Next time you run into the village atheist, ask him which “God” he doesn’t believe in. Invariably, he will go on to describe “the Man upstairs” or some other version of “Evil Santa Claus.” Or as sung by the cast of Futurama:

He knows when you are sleeping,
He knows when you’re on the can,
He’ll hunt you down and blast your ass
From here to Pakistan
You better not breathe,
You better not move,
You’re better off dead I’m telling you dude
Santa Claus is gunning you down

Good, classic theology. Well, actually not. No classic theologian I’ve ever read describes “God” as a cranky old man in the sky, ready to strike you down with lightning should you displease him. (Sounds like some cross between Odin and Thor.)

Well, no serious theologian since the Yahwist. Biblical scholars now believe that the Hebrew Bible was composed by several different “author traditions,” each of which had their own god-talk. The priestly tradition has a well-ordered if abstract god who likes to lay down a lot of ritual purity laws. The Elohist tradition calls its god “Elohim,” and he seems to operate mostly as an influential friend of the family (of Abraham). The Deuteronomist tradition wrote the biggest single chunk, and it’s keen on showing how the fortunes of Israel correlated directly to how much attention they were giving Yahweh versus Baal. (Except for the parts that don’t match up, which they ignore.)

But the Yahwist tradition–though it’s one of the smaller ones–sets the tone for them all because (1) it’s up front and (2) its name for god (Y-hw-h) is the one that stuck. If you’re Bible isn’t littered with the name “Yhwh,” just look for “LORD” (in all caps, to set it off from other names for god). Some early fundamentalist scholars mistranslated it as “Jehovah,” if that rings more of a bell. (Because we don’t really know the correct vowels and because it’s considered rude to spell it out anyway, it’s often just written “Yhwh” or swapped out with the title “Adonai.”)

The Yahwist tradition dominates the first half of Genesis and then quickly fades out. While it’s there, it presents a Yhwh who is powerful, moody, quick to judgment and quick to regret. Or as literati Harold Bloom puts it, an adolescent boy in his clumsy stage. Literati Jack Miles argues that because Yhwh has no peers, he also has little sense of self. Yhwh’s blundering acts of creation and destruction, then, are lumbering attempts to find his own sense of self by bumping up against his own mistakes and triumphs.

If Bloom’s and Miles’ readings seem a bit unorthodox, go back and read Genesis. Be sure to set Sunday School and the catechism by the side. Focus on the parts that refer to god as Yhwh or LORD. The characterization becomes quite clear.

The biblical Yhwh is not an angry thunder god. Usually. The local angry thunder god was the maligned Baal, the Canaanite fertility god symbolized by bulls and mountains. The Elijah/Elishah stories in particular (part of the Deuteronomist tradition) go out of their way to dethrone Baal. They do that by showing that Yhwh is better at being Baal than Baal himself: Yhwh, not Baal, ultimately controls the life-giving rains and the sacrifice-consuming lightning. Because of the dominant place of the Elijah/Elishah stories in the Deuteronomist tradition, these images of Yhwh tend to stand out more than less Zeus-like images. The point of those images, though, had more to do with one-upping a local rival than describing Yhwh.

The equation of “God” with “angry storm god” continues in the popular imagination, in spite of a diversity of divine imagery in the biblical texts themselves. Over the course of time, the angry storm god has added omnipotence and omniscience to his bag of tricks. “Judgement Day” also stands out as a key role.

So I’ll be using “God™” to refer to the more stereotpyical notions of “the Man upstairs,” especially but not limited to our all-knowing, all-powerful angry storm god. Using “God” itself would probably be sufficient, but adding the trademark symbol serves as a reminder that “God” carries a lot of baggage with it, that divinity is not in fact the registered trademark of anyone.

We’re left, however, without the familiar “God,” making it tough to do any god-talk at all. I propose we use “god” instead for several reasons:

1. If there is a god, s/he is not interested in drawing a lot of attention to her/himself. Our god is not a braggart, is not needy, does not require worship, does not claim credit.
2. “God” usually indicates some flavor of monotheism while “god” some flavor of polytheism. I am a panentheist and find the mono/poly distinction unhelpful. The “one” god has many faces.
3. Because of the equation of “God” with the angry storm god, its use serves to reinforce a sadomasochistic devotion to a capriciously abusive deity. Avoiding this demon is imperative for my own continuing recovery from fundamentalism.
4. As Nietzsche pointed out, God™ is dead. (And you killed him.)
5. The lowercase might help deflate rhetoric like “holy wars for god.” The lack of the capital-G casts suspicion on the speaker, who must prove why his “god” deserves obedience.
6. It might help keep god from getting too damn cocky. You know how she gets.
7. It will upset the “scribes and pharisees,” and I fail to see how that can be a bad thing.