So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there’s a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules sounds stupid, so at least most religions must be fake.

  • Hucklebee@lemmy.world
    1·
    5 months ago

    On the internet? In general I take someone that spells “God” with a capital to be a theist (usually only 2 of 3 monotheistic believes, because Muslims usually use “Allah” probably). Or perhaps raised as a theist, lost their faith, but not bitter against their old faith. while if someone uses “god” they are probably not a theist.

    Makes sense to me too: I as a theist would refer to “Thor” as a “god” because to me it is not an entity that exists. It would only make sense for someone that is an atheist to not use a capital to refer to my “God”: They don’t believe it to be a real entity after all.

    E: although, I guess fictional characters do use capitals, so maybe I’m wrong.

    • Saik0AEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      It has nothing to do with belief(although I’m sure some militant atheists chose to use lowercase universally, they’re likely just grammatically ignorant) . It’s noun vs descriptor. Abrahamic God (and Muslim doesn’t matter either… it’s the same entity in all three) is literally it’s name. A proper noun. In your example of Thor, god is just a description, not his proper name. But Thor is not a good example as he’s actually a demigod, but demigod is never capitalized as there is no god called “Demigod”. Odin is the god of war and the dead… and ruler of valhalla as a more accurate entity to discuss.

      God is a god. My god is God. Both of these previous sentences are grammatically correct. The Bible itself even makes these distinctions. Example:

      John 10:33-36 (KJV):

      33The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

      Other sources agree.

      https://www.learnreligions.com/god-or-god-to-capitalize-or-not-to-capitalize-249823

      Other examples of the phenomenon… “The other day, Mom cooked with the other moms.” You call your mom “Mom” as a proper noun. Where mom is a general descriptor for the other women your mom was cooking with. “Is she your mom” vs “Mom is calling for you”.