Capitalization and Religion

[warpus]

Does this issue really warrant a thread?

 

[MrCynical]

I must admit I'm not all that consistent on capitalizing religious terms, but I've got a few basic guidelines.

"Jesus" - Always capitalized. Whether he existesd or not, and whatever he was or did, he is presented as a person, and hence his name warrants a capital letter, as the name of any person would in any text, fictional or non-fictional.

"God" - Much more complex, and whether I capitalise this varies depending on context. In general I will always capitalise the word if I am referring to a specific being (e.g. the christian God) for the same reasons as I gave above for Jesus. In more hypothetical debates of divine beings in general I tend not to capitalise it, particuarly if the being under discussion fails the basic qualities I feel necessary for a god. I also never capitalise the plural "gods", partly for the reason above, but also as a leftover of Christianity.

"Christian" - Again, as with all references to groups of religious people I capitalise this most of the time. I'm not entirely sure why though. The name of an organisation (e.g. "Christianity") should be capitalised, but under conventional grammar the generic term for its members isn't usually. Nationalities are an exception to that. I capitalise this out of habit, but I can see basic grammatical arguments for not doing this. While some may avoid capitalising this in a deliberate attempt to offend, I don't see this as inherently offensive.

"Bible" - Whatever your religious opinions, it's a book title. It should have a capital letter like all other book titles.

So there you go. "Jesus" and "Bible" should always be capitalised, as should "God" in specific refence to the Christian deity. These are basic grammatical conventions, and not capitalising them is a deliberate attempt to offend. In more generic terms though "god" should not be capitalised. "Christian" I have mixed views on. It is ambiguous whether it should be capitalised under grammatical rules, so not doing so may not be a deliberate attempt to offend, or indeed inappropriate.

 

[Mon Mauler]

The word bible is not a book's title. There are a varity of different opinions regarding what gospels and other writings belong in the biblical canon. Virtually every religious sect has it's own opinion regarding which writings to include in their codified scripture, and christianity is no different. The first man to codify a biblical canon, was eventually labeled by the Roman Catholic Church as the greatest enemy they had ever faced.

In the end, bible is not the title of a book or name of a book. If you want to read a bible, though, you could always go out and pick up "The Holy Bible: King James Version".

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I am not trying to correct anyone's grammar. That is not the point of this thread. I just wanted to find out why, so often, words that would normally be capitalized - and always are, as far as I have seen them, outside this thread - so often aren't. For instance, not once, outside an internet forum, have I seen the word "christian" uncapitalized. It always seemed to be the sort of word that would be.

 

[Masquerouge]

I will capitalize names like Jesus or Abraham.

I will also capitalize Christians or Muslims.

My current position right now on the word god is that I will capitalize it when it specifically refer to the Christian god, but I won't if I'm using the generic term referring to a deity. This is very hard to do as I'm so used to capitalizing it all the time. . This means that if we're discussing Genesis, I will write God, but if we're discussing atheism, I will write god. And usually, "a god".
I usually capitalize Bible. Out of sheer habit, I guess.

What I try to avoid is using religious terms like jeez or darn or heck or OMG. This is something I never do in French, but since I learned English in Texas, they spontaneously burst out of my, errr, fingers I guess.

 

[nihilistic]

I am not trying to correct anyone's grammar. That is not the point of this thread. I just wanted to find out why, so often, words that would normally be capitalized - and always are, as far as I have seen them, outside this thread - so often aren't. For instance, not once, outside an internet forum, have I seen the word "christian" uncapitalized. It always seemed to be the sort of word that would be.

Keep in mind that this is an internet forum and no one is writing their for final draft for a publication or anything. People are (read as: I am) lazy. I usually only remember to capitalize the beginning of sentences and the word 'I'.

Now on the specific case of religious terms, there is a myraid of reasons nonreligious people tend to not capitalize them:
1. We don't really see capitalizing as all that important, so laziness sets in.
2. We may be refering to the general concepts. This is almost always the case when we do it consciously. You may want to discuss your specific version of your specific deity, but we don't see much difference between your deity and others and most likely the statements we make will apply to your deity just as well as it would apply to others. Furthermore, if we started capitalizing it and bringing up arguments about your specific god by name, there will immediately be two groups of loonies accusing us of being, respectively, "satanists because we oppose 'God' " and/or "hypocrites for attacking christianity but not islam (or religion1 instead of religion2)". Both groups would then go on to correlate us to terrorists.
3. We don't hold the same reverence towards those supposed entites as you probably do. They are not special to us. Believe me, we are just as dismissive towards islamic icons.

 

[Sidhe]

I capatalise when I remember too, but frankly I don't capatalise most other stuff either half the time, it's nothing personal. Most people don't capitalise ordinal directions either like West and East(They are evil I tells yaaaaa!!! ) I don't get bent out of shape by it, and I'm sure most people aren't poking fun every time they do it, I guess you'll just have to get used to the fact that not everyone is as devout as you.

 

[MobBoss]

Drat...I thought this thread was more about money and religion..i.e capitalism.....not punctuation!

Oh well. As for the topic: Rather odd, I always try to type correctly and use caps where appropriate. I do remember where some of our atheist posters accused me of spelling atheist as "athiest" on purpose when I was simply following the old "I before E" rule.

I still make that error sometime if I am typing too fast to catch it. Oh well. I guess if one is going to downplay the importance of religion, I would assume their are more effective ways than just not capitalizing certain words.

 

[EdCase]

The only one I can think of that I tend not to capitalise is god.
This due to the fact that I regard it/he/she/they as a concept rather than a specific entity.

 

[GenMarshall]

Heck I capitalize the use of God, Christian, or any other word that should be capitalized. I capitalize God and Bible, whether you like it or not. The Bible especialy is suppost to be capitalized because its quite ovious that it is the title of the book itself (Though some Christians call it the Holy Bible). Much like how other literature works fiction and non-fiction are always capitalized.

 

[skadistic]

The bible is a type of book. If it were the title all bibles would be the same word for word but they aren't. Hell some bibles have more or less chapters then other bibles. If I can say "What bible do you use?" its not a book title but a type of book. You don't put 'dictionary' in caps but you do put 'Webster's' in caps. So 'King James Bible' gets caps.

 

[shadow2k]

If you had said, "Even if you think He doesn't exist", then I'd probably make sure to toss in a "christianity" somewhere in my post.

Other than that, I don't really pay much attention to it. You can probably look through my various religious posts, and find instances of both.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I cap Bible, because it's indeed the name of the book. I dont think god is a name, and so I don't capitalize it. I never knew christians should be capped, but I don't see the reason why, so I still won't. Just like wouldn't cap muslims or atheists.

Capitalisation of words like: God, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the Truth, irritate me. It just seems overdone to me. But I never asked anyone to stop doing it out of respect for them and their religion. I would like to recieve the same amount of respect when I don't cap them. In this case (to me) there is no universal right or wrong way to it.

whether you like it or not.

And right you are, it's up to you. I feel the same way