2007-07-01

Refusal to Respect through Capitalization

I consider myself a diligent and meticulous writer. I pay strong attention to detail, including proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation and various issues regarding formatting. I raise the topic because I want readers to be aware that my recent failure to capitalize the following words is a conscious decision, not a mistake made out of ignorance or carelessness:

  • bible
  • church
  • eucharist
  • mass
Capitalizing these indicates a measure of respect for the divinity or holiness for them, which I most strongly reject. I want to add, however, that I continue to capitalize church when part of a fuller title, e.g., the Catholic Church or the Church of England.

I continue to capitalize God when it refers to an omnimax deity, such as that of most monotheistic religions, in order to contrast it with a god of polytheistic religions. This does not indicate any respect, only that is treated as a name.

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