Within the English-speaking world, the most popular religion — by far — is Christianity. Within the English-speaking blogging world, the most popular religion is also Christianity — also by a significant amount. Therefore in critiques of religion or discussions between atheists and religious people, the most common setup is a Christian viewpoint against an atheist viewpoint.
All of this is uncontroversial and mundane. But one thing here that puzzles me is the ease with which debates then seem to settle on discussions of capital-g-singular “God”. In many cases there is an implicit agreement between all parties to use this term — and yet its use certainly privileges the Christian position unnecessarily.
Capital-g-singular God implies a specific deity amongst the pantheon of deities. Taken by itself within the average English-speaking online discussion, it sneaks in the baggage of omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence and so forth — all without good justification and quite often without any objection from the person defending a godless position.
The small-g-singular “a god” on the other hand takes away the standard superlative attributes but still privileges a monotheistic position. The small-g-plural “gods” doesn’t suffer from any of these problems. It is the most general, encompassing all religions with one or more deities and assumes the least. I think that if someone asks me to talk about a term without prompting me it is the one it makes most sense to use, at least when arguing about something like the possibility of “higher” intelligence, generic design arguments, generic first cause arguments, generic arguments from morality and the like.
“God” is appropriate for specifically Christian conceptions of a deity. However, the interesting thing about most contemporary arguments by apologists is that they are not about YHWH (ie. the Christian god, a.k.a. “God”) but at best a more amorphous, faceless, generic “god”. And at worst, the argument is just as successful for the little-g-plural gods.
I think people should be more aware of this and question whether the capital-g use is justified a bit more so the label is not slipped in through the back door. To take just one very blatant example, the atheism entry on the previously mentioned Consevapedia states that atheism is the “denial of the existence of God”. Too bad they take this ridiculous definition from the generally respected Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [see here], one of the best online resources. So this unnecessary deference pervades academic and secular circles and not just those of religious apologists.
Another thing to consider is that there is probably a case of linguistic deference in the capitalisation of God — a god or gods can seem to be deliberately “disrepectful” of the dominant mainstream monotheistic discourse. Of course this isn’t true — a generic god needs capitalisation no more than a diabolical deity, a splendid spirit or a terrible totem. But it does highlight once more how ingrained is the said dominant mainstream monotheistic discourse, such that the mere act of not presuming it is easily read as rudeness or even discrimination(!).
I think this means the use of the generic god is needed more not less. So I humbly welcome All Godless to take this up as their main word for all things godlike. Especially since a great number of religious arguments reference the most generic of gods.
14 comments ↓
I always use god rather than God for exactly that reason. It’s a noun, not a pronoun. It’s interesting to see how upset some people (read Christians) get about that.
My one-penny comments:
1) In other words, you observe that the majority of Christians (and not only) are self-righteous and not willing to put their subject of veneration to discussion. This is, by definition, what religion forces one to do: not discuss when it comes to dogmatic issues.
2) How about the pronoun used in place of god? Genesis says: “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” This implies that God is male. This has been accepted implicitly and explicitly by the majority of monotheistic religion adherents. When I ask them why they say he they reply one of the following:
- That’s what the Bible says.
- It’s a convenient assumption.
- It doesn’t matter.
- Because man was made as a replica of God.
- Because you don’t understand and you can’t because you are not religious.
- Otherwise it would be a blasphemy.
Nobody, of course, considers the most obvious explanation: that abrahamic religions were created in a male-dominated society.
3) Indeed, I have also managed to offend people when I use expressions such as god/gods or deities. It appears that what people want is to a priori know what their religious stance is and consider altering your language accordingly when you speak to them. The opposite is considered an offense. Take this from a scientific point of view and see how absurd it is: it’s like saying that in a debate with a scientist you must, prior to the conversation, adopt a language that is compatible with the knowledge/results/work of the discussant. Weird.
Alan, if you just say “why would god do this” without using “a god” it does seem that you are dropping the capitalisation deliberately since it’s not grammatical (just like “why would fairy do this”). If you do use the “a” though then yep, it’s just highlighting how deeply entrenched are the assumptions of those who insist that you capitalise.
Takis, I don’t think Alan was talking about a majority — in fact I think if you used the generic god and worded it carefully not too many people would have a problem with it, just the ones that are most dogmatic.
As for the he/she thing, that’s what the gender-neutral Bible translation is for
Ironically it was very hard to find a link because most search results are evangelicals ranting against the gender neutral translation which supports the “blasphemy” explanation. The TNIV apparently used gender-neutral language for people but not YHWH so I don’t think anyone’s touched that with a 10 foot pole.
This brings to mind another way to refer to gods which is by their individual name — when blogging about the Bible here, I now use YHWH, and the great thing about that is that a very extreme person might get offended but then they are essentially blaspheming by getting offended at the use of the Name Of God!
What about replacing God, a god or gods with “a supernatural entity”?
This emphasises the fact that there is no proof or evidence for their chosen invisible friend while being accurate enough that they can’t possibly take offence.
Then if you are choosing to argue against any specific parts of dogma you can accurately qualify it (why would an omnipotent supernatural entity do…) without invoking omniscience, omnibenevolence or omnipresence. It also leaves the discussion open to all theistic religions but is slightly long-winded.
It also allows you to use the same arguments about ghosts, fairies and Santa.
keddaw:
Sure, supernatural entity is a rational choice but, boy, aren’t you looking for flame when talking to religious folk? Can you imagine starting a conversation with a, Muslim, say, and refer to Allah as supernatural entity? “Entity” is a very neutral thing whereas Allah is, in the mind of Muslims, a [G]od and a male one too (even though the most sophisticated ones will have a convoluted pseudo-argument about the neutrality of God’s gender).
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it. I often feel very cynical and, depending on the mood, I might use it too.
Well, arguing implicitly accepting omnipresence, omnipotence and so on makes the argument easier for the atheist since it is easier to argue against a stronger position. Most atheists would consider it impossible to prove that there are no gods, but think it is possible to prove the non-existence of the Christian god.
The problem is that a huge proportion of the arguments have nothing to do with omnipresence, omnipotence etc. Plus of course you don’t really need to disprove any particular gods (let alone all gods) to show that a particular theistic argument doesn’t work, so I don’t think it’s a problem to argue without accepting YHWH implicitly. Or at least the consciousness-raising aspect of saying YHWH or “a god” instead of God outweighs any points you might have to make for a particular argument.
[...] Fridman makes a very good point about language. Why do we godless still refer to “God”, as if there’s just one and it’s a [...]
If you look at Renaissance poetry (to go on a slight tangent), often the word “nature” is capitalised, which usually indicates personification. Nature in that sense is both invoking nature generally (which we don’t capitalise) but also as a specific person (which we do capitalise). Is not capitalising “God” a similar issue? If you do not capitalise you are talking about divinity generally, but if you do, often it means you are talking about God not generally, but as a specific “person” (to use a problematic word).
The fact of the matter is that to use “God” in that specific sense requires capitalisation to get that point across. I suppose you could argue that when you write “god” you mean a generalised fiction, but if you are using it to mean that particular God (which I’m sure you will find most Christians, Jews etc do), I fail to see how that can be construed as incorrect. Nor that an aetheist website is wrong to describe such views using capitalisation.
In a free society people should be free to write whatever they like, and I suspect that also means to capitalise as they like, particularly on a charged subject like this. Crazy Christians aside, to deny this subject is important I this is incredibly naive, and I would also say, “disrespectful”, however much you denigrate the term. Just because divinity means little to you, does not mean it is not incredibly important to another, and I personally expect the same respect which I hold towards you and your beliefs.
For me personally, I like to capitalise “Gods”, and I do this consciously. As a fallible human I can’t say that any belief is entirely true, but I suspect that every time we use the word God or Gods through history we have been gesturing to a very particular source, even if we don’t know what it is. And it is with that particularity in mind that I capitalise God and Gods. I have no problem that you don’t capitalise, but do not tell me it is worthless to do so.
Christine: What does “fallible human” mean? Fallible with respect to what?
Also, nobody denigrates religious folk. They are, alas, victims of a society that has imposed upon them a system they cannot escape from. Also, perhaps, they need religion, just as a drug addict needs drugs. However, one needs to point out that what they are doing is totally irrational.
Finally, the problem is the word “belief”, which you mention. it is precisely this that needs to be criticized. Belief in the absence of any proof is stupid. Sure, people need to believe (it’s a sickness) but talking to them about the silliness of belief in absurdities, does not constitute denigrating them; likewise, talking to a sick person about the origin of their illness is not considered disrespectful.
Christine, I believe around the Renaissance it was much more common to capitalise in general — sometimes every prominent noun in fact.
Also I cannot believe you took my post to be saying that either (1) people should not have the right to use whatever capitalisation they like or (2) that it’s worthless to do so or (3) that the subject is unimportant. To repeat the point, I was saying that to capitalise already gives the particular monotheistic religion being discussed a certain level of validity, so someone who does not grant this validity should be aware of it.
But the real question is:
Should we capitalise the “P” in the great Pink Unicorn?
Perhaps this capitalization trend is what can be seen in modern German language where every noun is capitalized.
Keddaw (I cappitalized your handle): I don’t know about pink unicorn, but, definitely, Spaghetti Flying Monster should be capitalized. After all, unlike the Pink Unicorn, the latter is a real deity.
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