While I am not personally an atheist, this was the only religion-centered community I could find to post this article, and surely we polytheists and atheists can find a united purpose in condemning monotheistic bias.
While I am not personally an atheist, this was the only religion-centered community I could find to post this article, and surely we polytheists and atheists can find a united purpose in condemning monotheistic bias.
I only capitalize god when referring specially to the Christian god, because it’s basically also his name. Same with “The Lord.” It’s capitalized because it’s being used as a proper noun to refer to a singular entity.
Just because the character is fictional doesn’t mean you stop using their names and titles like a proper noun when referring to the character.
Biblically speaking, the true name of the lord is unknown to humans. “God” is just a nickname. And as My article argues, we shouldn’t use that nickname, we should find a more neutral and polite nickname to use.
I can’t really think of a more neutral nickname for a god than ‘God.’ What would you suggest?
As for politeness, I would think the polite thing to do would be to call the god by the name that the believers call it. Whether or not you wish to be polite about that is another matter.
More to the point though, the purpose of language is to be understood. If you use some word when speaking English that Christians and Jews generally use when speaking English, you’ll be more easily understood. People misuse words like “theory” and “organic” all the time, but most people understand what they’re talking about anyway. Which is important.
Isn’t it Yaweh?
Yahweh is just an old Hebrew word for “god”, but it’s a lot better than saying “God” in English, because it’s specific. It places the word within an appropriate cultural context and doesn’t carry the same subtext in English. Nobody today believes in another Yahweh, so it isn’t stepping on anyone’s toes. It’s a much better nickname.