Forums → WEPR → Why wouldn't you capitalize "God"?

Considering that the words "God" or "Lord" are used by Jews instead of the proper name

those are not proper names, just as "Mister" is not a name even though it is capitalised.

Are those not his proper names? They're just a couple of his many names.

But we can agree on one point: whether title or name, it should be capitalized if the Abrahamic god is meant specifically, if only out of respect for the religion of others.

Well put, and I agree that everyone should adopt this (or a similar) maxim. Of course, this is a non-grammatical reason to explain a grammatical practice. The same can be said for those who don't want to capitalise 'god' because they are an atheist. One religious beliefs have no bearing on grammaticality.

Well, sort of. I've seen the word 'G-d' in some Jewish texts. This wouldn't be grammatical when written by a non-Jew, it would seem. There is also the standard practice of capitalising 'him'. For example: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son...
So these are two instances of one's faith helping to determine capitalisation.

But the distinction the OP is looking for is pretty cool, too. As already mentioned, 'god' can be treated as a proper name. I don't believe in Zeus either, but I capitalise his name. Same goes for God.

But you'll notice in that previous paragraph (and in earlier cases) I would write 'god' instead of God. The reason for this rests in what's called a use-mention distinction. If I say 'God is vengeful' then I'm using God's name. But if I say 'god' is a three letter word, I'm simply mentioning the name. In other words, I'm referring to the word instead of the deity.

To be clear, this use-mention distinction isn't one I've seen recognised as a grammatical one. It's just a practice I got into when writing on the distinction a while back, and now anything else looks weird to me.

To be clear, this use-mention distinction isn't one I've seen recognised as a grammatical one. It's just a practice I got into when writing on the distinction a while back, and now anything else looks weird to me.

Even if use-mention distinction would not be a recognized grammatical one, 'god' in the non-capitalized form is a synonym of 'deity', so its use is certainly grammatically correct?

Yeah, that seems right to me! I was just trying to draw a distinction in a different, cross-cutting sort of way. I'm not sure it works, though.

So I think my example was: god is a three letter word. This would be mentioning the word, rather than using it. But if I said: fred is a four letter word - well, that just doesn't seem right. Maybe it's just because Fred is always capitalised, and god has exceptions. I dunno.

are we all but grammer nazis?

Lets take this a different direction...why wouldn't you capitalize god as in capitalize to make a profit, money or have an advantage using god? That is the other definitions of "capitalize".

I know what the OP is about but how about it. Who else thinks god or God is simply a means to capitalize things in society. Kings claim they are given birth rights by gods or God, people claim they are the chosen of a god or gods? We could in essence make a discussion on capitalizing god

Simply put thats how I see religion, people promising or threatening each other by making telling them that their souls, some part that is suppose to be everlasting going to a place where they would feel pain or pleasure which are constructed by physical and emotional stimulus which I believe are linked to the physical body for the most part. I do not believe in immortality which is the basis of my beliefs that nothing lasts forever and that is the key reasons I wouldn't capitalize god.

Anyways not to force you into any reason why you asked this question but lets take another point of view, some languages do not have the same alphabet as ours and thus do not have the idea of capitalization. Most of the older texts that are what our society has has come from another language. The Bible text itself was a closely guarded secret only to be translated by the clerics that knew the languages and that only the church taught that language, they also held most of the other texts that were older and written in different languages. So for a looong time the common man did not know what was in the Bible. Anyways if you look here most of the writings are dated and compared to what real texts we have, most are decades or centuries after the estimation. I would think that knowing that we do not have original writings might make you think...who is telling the real things in this book you worship and who really wrote it...its been passed from person to person, language to language many times...what if someone simply change it to be capitalized?

So I'm trying to get a handle on the use-mention distinction and I could use some clarifcation. Here are some examples:

I am a god. My name is God. Jerry's god of pineapples is named Fred. Jerry is the Pineapple God.
My dog Milo is the one true dog god? or Dog God?

Because god is a disambiguous name, the Judeo-Christian god is actually called (if you believe in him of course) Yahweh.