Why do atheists spell "God" with a little "g?"

I had a conversation today with a man we will call M, posting in the comment section for an Amazon review of our e-book, True Reason, which came up with the crocuses this spring.  (And whose cellulose leaves are due to drift down in physical form this fall.)  He admitted, in his initial post, that he was confused by a popular argument that God is the necessary source of morality.  Four rounds of back-and-forth showed that he really was confused, and seemed to want to draw others into that state as well.  But ironically, from all the confusion a measure of clarity seemed to emerge on a question I've often asked in recent years: why have so many Internet atheists taken up spelling "God" with a small "g" lately?

Other poster:  The straw-man argument of accusing theists of saying that non-Christians are immoral won't do. In fact, the Christian says that all men DO have morality, written by God on their hearts. That's an argument FOR God, not against him.

M: Care to explain which god you're talking about? Amun Rah? Allah? Shiva? Zeus? Jupiter? Oden? Apollo? Kuan-yin? Venus? Mitras? Istar? Neptune? Minerva? Sete? Rama? Quetzalcoatl? Si-Wang-Mu? Tezcatlipoca? Isis? You guys have created so many Gods over the years, it's hard to keep track!

DM: There's only one God, M. This is proven in many ways, among which the obvious fact (did you bother asking yourself this, first?) that no one ever credited Apollo or Guan Yin (the "K" is old-fashioned, get with the times) with being the source of moral law, anymore than anyone credited Spiderman with creating spiders. Honestly, go beyond bumper-sticker skepticism and dare to think.

 

M: There is no evidence for the christian god (other than a 2000 year old book written by unverifiable authors).

Moral law is a very subjective term, in ancient Greece is was common practice for people to own child sex slaves. Where is your evidence for the assertion that the christian god is the source of moral sense?

 

DM: You asked "which god" is alleged to be the origin of morality, claiming that the plurality of gods makes this confusing for you. I've just pointed out that only one God, the Creator God and Source of All Being, is alleged to be the grounds of morality. Are you still confused on that question? Or does your desire now to move on indicate that you recognize that question has been adequately answered . . . ?

 

M: You've made a logical fallacy; you've made a blanket assertion that 'god is the source for morals' and I've asked you for evidence, and you've resorted to an assertion without proof. If you're having trouble, you've committed a simple post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

 

DM: An assertion without proof is not a "logical fallacy;" it is just an assertion without proof. For instance:

"The moon is made of green cheese."

There is no logical fallacy here, even if the statement happens to be wrong.

Anyway, I didn't say "god is the source for morals." I didn't even say (more grammatically correct; perhaps your confusion is largely grammatical) "God is the source of morals." I am beginning to wonder if your entire worldview might not arise from something so elementary as sloppy reading.

 

M: Are you going to answer my original question(s)? Where is your evidence that:

There's only one God, Stanley This is proven in many ways, among which the obvious fact (did you bother asking yourself this, first?)

And this:

I've just pointed out that only one God, the Creator God and Source of All Being, is alleged to be the grounds of morality. Are you still confused on that question?

Please provide proof the christian god is responsible for morals. If the christian god is responsible for my morals, how come I don't have the urge to kill homosexuals, or stone rape victims?

 

DM: Sorry if this sounds truculent or contentious, but let me speak frankly.  A better question might be, if God is the author of our conscience, why don't you try harder to accurately represent opposing arguments? 

Several times, now, you have seemed to deliberately fog the issues, rather than try to clarify them:

 

(1)  Some Christian claim God is the source of morality.  God, in Christian vocabulary, means the Uncaused Cause, the Creator of all things that exist or can exist, inhabiting all things, not locally confined to any one place, the unique source of all that exists.  Why do you confuse that concept (even as a concept) with, say, Apollo, a ancient Greek action figure with a few cool superpowers, but who was born, locally inhabited a particular mountain in Greece, and was limited in power and knowledge?  

 

(2) Why in your first post do you say, "You guys have created so many Gods," but then in your second post speak of "the Christian god," perversely reversing conventional spelling in both cases?  Normally the lower case "g" is used to refer to divine figures in general, generic powerful spirits.  The upper case "G" refers to the Uncaused Cause, the Creator of all things, infinite in distance and character from all creatures that come into being.  The letter is given upper and lower cases to make it clear which of these two quite diverse concepts one is referring to. 

Even with commonplace names, "Lake Baikal" is the name of a specific body of water, one of many "lakes." 

 

So it is striking that you admit confusion, then seem to go out of your way to manufacture the very confusion you admit by deliberately bad grammar.  Are you confused?  Or do you want to confuse? 

 

(3) You also manufacture a quote and put it in my mouth, to the effect that "god (sic) is the source for morals." 

 

But I didn't say that.  I said that God (the only God) is "alleged" to be the source of morals.  I used the word "alleged" twice.  Why did you overlook it both times? 

 

(4) Now you claim that your "original question" was "where is the evidence (that there is a God)?"

 

But that wasn't your original question.  Your first 20 questions, in fact, all reduce to:

 

"Which god are you talking about?"

 

And I think I have answered that question, as hard as you seem to be laboring to misunderstand my answers. 

 

I hope I am not being too petty, to deconstruct your arguments in this way.  I don't mean to be cruel, but I really do want you to stop simply mouthing skeptical slogans, and stop meandering from bumper sticker to bumper sticker, and begin to think. 

 

Think first about your circumlocutions, above. 

 

Why do you, and so many other Internet atheists these days, insist on using the ungrammatical "god" in place of the correct, dictionary and traditional term "God?" 

 

One might suppose it is for the same reason my dog's fur stands up on his back when he meets another dog that he's afraid of.  He wants to make himself look relatively big: one can do this either by puffing oneself up, or by diminishing Him whom one fears. 

 

One might suppose "god" is a petty way of snearing at Christians who are conceived of as having (and sometimes do have) thin skins. 

 

But here is another possible explanation.  The conversation here is about God.  You claim to be confused about which "god" we are talking about, name 19 diverse ancient superheroes, and ask which one we are referring to -- one of these "Gods," or the Christian "god?"  So you not only confuse philosophy (the "Unmoved Mover" with a guy in tights flying down from Olympus to make hay with the ladies), you also confuse standard English spelling and even fail to be consistent with your own spelling within the space of a few lines. 

 

This, I think, is not just carelessness.  This is a sign that something deeper is going on than sloppy spelling.  This suggests you are not confused by accident: you mean to be confused, and you mean to confuse others, too, if feasible. 

I guess some atheists spell "God" with a little "g," to reassure themselves that He doesn't exist, by conflating him with superheros whose existence it is easier to deny.

St. Paul's words come to mind:

God's indignation is revealed from heaven against all impiety and wickedness of men who through their wicked ways suppress the truth; because whatever can be known regarding God is evident to them, for God has shown it to them.  From the creation of the world His invisible qualities, such as His eternal power and divine nature, have been made visible and have been understood through His handiwork.  So that they are without excuse.  Because although they had knowledge of God, they failed to render Him the praise and thanks due to God . . .

Maybe I'm over-reading a careless train of thought.  But I've long been intrigued by the idea that everyone really knows that God exists, at some level of our being.  If that idea is correct, and it may be, our awareness of God need not always be entirely conscious -- we know, but suppress the truth.  But it seems likely that the suppression of known truth would reveal itself in visible obfuscations and intentional confusions, the moving of the shells to hide the nut of truth.