Editor's Desk - Spring 2000 -- Volume 38 No. 2

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Editor’s Desk
by Frank R. Zindler

Capital Ideas

proper 10. Gram. a) designating a noun that names a specific individual, place, etc., that is not normally used with an article, and that is normally capitalized [“Donald,” “Rover,” and “Boston” are proper nouns, sometimes called proper names] (opposed to COMMON) b) designating an adjective formed from a proper noun, as Bostonian.

The following are ordinarily capitalized: 5. Nouns referring to the deity and to the Bible and other sacred books. God, the Koran, the Holy Bible, Christ, the Incarnate Word 10. Proper nouns and some adjectives formed from proper nouns. William Shakespeare, Shakespearean, Catholicism, Protestant

-Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English,
Third College Edition

Since the founding of American Atheist Press back in the 1960s, it has been the policy of its editors and writers to capitalize the words Atheism and Atheist, and often Atheistic as well. This has been in violation of the usage prescribed by every English language dictionary published in the last hundred years. But dictionaries, of course, have all been written by believers in the supernatural - some of them, such as Noah Webster himself, being quite rabid in their belief.

The reason for not capitalizing words relating to Atheism has always been painfully clear: religious animus and bigotry. To be sure, lame attempts at grammatical justification have sometimes been offered. The most frequent rationalization for not capitalizing Atheism or Atheist is that they are not “proper nouns or adjectives.” Now, while it may require rather labored argument to show that these words are “proper,” it is quite clear that the rule mandating capitalization of all religion-related words often falls farther short of the mark for “propriety.”

Probably no one would dispute the claim that Lutheran is a proper adjective or noun (despite its being used with an article); Buddhism and Buddhist also come close to being proper - despite the fact that the word ‘Buddha’ from which they derive is not a personal name of the Donald, Rover, or Boston type. (It is a Sanskrit title meaning ‘the enlightened one’, referring to the legendary Siddhartha Gautama.) But how on earth does one come to the conclusion that words such as Methodism or Protestant are more “proper” than Atheism or Agnostic? It is quite clear again that capitalization of Protestantism and Protestant (both as noun and adjective) is not done in obedience to arcane but important grammatical principles: it is simply a graphic aggrandizement of religion. At the same time, the lack of reciprocity for words like Atheist or Agnostic results from a desire to suppress those philosophies - a desire to keep them in a second-class condition. It is all a matter of exercising power.

There was a period in the history of American Atheist Press when, in retaliation for the above-described orthographic bigotry, a type-setter refused to capitalize all religion-related words! Not only was God not capitalized (more on this below), but words such as Baptist, Christian, and Catholic were not capitalized. Now, while it is easy to show that none of these words is a proper noun or adjective, the policy of not capitalizing those words had undesirable effects. It made us seem at best petty, at worst, crude. A new type-setter was engaged and those words have been capitalized ever after.

Our policy with regard to capitalization of the word God, however, has been more complicated and perhaps less consistent - even though our grammatical and semantic philosophy has been quite constant throughout the history of our publishing house: we avoid using the word spelled with a capital G wherever possible.

We avoid capitalizing god not out of spite (when quoting theistic sources, we always follow their capitalization), but to elude the philosophical pitfalls hidden in the capitalized word. Simply to write on “the existence of God” is to beg the question of the singularity of the alleged deity. We prefer to write about “the existence of a god,” “the existence of the Jewish god,” or “the existence of gods.” Such usage makes readers consider specific deities - Zeus, Yahweh, Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl - rather than some incoherent, indefinable “God.” The more a god can be defined (i.e., the more it becomes an entity warranting a proper name), the easier it is to demonstrate its nonexistence. Giving the gods proper names makes it easier to place them in their proper mythological context.

Instead of saying “I don’t believe in God,” it is better to say “I don’t believe in any of the gods.” This has the beneficial effect of making theistic readers realize that the “God” in whom they believe is but one of myriads that have been named, trusted, prayed to, and discarded to the dustbins of history. The discomfort experienced when such readers realize that they only disbelieve in one less deity than would an Atheist can sometimes lead to enlightenment. Consciousness of the relativity of divinity becomes a detergent to wash away the awful absolutism that so often adheres to religious beliefs. Choosing god over God is not a trivial practice. It can have wonderful - even if not divine - consequences.