Job Discussion Forums

[Jizzo T. Clown]

A student asked me this yesterday, and I told him that God is a name, and all names are capitalized. But then, "God" is also an idea, and the word itself isn't always capitalized...

I hope I didn't steer him too wrong!


Any ideas on what to tell him should it come up again?

[furiousmilksheikali]

"God" is a proper name if you are referring to a single entity, as is "The Universe" and "The Internet". But if you are referring to a particular type of entity then you would say "god" as in "the Japanese gods". This also applies to when people are talking of "other universes". Whether there is only one universe (The Universe) or one god (God) is a matter of belief.

Actually, I'm not sure if the definite article "The" in "The Universe" should be capitalized.

More controversial is the capitalization of "He" when referring to "God". Although it is customary to do so many people won't for ideological reasons.

[Deicide]

I have done away with capitalising god. It lends credence to the belief in the fairy tale of its/his/her existence...but technically Furious is right and it's a shame he is right...I hope this changes at some time in the future....

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Deicide]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[rusmeister]

[MikeySaid]

It is also done in Spanish.

And they're more anal about what is capitalized and not. Days of the week and months aren't capitalized, but when using the word as a name, "God" is capitalized.

I'd like to see an example where it's not the case in a language using the Roman or Cyrillic alphabet.

[JZer]

[dmb]

looking at the last few posts
dmb
rusmeister
furious

Deicide
Jizzo
Mikey

Some were born great, some werent.
Personally, I use lower case because I was too lazy to press the shift key at the same time.

[denise]

[Sweetsee]

This is a question that I have been toying with for a long time and somewhat related to this thread. In my Christian upbringing, I have understood that it is blasphemous to use the word (God). Anyone know anything about that? Though I suspect this may not be the best place to ask.

[gaijinalways]

I think it is more the way the word is used that was part of your upbringing. I distinctly remember being told to not use the Lord's name dispargingly (take the Lord's name in vain). This, running around saying Jesus (unless you're in a Spanish culture where it is a common name) is not considered a good thing (unless of course you believe 'The Last Templar' and 'The Da Vinci Code' premises that Jesus was only a man). So of course I am always saying 'Gee whiz'.

[Aramas]

The capitalisation of 'God' is a result of the translation of the Hebrew 'Elohim' (the generic name of god) and 'Yahweh' (the personal name of god). The old testament is a disjointed mish-mash by many authors who use different conventions. The two primary contributors are the Elohist and the Yahwist. The Elohist refers to his god as 'Elohim', which is translated as 'God'. The Yahwist refers to his god as 'Yahweh' ('I am what I am'), which is translated as 'Lord God'. So 'God' is just a crappy translation of a god's name, and hence it's a proper noun.

All near-eastern mythology was written with a lot of clever humour, puns and plays on words. It was mainstream entertainment, and was enormously popular with the common folk. It was the South Park and Black Adder of its era. The Egyptian stuff is a riot (read the Seth and Horus story - I particularly like the part where Horus ejaculates on Seth's lettuces ) However, the Romans were a humourless bunch and they wrote it all out, leaving us with the turgid, dogmatic, self-flagellatory mess that has become so beloved of puritanical zealots the world over

[Deicide]