The thing that pisses me off is the folks who misspell Allah starting with a “g”. They often get the capitalization right but the rest is all wrong. How viciously disrespectful is that? 
I think it’s supposed to be “the Bible”, but then, it’s also “the Encyclopedia Britannica” or “Gulliver’s Travels”. Titles in English still tend to use more capitals than other types of names.
On the other hand, if you refer to the flagship public university in Ohio, you’d damned well better capitalize the article, so that it’s called The Ohio State University.
Don Marquis didn’t capitalise his archy and mehitabel poems because cockroaches can’t use the shift key.
Don’t some people write “He” when referring to Jesus? Not sure why, other than to give Him more respect.
I am learning a lot! Thanks, SD.
I frequently don’t capitalize “god”, but that’s because I’m an atheist. When I refer to “god” I’m not necessarily referring to the deity that you believe in.
But maybe I’m wrong. When you refer to Jupiter or Ares, do you refer to them as “Gods” or as “gods”?
I do capitalize “Jesus Christ” because that’s a proper name
My attitude precisely. Thor smash unbelievers!!
Well, a proper name and a title…
“Bible” is usually capitalized when referring to that specific book/collection of books, as you do with all proper nouns. But if you write, I dunno, “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is the bible for all aspiring homebrewers,” you would leave it lowercase. Stylistically, it depends on if you’re using it as a proper or common noun. “Bible” in lowercase refers to a text considered authoritative to a particular subject. Uppercase it refers to either the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) or the Old and New Testaments in a Christian context.
Probably more than “some people”…I think it’s pretty much the standard among Christians, at least in the English-speaking world.
In every version of the Bible with which I’m familiar, references to God (including references to Jesus or the Holy Spirit) which use pronouns (He, Him, His) are always with a capital H. And, similarly, any printed material I’ve ever seen in a Christian church (hymnals, prayer books, bulletins, etc.) do the same.
Thanks, all. I’ve never capitalized it, but I always do with He or Him or His. Interesting.
The Holy Observer Guide to Christian Capitalization advises
That may depend on what kinds of churches you’ve been going to. I think it’s less common nowadays than it used to be. To me it looks sort of old-fashioned.
I found this cite on the Evangelical Press Association website noting that different people do it differently.
That writer notes that the King James Version does not capitalize pronouns that refer to God. According to what BibleGateway shows me, neither the KJV, the New International Version, nor the Revised Standard Version (all commonly used by Protestant Christians) capitalize pronouns for God; but the New King James Version does. (Though I don’t know whether what shows up on that website reflects all printed editions of those Bible versions.)
I’ve seen two different schools of thought on this.
Some treat “God” as the English name of the Judaeo-Christian god, due to a lack of any other accepted names. (And some will treat Allah the same way, as it is arguably the same God, but Allah is only a Muslim concept.)
Others treat God as the term for any monotheistic God, and reserve the lowercase for a polytheistic system. So Jupiter is a god, but, say, Shangdi is God. And, yes, when capitalized, it is used more like a name, since an indefinite article implies there can be more than one.
(Though, as the article says, Shangdi is more often translated as Heaven. But still capitalized.)
Just stopped in to say:
I RESPECT THE HELL OUT OF ALL OF YOU!!!
Thank you for that! We all know the SDMB is woefully undercapitalized.
They misspell Allah as “Gallah”?
In the same vein, it kind of bugs me when people refer to “Black” people or “White” people (rather than “black” or “white.”) In some circles, they capitalize “Black” but not “white.” I don’t think either should be capitalized (they’re not proper nouns nor official names of races) but if it’s going to be done it should be consistent (and also include “Brown” people).
I assume it’s supposed to be a respect thing, but it just seems a little odd to me.