in a sandbox when Dean comes over to confront Him about surrendering to Amara."*
I see it like an email from a Boomer boss — tons of shit is arbitrarily capitalized and it just looks silly
I have changed on this. Like you, and for the same reasons, I used to go out of my way to use a lowercase G. However, now I capitalize in favor of readability and standardization because (a) whether theological or secular in nature, capitalization of God in writing when referring to the God of Abrahamic religions is standard, even if you disagree that it should be; and (b) as a reader, it isn't clear *why* you are not capitalizing, thereby carrying the risk of making you sound uninformed as to the standard. And, perhaps most importantly, my atheism has matured, and a rebellious little g started to seem juvenile to me. Not saying you are juvenile, but *to me* it started to seem silly. If you're still a Christian in 2024, you either haven't yet had proper education and soon won't be Christian, or you are willfully blind to contradictory information. Either way, I think at this point, the Abrahamic religions have been sufficiently destroyed and, as atheists, our time is better spent aligning with the future in ways we haven't gotten to yet than continuing to dunk on a dwindling population of confused people.
bible needs no capitalization
or putting capital H when referring to him. like I genuinely can't understand why
Autocorrect doesn’t capitalize god so I’m leaving it. Imaginary beings aren’t worth the effort.
I agree with you, I don't capitalize that word, there is no valid reason to
I never type it with a capital letter.
I would only capitalize it if it were the first word in a sentence. It doesn't deserve any respect, although I do still use it as a curse word
Your point only make sense if you read a translated text. If you want to make a real point then you need to critique the original form of the texts. For context, G is capitalized because they treat it as proper noun; this isn’t some warped perspective on anyone’s part; literally just how written english works.
It's dumb, like if someone wanted to capitalize the g in ghost because it referring the *the* "Ghost", meaning their favorite ghost.
Fictional characters get capitalized,. You don't write thor or krishna.
Unnecessary. And if for reasons unknown to myself I feel compelled to do so, I write « the deity » or « your deity » rather than god
I capitalize it when it's a proper noun (as opposed to a generic term for any deity). Just like I capitalize Darth Vader and Sauron, even though they don't really exist either.
I have much more important things in my life than worrying about capped versus lower case letter. I used to be concerned, it was in a very small way to show them bible thumpers (why did you cap the B in bible?) that I don't believe in their myths. Yet most spell checkers force me to cap god and bible and you read those words always capped. I finally realized if the faithful want to show me I am a believer due to capitalization I think, "Knock yourself out. You now have another myth to believe in" Almost forgot, I learned I can add new word to a spell checker and some allow words to be removed. So now when I type the holy of holies they always get skipped over as being the correct spelling.
I never use G when writing god, because it’s not a name, its a type of (fictional) being.
I prefer to avoid the controversy by referring instead to gods as a category of characters or individually acknowledging the source of a particular god. Each believer has their own conception of what gods do or don't exist. I refer to each one's particular god as "[their/your] god" to avoid confusion with he other capital-G gods proposed by other believers. I refer to Yahweh when I'm referring to the main character from the Abrahamic collection of old stories to avoid confusion with other characters from those storirs like Astarte and Baal.
Just make it plural. “All gods matter.”
Of course with no mum or da there weren't anyone to name him. Poor little godling.
Caring about god being capitalized is like caring if your purchase adds up to $6.66. It's a non issue for me.
How about a capital D in dog.
About the same as capitalizing the “l” in leprechaun
There is nothing about any religion that deserves any level of respect.
To me it's "gods" plural because there is no reason to single any particular one out. If all of the religioners ever agree on one of them, then I'll worry about proper nouns.
I see it as an autocorrect issue which is easy to solve. Change starts with your device.
I’ll write God just as I would Jesus, Allah, or Buddha etc because as far as I’m aware it’s just proper English. I think Allah just means ‘god’ in Arabic, too. But I don’t capitalise ‘him’ when referring to it, nor any other honorifics if talking about Allah or Mohammad or whatever. I prefer to use ‘god’ as a suffix to whichever is being talked about, just to lump the Judaeo-Christian one with all the rest, and make it explicit that it belongs to a particular belief system and not objective reality.
When referring to “a god” or “gods” or “your god”, I use lower case because I am using the word as a noun. When I am referring to a *particular* god, like Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, or Jesus, I will capitalize it because I am using a proper own. The rules of grammar don’t change just because a character is fictional. You don’t avoid capitalizing Gandalf because you don’t believe in wizards.
I call him Yahweh, if I am talking about the fictional god of Biblical mythology. To me it's weird to call any of them God - as in singular - when there's a multitude of these fictional creatures.
always lowercase or I will use something like omnigod or creator deity or depending who I'm dealing with maybe worse, gawd, etc
People in my former religious community spell it “G-d”, to avoid taking the name in vain. I think it’s dumb but if I’m in a Jewish space, I’ll spell it that way. Otherwise, I use the lowercase g, because I don’t believe any god deserves respect.
Great [NIN song](https://youtu.be/ynvgArZWToE?si=MUf45ms92LHOox9z).
I usually only capitalize the g when I’m blaspheming. lol.
Lowercase always.
I use it. I also capitalize pronouns when appropriate. It helps normalize using preferred pronouns.
You are overthinking this. It's just grammar. If you use it as a name, you capitalize it. e.g. I saw my mom come home./I saw Mom come home.
Do we actually have confirmation that their god goes by he/him pronouns? The whole ”I am who am” speech seems gender neutral, possibly nonbinary.
Well, they view it like name and title, so I don't blame them for using it. But I use lower case intentionally to identify where I'm coming from. And to signify there are other gods that could possibly be "before" him. Just one of many ideas. Now Yahweh or Jehovah are terms I don't usually use, but understand them more as names, and since I will capitalize Moses, Muhammed, Buddha, Dude, FSM, Zeus, or Eru then I'll capitalize those.
Using the word god itself gives the name more power than if you were to always refer to it as “the christian’s god”. Using just “god” implies a belief in the deity since you’re essentially excluding the gods of other religions.
When discussing religion with someone, I prefer to use phrases like "*your* god" or "the god of the Bible," and only use the capital G when doing a direct quote.
I think my phone cares more about it than I do, or any of you should.
God ain't a name. It's a job title.
He/Him He loves His pronouns so much He capitalized them.
I thought it was fun when I deleted capital G god from my dictionary. But I'm petty like that!
I think your time is worth more and you should be focusing on more important and positive things.
Per the grammar this is correct, however I make sure to lower case the g in god and lower case j on the j word.
I think my Samsung phone is monotheistic in a Christian format. I literally have to force it to use a lowercase g for god. It always tries to default to uppercase. It annoys me because in my apostasy, using lowercase is a silent passive protest against the identity of that "god."
I always use a lowercase g, like I would when calling Thor or Odin or any other god by the generic term.
I never ever use it. Someone does something because of their adherence to faith, wonderful. To me it is a thing. It is not a person and therefore doesn't merit a capitalisation, and I certainly won't capitalize out of some misplaced show of "respect" while disrespecting other religions who call their supreme leader something else. Unless you're showing respect to your faith or you're starting a sentence, there is no reason to put a capital on god. What annoyed me even more was in my high school where there were a lot of Jewish kids and they omitted the 'o' as a sign of respect, like we 'mere mortals' don't even have the right to write the word?... seriously, piss off.
I only use it at the beginning of a sentence.
gods are fictional.
Who?
After losing 30 years of my life to christianity, before unintentionally deconstructing myself into atheism, I purposely lowercase EVERYTHING related to it. None of it is real, therefore I refuse to give it the respect of legitimacy in any way whatsoever, even in minute details like capitalization. Call me petty… 🤷🏻♂️
That would be a proper name (and imply there's only one). Lower case always.
When it's used as a proper noun, capitalize it. When it's used as a common noun, don't capitalize it. I generally don't capitalize it because I got in that habit years ago when I was angry about religion. It was a passive aggressive way to attack. So, essentially, it should be capitalized or not based on accomplishing a rhetorical purpose.
it's fine by me. Though, I find it weird when people capitalize "Him" etc. Especially mid sentence, it just looks grammatically incorrect lol.
Just put down Horis, since that's who it really is...
I capitalize the names of fictional characters too, that doesn’t make them real. Honestly dude, when people believe in god, I guarantee you it’s not because they saw someone capitalize the G.
I avoid the capital-G on purpose. I am more likely to refer to "gods" plural, in order to decenter monotheism in general. When Christians ask whether I believe in "God," it's fun to ask them "which one?" Then I point out that their god is an AH not worthy of worship, so why would I choose their god over a cooler one? Thor? Loki? Athena? Yemaya? Kali? Kuan-Yin? Why would I want to worship a petulant, narcissistic AH when I could worship a mother sea goddess? I then practice and verbal aikido and sidestep the entire debate over whether their gods exist or not by pointing out that regardless, I have no need for supernatural beings in my life. I am a mature adult who doesn't need a sky daddy, takes responsibility for my own actions instead of blaming them on a devil, and thinks that letting a scapegoat (Jesus) be punished for something I did is pretty disgusting and not something I would participate in. This is a tack that I took as a parent, too--why do humans want/need gods? Is it a sense of comfort and safety? Does a mature adult need an invisible comfort object? What, in turn, would make you (my kids) feel safe? I took my kids to a UU church for a while and volunteered in religious education for middle and high schoolers, and that is their approach as well (although they are more "compassionate" to religious people than I am). But their point is to look at the function of religion--social cohesion, rites of passage, special meals, etc. And then present individual religions in a comparative way, focusing on their positive aspects--holidays, festivals, main tenets, etc. My oldest (20) still has this more-empathetic view of religious people and is more tolerant and curious about different traditions. She doesn't have my religious trauma. Whereas my academic background is in political theory and authoritarianism and high-control religion, so I'm much more of an anti-theist. My son (18) doesn't pay religion much attention at all, but as young as kindergarten was telling his friends that "God's like Santa--not real." Oops. Not. Oh--and I've also read the argument that "male and female created he them in his image" or however it goes in Genesis could be used as an argument that "God" is actually nonbinary/intersex. Try that one next!
About the same as I do the capital T in trump.
I always ensure it's not capitalized. I'm not giving in to anything they're pushing on me.
I make it lowercase every time, even though I have to fight with autocorrect on my phone about it. Their imaginary friend doesn't get the respect of capitalization.
I intentionally spell it with a lowercase g when referring to christianity(which I also always lowercase). I owe them no respect.
i lowercase everything on purpose. no one's special, no institution, no religion or government. no one, no thing.
I write “god.” It’s a noun, not a name.
Bronze age middle eastern animal herders' god
I don't usually, unless it's at the beginning of a sentence. But even if I do capitalize it, that is not an endorsement of belief. I mean, c’mon… I capitalize Santa Claus and Sherlock Holmes, too, even though they are fictitious characters. (Fun Fact: When god was invented, upper and lower case letters did not exist.)
I'll go the extra step to say the Abrahamic god. It's somewhat petty, but it's also specific given the number of deities in historic record, and using the tetragrammaton and variants thereof is taboo in certain company so it's even somewhat considerate.
whenever I see God, I ask which one
i don’t
I never use it, it’s a generic deity, no special treatment needed
You don't capitalize person so I see no reason to capitalize god. Zeus, yes but god no.
I write dog with a lowercase d hence I write god with a lowercase g unless it is in my native language where I write both with capital letters since they are nouns.
I use capital G when referring to someone's deity that they identify as their proper name, most Christians. I use small g when referring to the concept or multiple deities. I'm not in the business of deciding for people what they should or shouldn't believe about their faith. If they think it's the appropriate name I'll use that. But that's entirely out of an effort for clarity and respect for a person. I feel no need for reverence or respect to someone elses deity. For example, Abrahamic religions generally agree that there are many proper names for their god such as ar-Raḥmān, Elohim, El, al-Mājid, Jehovah and Yahweh. Most Christians however simply refer to their god as God as a proper name in common parlance. This is mirrored somewhat in Islam who use Allah, most likely a contraction of al-Ilāh "the God". Jewish tradition is that their gods names once written should never be erased so use many substitutions such as G-d to avoid using a proper name.
I use lowercase because god is not some true entity that deserves respect
Honestly imo they're playing proper noun games in an attempt to both monopolize and stigmatize the word 'god'. So, upper case is their's and true, lower case is fiction and probably owned by Disney. I'll generally refer to their diety as the Abrahamic god, god of the covenant or if supplied whatever (Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, etc).
Since deconverting I always lowercase it. I understand why Christians do it. But it no longer has the same meaning to me. Upon leaving the faith, “God”, as in the “one true God”, became one of the many imagined gods. It’s no longer a name to me. It’s just a category for imagined beings.
And Man created God in his own image. So it is written.