Why do atheists always write God as g-d?

Question

What, do they think it's a bad word?

Oh. Sorry. I guess I confused the atheists with the Jews. No offense to the Jews!!! Honestly!!!! I have seen a couple atheists (clearly stated) do this though, and they do not capitalize it.

Answer 1

Itis not atheist writing God in that way,
mostly Jews write God in that fashion. In the old testament the name of God was so Holy to the Jews that they left out the vowels when they wrote it in the hebrew. That way no one could speak the name of God. . That's why some people pronounce the name of God Jehovah and some pronounce it JHWH(pronounced Yaweh). I've also heard it pronounced JA. Since the vowels were left out, nobody knows the real pronounciation. The Jews when they write the name God in english they leave out the vowel 'O' and it is written G-d.

Answer 2

It is amazing that after so many enlightened people explained the real reason behind the omission some people still felt the need to bash atheists. Believing the worst about someone you don't like when their is obvious proof to the contrary is abominable. Also Xmas goes back to the 16th century, X being the first letter of Christ in the Greek Alphabet.

Being atheist doesn't automatically mean being anti-Christian, very few atheist, including me, have any interest in demeaning your God (capitalized mostly because good grammer requires it as a proper noun such as Allah or Vishnu). Atheist aren't closeted Christians who feel any need to disparage Christianity and its Lord out of fear of hell fire. Quite frankly if that were the case, we wouldn't be atheist.

Everybody just try to be a bit more open-minded and less frightened. Whatever you accuse your neighbor of doing, you should probably take a look in the mirror.

Answer 3

There are plenty of reasons different groups write the word god without the capital letter.
Some, who believe in a god write it without in an odd show of respect (i would think i would capitalize the name if I was trying to show respect), some write it that way because to them it is not a proper noun, as we all know is capitalized, but just a plain noun, and honestly the word is both, but when an atheist speaks of "god" the really are speaking in the plain old noun term, because remember, atheists do not believe in any god.

Answer 4

I have never seen an athiest do that but ALLOT of Jewish people do, because we are not supposed to say the name of the lord in vain. Vain isn't always about cussing, it can mean you are saying it without sufficient reason. For example when someone sneezes and you say God bless you. Did you really mean to talk about God , or were you just using a figgure of speech? If you were just using a figgure of speech some people including allot of Jews think you just broke a commandment. Writing G-d helps you to not make that mistake in your writing.
While there may be something to that I believe that always replacing the o with a - means you may not be using his name enough which is also bad.

Answer 5

Nope. Not honestly. No atheists do that. You saw Jews do that from respect and assumed it must be atheists. When are you silly Christians going to learn that the world isn't what you wish it to be just by trying? Sometimes you are wrong. This is one of those times.

Answer 6

Normally it's not athiests, but observant Jews or respectful Christians that do that. The reason stems from the 2nd Commandment: Exodus 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain."
And
Deuteronomy 5:11 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.'
Because they don't want to misuse His name, they defer to the G-d thing, thus getting the message across without actually using His name.
Personally, I think that G-d actually is still using the Name, just with a generally accepted substitution.

Answer 7

They don't always do it, but I'm guessing they wish to point out their lack of faith/respect even in just writing the term.

This website (http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=166899) suggests that it could be to avoid the auto-correct capitalization option on Microsoft Word. Again to avoid the respect for the term most people give God.

Answer 8

I've never seen an atheist write 'g-d'.

I've seen a lot of Jews, and some Christians, write it as 'G-d', however.

In their case, it's out of respect for the name of their lord.

Answer 9

I write it both ways but I think it is because I forget to capitalize it. I don't think that I am atheist I believe in something greater than myself I just do not know who God is. I thought I did at one point in time and now I just don't know what to believe in. It is horrible feeling for me to feel that my existence is just a coincidence.

Answer 10

Um, that's a Jewish thing, not an atheist's thing. I use that when I speak from a Jewish standpoint though as a show of respect for the faith I am speaking from.

You'll almost never find anyone but a practicing Jew doing it.