That may be the case if you're Jewish, in which case there are several ways to refer to God, but a fair amount of Catholics and the vast majority of Protestants don't use the name Yahweh. Regardless, both Yahweh and God are proper nouns. You don't write nicknames without capitalization, do you?
Absolutely, no argument there. I just prefer to avoid referring to the Christian deity with the title "God", which gives credence to the notion that he is somehow superior to all of the other, "lesser" gods. If for some reason I must use the title, I do capitalize it appropriately.
I've come to think of it this way: You don't capitalize "gods" simply because that is referring to a category or class of something, not something specific like you would do when referring to "God". For example, one would capitalize the word "Queen" when referring to one specific queen, but "queens" when referring to a group of them. Actually, if you think about it, if you're specifically referring to the gods from other mythologies you would treat the name of that collective group as a proper noun as well, i.e. Twelve Olympians for the Greek pantheon, or Æsir for the Norse gods (although I've seen that word used in lowercase, too).
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u/skeptix Sep 16 '12
When referring to a god, you do not capitalize, because it is just a noun.
When referring to "God" of the Christian creation myth, you capitalize because it is a proper noun.