Capital “A” Atheism?
Capital “A” Atheism?
By August Berkshire
There is some confusion and debate, both in the general public and among atheists themselves, as to whether the words “atheist” and “atheism” and their derivatives should be capitalized as proper nouns. The answer is No.
People who improperly capitalize these words generally do so for one of three reasons: ignorance, insecurity, or religious atheism. In all cases, capitalizing these words harms the atheist movement.
Ignorance
Some people capitalize “atheist” and “atheism” out of ignorance of the rules of grammar. Atheistic is a state of being – the state of being without god beliefs. Similarly, “rich” is the state of being in possession of a lot of money and “smart” is the state of being intelligent or well-educated.
Atheism comes from the roots “a” (without) and “theism” (belief in at least one god). If we don’t capitalize words like “apolitical” and “amoral,” why should we capitalize “atheist”?
No one thinks to capitalize the words “theist” and “theism,” so why should we capitalize their opposites?
Insecurity
Some atheists want to capitalize “atheist” in order to try to gain respect from society. After all, they reason, religious people, like Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc., have their names capitalized, so atheists should too.
But self-esteem is not a rule of grammar. To capitalize a word in order to try to gain respect is a mark of insecurity, not strength. And rather than gaining respect, it tends to have the opposite effect – invoking ridicule or pity.
Religious Atheism
Atheism has no tenets or dogma, which is another reason the word should not be capitalized.
Since some gods are defined in ways that cannot be examined, we cannot be 100% sure they don’t exist. We can only be sure that, at present, there is no good reason to believe in any of them.
Therefore, atheism is a tentative position and most atheists define themselves in conformity with the strict definition of the word: a-theism – without theism – lacking a belief in gods but being open to reason and evidence that could change their minds.
If atheists are not open to something that could change their minds, then they are, by definition, close-minded. Yet few atheists fit this description.
For atheists to say they know that no gods can possibly exist is a statement of faith. It confirms the accusation made by some religious people that atheism is just another religion – that atheists have faith that there is no god.
It could be argued that this type of dogmatism on the part of this type of atheist does deserve capitalization of the words “atheist” and “atheism.”
But this type of close-minded atheism is not descriptive of the vast majority of people who call themselves atheists and it therefore does a disservice to the movement.
Finally, there are some atheists who wish to capitalize “atheist” and “atheism” to carry on a tradition started by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. But such ancestor or hero worship is akin to religion and should be rejected by atheists.
August Berkshire has been an atheist activist since 1984. His website is AugustBerkshire.com.
Comments
2 Comments on Capital “A” Atheism?
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J Toth on
Tue, 24th May 2011 10:16 pm
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Admin User August Berkshire on
Tue, 24th May 2011 10:45 pm
Explain then why god is capitalized?
God isn’t a proper noun, it’s a job description. Do you capitalize accountant or fireman? While I may not believe they exist, I’ll capitalize Mohamed, and Jehovah, because they are name of gods.
“God” is not capitalized when it is just a description. The problem is that in the Bible, the name of the god is God, instead of Jupiter, though he also seems to go by the name Yahweh.