NationStates Jolt Archive

Yeah, I wanna know why God's personal pronouns are capitalized in english.

I'm told by those who do it that it's a sign of respect. Oh, really! I capitalized "yeah" in my first sentence there, does it convey respect to the concept of affirmation?

Who decided that capitals indicated greater respect anyway? On this forum and in general, if you type everything in capitals you're not conveying respect, you're just being annoying. And relying on "it's always been like that" or "it's proper" is a cop out as far as I'm concerned. It's always been such that slavery exists; that doesn't give the concept of slavery any benefit or superiority I can see.

Furthermore, isn't respect for God a concept that's supposed to come from the heart? What do you do if your shift key is broken, not type about God and His pronouns? Or do you go ahead anyway, disrespecting the Creator of all Pronouns? What does it matter if I, not believing in God, refer to Him as He? I'm an atheist, but am I conveying respect to God with those large letter "H"s?

Where is written in the Bible that God's personal pronouns should be capitalized? It's certainly not in the Commandments, but most people ignore those anyway.

Would God be offended? Would God, the Creator of All Things, Knower of All Secrets, Causer of All Causes, Resident of All Places, Lover of All Beings.... be capable of feeling sad, depressed, or even disappointed at all if one of six billion humans on the planet used a lower-case letter? Is God so wordly and wordy that he - excuse me, He - will punish or rebuke those who don't type the way it's "supposed to be done?" And if so, does he mind that I'm using hunt-and-peck instead of the classic QWERTY method?

Discuss.

Also, this goes for the usage of "G-d" too. What use does that serve? Think you're fooling God? "We're not supposed to write His name, so I'll write it in code so He won't know." All of this is pointless.

Furthermore, isn't respect for God a concept that's supposed to come from the heart? What do you do if your shift key is broken, not type about God and His pronouns? Or do you go ahead anyway, disrespecting the Creator of all Pronouns?Well, since my passwords are written with both uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and a bunch of other symbols, a broken Shift key means I can't log into NationStates. So, it's kinda moot.

That said, having a broken Shift key is technically a circumstance beyond your control (unless you do some violent things to your keyboard). I don't think God would hold that against you.

That said, the capitalization of pronouns really is a matter of low importance. Think of it like this: You don't have to wear your underwear inside your pants. The police aren't going to arrest you for wearing your underwear outside your pants (I assume), but it's an established convention that everybody usually follows*. I mean, as long as you're not waving your privates around in public, who cares, right? Capitalizing Gods pronouns is exactly the same thing, except it's given less attention. You go around not capitalizing Gods pronouns, then there's even odds that someone will notice and make a comment about it. If you go around wearing your underwear outside yourpants, you've got much better than even odds that people will look at you as though you're nuts. :p

* Yeah, "common convention", "it's always been that way", a cop out, you say, but some people won't make changes unless it's necessary or useful to do so. Changing a common convention in a large society takes effort because you're trying to change the habits of lots of people. This isn't done overnight.

It's a common convention, but like any convention, it can be disposed of if there's enough people who will go along with it. We can all get up and decide not to capitalize Gods pronouns, anymore. Similarly, we can all get up and decide to change the law to allow public nudity, followed by a "Taking It All Off" party. ...or, to be less extreme, we can all wear our underwear outside our pants. ...or dresses.

--The Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."

...

Is God so wordly and wordy that he - excuse me, He - will punish or rebuke those who don't type the way it's "supposed to be done?" And if so, does he mind that I'm using hunt-and-peck instead of the classic QWERTY method?
Actually, He's disappointed that we haven't used Dvorack.

--The Jovial States of Cogitation
"Laugh about it for a moment."
NationStates Self-Proclaimed Court Jester