Do atheists get offended if someone doesn't capitalize the A?

Question

Also, if you do want it capitalized, which of these is worse:

Athiest or atheist

Answer 1

It really shouldn't be capitalized. It isn't a proper noun or a name. If it were, it would be a "group" which atheists actually deny being. I also read a lot of philosophy of religion and I have never seen atheism or atheist capitalized in academic publications.

Answer 2

I never capitalize it myself, it's not a proper name like Christian or God or Zeus. I don't really care though.

Religious people always seem to think we are this homogeneous organized movement, and other than simply not accepting a deity on faith only, we have as much in common as any random strangers. I agree with the above answer that I am not characterized by lack of belief in something, we don't have a special word for people that don't believe in Leprechauns

.


And it's "i" before "e" except after "ath"

Answer 3

I don't capitalize it. I don't think it should grammatically be capitalized. So no, not at all offended. Unless they draw attention to the fact that they did it to piss us off. But then it's hardly about the capitalization.

Answer 4

While most Atheists are easily agitated about most things there are tons of us out here who quietly go about our lives allowing most to believe whatever you want. Grammatically it is correct to capitalize belief systems (or lack thereof) but, in this day of l33t speak and quick texting the rules are kinda going out the window. My advice is to do it however is easiest to you and have a witty comeback handy.

Answer 5

I don't get offended. It isn't conventional to capitalize the word anyway. It's just a metaphysical stance, not a belief system, and not even a clear metaphysical stance if you just use the one word. There's strong atheism and weak atheism, both of which are, philosophically, worlds apart in my view.

Answer 6

The atheist are not God. The name God should be capitalized as G not letter g.

However maybe it could be capitalied if is a noun, a name of person or place.
jtm

Answer 7

I don't care one way or the other. It's just a word.

I'm more upset about religious people passing laws based on their beliefs so how you capitalize or not my preferred belief system is irrelevant.

Answer 8

Just as much as Christians get when someone doesn't capitalize the "c". Christian or children.

Answer 9

The first one, because it's misspelled. I really don't care whether people capitalize it or not, although the correct grammar would be: Atheist.

Answer 10

I don't think it should be capitalized.

So my order:
atheist
Atheist
athiest
Athiest

This is as good a place as any to remind: the plural of 'atheist' is 'atheists'. I think it's effectively a typo when people leave off the 's' in the plural - just as it's difficult to type 'ei' when we're so used to typing 'ie', it's difficult to type 'sts'.