Why do some atheists capitalize the "A" in atheists? Should these atheists read “Atheism for Dummies”? What are the more intelligent atheists doing to counter this compelling dilemma?
2007-12-04 09:41:07 · 28 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
God should be capitalize because it is a pronoun. Just like Mickey Mouse.
2007-12-04 09:46:16 · update #1
Oh boy. Fellow theists, how many times have you told by an atheist that the "A" in atheist is not capitalized?
2007-12-04 09:49:31 · update #2
Correction:
"how many times have you told by an "
how many times have you been told by an
2007-12-04 09:50:30 · update #3
Correction:
God is a proper noun. Thanks even a theist can learn something. Now I know that I am correct, because proper nouns are capitalized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Proper_nouns_and_common_nouns
2007-12-04 10:01:14 · update #4
Sponge26, I do check myself and I have Conan do double check me. Why is that atheists make such a big stink when a theists spells something wrong, but is silent or makes excuses when an atheist does it?
"If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen."
2007-12-04 10:03:36 · update #5
Gee, I don't know I am a Christian but I found the question funny!
2007-12-04 09:44:57 · answer #1 · answered by Sierrals 1 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Because theists started doing that years ago to help try to make their argument that it was a belief system.
I would never make the argument that all atheists are smart or even know what the heck they're talking about. After all every theist starts off life as an atheist.
Personally I smack it down when I see it and have a moment. I do think there are bigger misconceptions about the word though. I spend half my time here just telling people the word simply means 'not theist' and does not mean "knows god doesn't exist" or "against god" or any or the other moronic definitions people try heaping on the poor word.
===
"Oh boy. Fellow theists, how many times have you told by an atheist that the "A" in atheist is not capitalized?"
Hopefully every time they write it that way. And frankly if a theist wants to take one of my "fellow atheists" to task for doing so I'll be right there with the theist. By the way I hate that phrase "fellow atheist" also.
2007-12-04 09:45:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
God and Mickey Mouse are not pronouns, but proper nouns. They are both names of specific people or things, when god is specified as a certain god of a certain belief. When one talks about their specific belief then it too is a proper noun and should be capitalized the same as a you would capitalize Christian when talking about someone as a follower of Christ. A pronoun is an improper replacement of a proper noun. Such as: he/she, him/her or we.
Not everyone won the spelling bee. However, if you plan on attacking someones use of the English language then you should probably double check yourself.
2007-12-04 09:54:14 · answer #3 · answered by Marvin -Retired- 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Atheist is most commonly not a proper noun, so doesn't need a capital, as would Methodists, Aristotilians, or Democrats. However, in the dialogue in Y!A' R&S section, I often will capitalize atheist simply so it will draw attention to it and put it on par with the other philosophical/religious stances included in a question or answer.
In other words, I capitalize it as a political move to level the playing field in the discussion. I suppose I could just stop capitalizing the proper nouns, but that's also grammatically incorrect.
I wish we had the German rule which states that all nouns are capitalized.
^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^
(By the way, pronouns are words like I, you, he, she, it, they, we or us. They stand in as shorthand for particular persons or objects once the meaning is clear. "God" is a proper noun.)
2007-12-04 09:48:15 · answer #4 · answered by NHBaritone 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Maybe they mean I am A 'theist' and get it confused with 'atheism'. Some folk didn't get enough A's in
school, so now they give themselves one?
Maybe we give all those who spell correctly and
incorrectly a break and ask the person who spells
it that way why they do that. Maybe the answer
would be more germaine to the question.
Thanks for a little bit of mental gymnastics.
:)
2007-12-04 09:48:59 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Actually god should not be capitilized because it is not a proper name. The proper name of the Christian god would be YHWH or I am or Jesus. The word god is a concept meaning a super-human being with unexplainable powers.
2007-12-04 09:58:15 · answer #6 · answered by meissen97 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The use of capitalization is commonly for proper names or for emphasizing a particular word. I would assume most atheists capitalize atheist to emphasize the word, since it is not a proper name.
2007-12-04 09:45:59 · answer #7 · answered by ibushido 4 · 1⤊ 2⤋
I'm afraid we intelligent atheists have got enough our plates countering creationist nonsense without getting involved in something so trivial as this.
2007-12-04 09:46:13 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Why are you spreading so much anger towards people? Why don't you just take an example from them and not worry about it..Atheist's tend not to care about you and what you believe why don't you do the same?
2007-12-04 09:45:59 · answer #9 · answered by gangstaG 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
It has more to do with the appalling lack of language training in schools than it has to do with religion, or the lack of same. Christians are frequently guilty of this particular gaffe as well.
2007-12-04 09:46:17 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
We have a dunce cap that we hand out to those among us that commit the crime of misspelling. We're very critical like that.
2007-12-04 09:45:10 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋